Answered Prayer - Sweet Fellowship

As Zach walked across the back yard of the Nigerian missionary compound, an older woman stopped him and said, “Thank you for coming.  We didn’t know there were other people following Jesus in other countries!”  In this remote village, there is a new body of Jesus followers.  They have chosen to follow Jesus even though they don’t know that there is a movement all around the world, a global family they are part of. 

The Nigerian missionaries in this village area are humbly and passionately carrying out the call they have on their lives.  Listening to them reflect on Scripture at morning devotions, joining them in their Friday fasting and prayers, playing football, and watching them love those they are called to serve spurred me on.  I cannot count the number of times an old man, or a wrinkled toothless old woman carrying a load on her head would walk by, giving the regular greeting, and one of the missionaries would stop what they were doing, going down to their knees to respectfully return the greeting.

“I could sit with her ALL day!” Bridget made this remark after a conversation with one of the missionary wives.  I sometimes have wondered how the Acts church worshiped together every day and had everything in common, but being with these remarkable individuals I saw how sweet that must have been.

Retelling a story in pairs.

Crossing the big river!

We debriefed at the bottom of this big falls while the girls swam.

We not only had fellowship with these new believers, but I, Christy, found Bridget, who traveled with us, to be a kindred spirit.  She loved me and our children so well, laughing at our corny jokes, playing pretend with Mariama, and holding Lydia when she needed a cuddle.  So much of what I think about during a day stays in my heart, but Bridget was present and happy to hear those thoughts.  Oh, and the joy we felt as we swam in a river near a roaring waterfall and Bridget said she feels God wants her in Nigeria.  We so look forward to having her come back to us.  In the words of Mariama, “Mommy, but Aunty Bridget is part of our family.  When she leaves she won’t be in our family anymore!  We will miss her!”  “Yes,” I explained, as I know I will have to do many times as the years roll by, “But just because someone is far away, doesn’t mean they leave our family!  We will always be family!”  “Oh,ok,” she said understandingly, “but can I go with her? We can all go with her!”

"Let's pretend..." Mariama

Bridget with the Bishop and Mariama

From an inspiring conversation with an Anglican bishop to hearing the testimonies of translators and how their experience of following Jesus in the midst of persecution, this prayer of sweet fellowship was answered in waves upon waves by our good God who sent hospitable brothers and sisters who have run into the faithful arms of Jesus to minister and lift us.  

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The Car, The Sheep, and The Man Selling Traditional Medicine

Zach was backing out of a tight spot on a narrow road in downtown Jos.  He slowly closed the gap as he backed out between our car and the cars parked on the other side of the road.  Casually, as the city continued flowing around our car, he said, "Well, there was enough space for the car, the sheep, and the man selling traditional medicine to pass."


I thought this was a good picture of our lives, and currently there are three big things that need to pass in the small space of two months. 

1.  "The Car"- Monday morning, we'll hop in a car and head to a part of the country where we are considering working in the future.  Going with us will be our three girls and a lovely young woman from the States who is here to explore working together with us in the future.  We are traveling to some very remote areas and seeking God's direction. Pray with us for good connections, discernment, and sweet fellowship with each other and those on the field.

2. "The Sheep"- A group from Zach's home church is coming mid-June to encourage our Nigerian Staff. This special group includes his parents!  Pray with us for the logistics and for the Nigerian staff to be encouraged through their presence here. Pray for them as they prepare and think about how they will serve our community through talks on parenting, bike workshop, and homestays.

3.  "Man Selling Tradition Medicine"-  There will be a tearing and a healing needing to happen in our home in the next couple of months. Daso finishes school mid-July and then will transition back to life with her family in a city a full day's journey from Jos.  She has lived with us for 4 years.  Most of my experience as a mother includes Daso and Mariama growing together in their own unique stages. Daso has become a beautiful young lady. She will return to her family to start secondary school.  This reuniting with her family has been the plan for a long time, and she is looking forward to it but we will all miss each other.  Pray with us for Daso, that she will know how much God loves her and how deeply we love her, and for all of our family, that we will know God's peace, healing, and comfort.

Ending July we will head to the States where we will witness the marriage of Zach's sister, and spend time with our loved ones before returning in October to Nigeria.

Margin...Gone!

You prayed  that we would find someone to tell the story in Berom well when we went to the village...Well, God said, "NOPE!"  The guy we found told the story in an extremely boring way, yet you prayed that blank stares would turn into joyful, knowing, bright eyes.  God said, "YEP!" Although the guy translating the stories was boring, that is just what happened!  Children who had been passively listening, were suddenly animatedly answering questions in their language!
You prayed that the evidence would be strong, and Asabe who went from the other organization said, "It was an eye opening experience."  YEAH!

