SANSAMBA
What a difference a day makes. After an awesome time of worship Sunday, we went to set up our clinic at Sansamba. We arrived to loud music and lively dancing as they marched us into town for a celebration. At the celebration, every member of our team was pulled into the circle to participate in the native dances. I will be burning the video tape! The chief and imam welcomed us and then I was invited to say a few words. I took that as a call to preach, so I began to share the plan of salvation just as I had in Bambacounda. But this experience was completely different.
As I began sharing about Jesus being the perfect sacrifice for our sins, a man came around the back of the crowd and began whipping the children with a long switch, driving them away. Another man seated near me said something to me. I don’t remember much from 4 years of French, but I knew “ne pas, ecoute and enfants.” He was saying, “We don’t want our children hearing this.”
How tragic, that the only Name that can bring their children to eternal life was being denied them.
I never felt unsafe, intimidated or fearful during the event. What I did feel was literal pressure. I wish I could have had a barometer to gauge the air pressure. You could just feel the spiritual warfare. It was so eerie. It made the verse about being “hard pressed on every side” come to life. As our team debriefed the evening, we agreed to pray fervently for God to bind up the enemy forces. As Paul told us clearly in Ephesians 6, our real battle is not against HIV/AIDS, malaria, burns, and cancers. It is against the powers and principalities of this dark world.
GOD ANSWERED OUR PRAYERS! Sansamba was like an entirely different place today. The crowd was calm for the most part. They were cooperative. No one the entire day refused to allow me to pray for them or their children – and each time I prayed it was boldly in Jesus’ name. We were able to give out a lot of evangelism materials. People were begging for Bibles. We gave them everything we could.
Why are we so surprised when God does what He promises He will do?
We’ve all been amazed at the incredible things God has done. We have formed some wonderful friendships here with our African brothers and sisters in Christ. Pray for them. They live in such isolation, often being the only believer in their entire community. We so take our opportunities for fellowship for granted back in the States.
Last night, in our team debriefing, Dr. Usmane So, a Senegalese doctor who trained in Libya and who has worked with our team shared his inspirational testimony of how he came to faith in Jesus. He closed by saying that God is not content with 3S Christians: saved, seated and satisfied. He wants believers who will take seriously his commission to GO. I hope you’ll be praying about where God wants to send you on mission in 2009!
We are repacking tonight and will be heading back through the Gambia tomorrow toward Dakar. Our plan is to minister at ICRD (International Center for Refuge and Development) in Dakar on Wednesday. I also hope to see old SBU friends, Jason and Dorothea Lee, who are IMB missionaries working among the Serer people in Thies (pronounced CHESS). Then early to rise for a 3:30am flight Thursday morning back home! How bittersweet to say goodbye to dear friends here in Senegal, yet to be joyfully reunited with each of our families and church families in Missouri.