Day two had been an incredible day. It’s hard to describe how special it is to stand in church with dirt floors, mud walls, and a thatch roof filled with 60 people who have almost nothing physically…..but who have the joy of the Lord in their hearts and to see how happy they are. Our word of encouragement to them had been from the creation story where God said “let there be light, and there was light”. I reminded them that when they asked Jesus into their hearts, they became the light of God and it is important that their entire village sees the power of light to reveal truth, expose darkness, and illuminate the narrow path….and then watched them respond to that challenge by recommitting themselves to share Jesus with their villages. It was simply an awesome moment for the four of us to be a part of. An amazing truth about mission work is that you always think you’re going somewhere to change the world, but in reality you are changed more than anybody else when you simply listen to the voice of God and are obedient to His leading.
Day three began a little bit later, we got to stay in bed until about 7:30, but we started listening to roosters crow long before dawn. We got the last laugh though because i’m pretty sure we ate them for dinner one night. By 9:00AM we were in the village of Gaagbini, a village with no church or presence of the body of Christ at all. During our last trip in January, members of our church had visited this village and spoke with the chief, asking for permission to return one day and talk about Jesus. He had granted permission, so on this Saturday morning our first stop was to the chief’s resting place to thank him for his generosity and to remind him who we were. Chiefs in villages in Africa are very important men. Each people group has a “high chief” and all village chiefs among his people group are in some way related to him. The high chief for the Mamprusi people lives in Tamale, and the bottom line is WHAT HE SAYS GOES. There is really no such thing as police, mayors, judges or juries in these village outposts…..the chief is the authority and if you don’t like what he says you can either leave or face his wrath. That being said, the reality is that every chief we have ever met has been both kind and wise. And, if you slip them a little cash, they’ll be happy to let you speak to the people of their village.
Once we were given permission, we found a great mango tree in the center of the village and started gathering people under it’s shade. We put out benches and started singing songs. Before long there were probably 100 people there with us. We shared with them that God had sent us to their village with a very important message. The message was that He had not forgotten about them and He wanted to make sure they had heard about His son who came to take away their sins and give them hope. They were very excited to hear our reason for being there and Jessica began to share the Creation to Church story. The Creation to Church story is a 7 minute synopsis of everything that happened from the beginning of time until the death, burial, ressurection, and ascension of Jesus. It hits the high points of creation, the origin of sin, the sacrificial system, the calling of Abraham, the speaking of the prophets, and the life of Jesus. The emphasis is on the fact that God always revealed Himself to people and sometimes they listened, but most of the time they did not…..thus, the problem of sin had to be fixed. At one time it was fixed with the sacrifice of animals without blemish…..and then Jesus became the Lamb of God for our sins. After Jessica finished the story, i asked them if they liked the story and if they wanted to hear two more very short stories. I then told them about Zacchaeus and the Rich Young Ruler and their encounters with Jesus. I made it clear that they had two very different responses to the truth of Jesus in this life and because of that, their eternities are now very different. I tied it all together by saying that because they had now heard the story of Jesus, they had a decision to make as well. That was the invitation, and about 60 people stood up and asked to be saved. We prayed the sinners prayer with them and then talked about what the church is…..people who love Jesus that gather together to talk about what He has done in their lives, offer praise and thanks to Him, serve Him, and wait for His return.
We promised them that we were working hard to start a church in their village and that one day soon we would invite those who love Jesus to be a part of it. Until that day when a church can officially begin, we promised that someone would come back to their village every week and teach them the Bible. Joseph, a deacon from Central Baptist (the mother church as they call it) was assigned to ride his motorbike to the village each week and teach them the Bible. He went for the first time 2 weeks ago and almost everyone who gave their hearts to Christ met him under the mango tree and began being discipled. They did have one request, and that was for benches they could use when they gathered. We gave them a donation from the Activators group at Ardmore Baptist Church which will provide them enough money to have 6 sturdy benches built and kept in their village for the Bible Study group. It truly was an amazing morning.
Our afternoon stop was in the village of Diani. When we arrived in Diani we discovered a tragedy had happened. Since my wife and her team had been there in January, the chief had died and no new chief had been assigned to take his place…..so there was no one who would officially speak and grant us permission to gather the village for a meeting. The deceased chief’s brother did, however, feel comfortable in telling us we were welcome to go hut to hut and talk to people who would welcome us into their homes individually. So, we split up into teams of four, with one American, one translator, and a few others in each team. We would go into huts and tell people our primary reason for being there was to see if everyone in their homes were well. If they were not, we would like to pray with them. We discovered all sorts of illness, sadness, and witnessed firsthand how tough their lives are. We prayed with many people that afternoon and after we would pray we asked them if it would be okay to share a story with them. In individual homes we shared the Creation to Church story and witnesed to them. Each of the four teams came back with stories of how whole households were saved…..and i’m not sure about the exact number, but approximately 40 people were led to Christ that afternoon. Something cool happened then, all the people who had accepted the message just sort of showed up at the van not wanting us to leave…..so what the chief’s brother couldn’t give us permission to do, God provided for and we had a very short time of worship. During this time we explained what the church is and how our hope was to plant a church in their village….and those who accepted Jesus that day would be it’s first members. It as a very awesome moment.
There were a few tough moments though. We met people who were very ill and whose chance of getting better without a miracle is very small. One lady told me she had “disease in her bones” and many small children were very sick that we saw. Also, one of our team members witnessed to a man who said he wanted to accept Jesus, but he was afraid of persecution from the Muslims in his village, so he wanted to wait until he was sure there were others who were willing to take the stand with him.
We returned to our home base, rested, and then gathered the members of Central Baptist Church after dark to watch the movie “The Passion” from a video projector we had taken on the side of the church wall outside. It was powerful as well.
The day ended with us being transported back to the lodge on the backs of their motorbikes because our van driver was too tired and went home early. Something i never thought i’d see is this fat preacher with my arms wrapped around a skinny ghanaian riding down a dusty road on a moped looking bike in the middle of the night. It was a strange sight indeed. But….it seemed the perfect ending to such a spectacular day.
