Thursday, January 10, 2008
Exciting Developments in Africa
A note from M. Zook-
Today the people are supposed to come to sign up for literacy. Actually the local leaders are supposed to bring the people they choose.
A note from A. Hefner-
Dear praying friends,
This is just a little update to keep you informed with what is happening in Madina Bafe. We celebrated “Ala tantung sogena” (God be praised day) last Saturday. We did this last year at the one year aniversary of our arrival to Madina and celebrated it again this year. If you were Dialonke, you would say we had a wonderful celebration. We managed to purchase a cow this year to provide the meat, over 200 lbs of rice, and a whole bunch of onions, etc… There was music, games, and of course,lots of tea.
From our perspective, the most important event of the day was the speech I was able to give to the entire village. On no other occasion in the past year has the entire village gathered together for one event, but yesterday everyone was there. In this speech I was able to praise the Lord for his goodness to us in bringing us to Madina and the blessings he has sent our way while we have been here. We also thanked the village for being good neighbors and all their help. And lastly I announced theupcoming teaching and encouraged them all to attend, b/c they did not yet know God’s word. I expressed their need for God and his word in terms that they could relate to, and are praying the God would impress this need on their hearts. We plan to begin this Saturday night (12th.
We would appreciate your prayers this next week as I will be speaking individually with people in the village encouraging them to come to the teaching.
It will truly be a miracle of God’s grace if even one Dialonke comes to saving faith. They are as Eph. 4:18 and 19 say, “…darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”
The obstacles are huge, but we believe that God is greater. Please pray he will, by his mighty power and wonderful grace, show himself to be the God of the Impossible and call some of these lost ones out of darkness into light.
These are two huge steps. The first is happening here in Mozambique. Literacy is a step that happens just before the chronological teaching. They are developing Bible lessons now which will be taught soon. This is the first team in Mozambique to begin teaching. The second is from Senegal. These friends and colleagues are in need of prayer, since they are beginning the most exciting and trying times in the work.
Today the people are supposed to come to sign up for literacy. Actually the local leaders are supposed to bring the people they choose.
A note from A. Hefner-
Dear praying friends,
This is just a little update to keep you informed with what is happening in Madina Bafe. We celebrated “Ala tantung sogena” (God be praised day) last Saturday. We did this last year at the one year aniversary of our arrival to Madina and celebrated it again this year. If you were Dialonke, you would say we had a wonderful celebration. We managed to purchase a cow this year to provide the meat, over 200 lbs of rice, and a whole bunch of onions, etc… There was music, games, and of course,lots of tea.
From our perspective, the most important event of the day was the speech I was able to give to the entire village. On no other occasion in the past year has the entire village gathered together for one event, but yesterday everyone was there. In this speech I was able to praise the Lord for his goodness to us in bringing us to Madina and the blessings he has sent our way while we have been here. We also thanked the village for being good neighbors and all their help. And lastly I announced theupcoming teaching and encouraged them all to attend, b/c they did not yet know God’s word. I expressed their need for God and his word in terms that they could relate to, and are praying the God would impress this need on their hearts. We plan to begin this Saturday night (12th.
We would appreciate your prayers this next week as I will be speaking individually with people in the village encouraging them to come to the teaching.
It will truly be a miracle of God’s grace if even one Dialonke comes to saving faith. They are as Eph. 4:18 and 19 say, “…darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.”
The obstacles are huge, but we believe that God is greater. Please pray he will, by his mighty power and wonderful grace, show himself to be the God of the Impossible and call some of these lost ones out of darkness into light.
These are two huge steps. The first is happening here in Mozambique. Literacy is a step that happens just before the chronological teaching. They are developing Bible lessons now which will be taught soon. This is the first team in Mozambique to begin teaching. The second is from Senegal. These friends and colleagues are in need of prayer, since they are beginning the most exciting and trying times in the work.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
I am OK
If you read the news from Africa, you might get the picture that a person there is always in serious danger. Kenya is having serious problems, Zimbabwe is having serious problems. South Africa is considered a part of high violent crime. There are wars in the DRC and Sudan among other places. AIDS and malaria threaten here worse than any other place. Around fifty thousand people are being evacuated because of floods in Mozambique for the umpteenth time. However, I am in good health and far from those social and political problems. The rain here invariably traps me or soaks me, but I the serious floods are far south from here. So, do not worry about me. God is taking good care of me. But pray for Africa. What inconveniences me here in Nampula threatens the way of life and lives in other places. These are lives of people who hear all kinds of gospels but never hear a clear, consistent, biblical teaching of salvation in Christ, people who do not have the Bible in their language, and people who spend more time trusting sacrifices, ancestors, and curandeiros than the God of creation. So, don't stop praying for me, but pray for Africa.