Asabe told the Hausa story beautifully.  Most couldn't answer a comprehension question.

The Pastor excited translated the Scripture verse into Berom for us to sing with the children!

Now, for the margin.  It's 9pm. Zach is modifying the Sunday school materials to make sure that they are ready for the board meeting for this organization on Friday.  He is removing all margin from the curriculum documents to make them as inexpensive to print as possible. As we talked about our evening plans at dinner, it seemed ironic that this was the plan...to work into the night...removing margin and reducing font size.

So Thankful for the trip to this Berom village, for answered prayers, and clear evidence!
Pray for the board meeting Friday.  For vision, excitement about engaging children, and unity.
Pray  that we will not remove the margin from our lives, but learn to maintain balance.
Pray that Zach will finish this document so we can print it tomorrow for Asabe.

A social gap

I thought I was just taking a picture.  I asked permission, got the permission and snapped a picture of a man selling cloth to women.   Some of the women held up the cloth for me to snap it.  It was a quick shot of normal everyday life.  End of story?

Then a Nigerian colleague who is spending a year with these people took another picture using the seller’s own phone.  When I saw the picture on his phone I thought it was quite strange.  He had cut out the people buying and selling and even the cloth completely.   All you could see was me with the man.  Was it a mistake?  When I expressed my surprise at how close the picture was, he explained.  “In this culture, men and women have a gap.”  

I realized it was true.  I only saw men sitting with men, and women at the borehole with women.  In another interview someone told me that a man and his wife don’t even share finances with each other.  Traditionally, they hardly even spend time with each other. 

Four Hundred Kilometers

A teacher of many, both village children and the children of her colleagues. A light in several fields. Speaks French and studied German in Togo. Considered crazy for being 'Born again' and even crazier for living far from home. Escaped death in many exciting and some sad adventures. Laughs and cries, trusts God and presses on.

Last week she was just a contact in my phone. Now, after spending eight hours driving together, Sister Uche is an inspiring colleague.

We're ready

"So David gave the water to God, he poured the water out on the ground as an offering to God." 

We sit in a circle on benches in the shade of a tree retelling the story of David and his mighty men.  On the ground is a spiral of about thirty local objects which help us to remember the details.  We recount how David was longing just to taste the water from a well in his hometown, which was occupied by enemies.  We relate how three of his close friends (his nephews in fact) slipped quietly in and risked their lives to bring him some of this water.  And finally we tell the climax, of how David pours out the water to God, the only one who is worthy of it.  All of this we do without anyone opening a single Bible.  After retelling the story a few times, each of us can tell the whole story without leaving out any important details.

Here, under the tree, it is easy to imagine how God could use this purely oral method of retelling the stories of Scripture to bring his good news to a people that are still less than 2% Christian.  We have driven two days by car from Jos, and waded across a river and ridden motorcycles to get  here.  We sit with educated Nigerians who have given up well-paying jobs and families far away to be a consistent fragrance of Jesus in this place.  They speak of the power of storytelling, and love the memorability of the method of storytelling we are thinking of bringing.

In a blog post just before the trip titled Get Ready! I asked you to pray for God to speak to us and for unity.  We came away from the two language areas with a great peace in preparing to send a team to the first language, but felt it is not a good time for us to send a team to the second.  We felt a great unity in these decisions between myself, the Americans who came from the US just for this trip, and all the Nigerians who are daily involved.  Thank God for how he is directing all our hearts in the same way!

We also asked you to pray for Jesus to use this to prepare the way for his story to be told in these lands.  We talked nearly non-stop throughout the seven days of the journey, and sensed a great deal of peace in every detail we discussed.  We feel ready to invite four Americans to come and join us for three to four years in this special task.  They will learn the local language and work with local people to craft a series of stories to tell the Good news of Jesus to people who have probably never heard it before.  Sound exciting?  Please pray for God to prepare and send these people.  Might you be one of them?

[Post Script:  The story referenced at the beginning comes from 2 Sam 23.  However, we experienced the story the same way an oral-preferenced community would: without even opening a Bible.  You can listen to a recorded version of the story here: Elite Forces.]

Get Ready!

“Get ready,” I (Zach) woke up this morning with these words on my mind. Although I’m traveling for a week today, I wasn’t thinking about the normal preparations, packing my bags, filling my water bottle, double checking my travel documents.  I felt like God was saying to me “Get your heart ready.” I went to our prayer room and uh opened my uh phone to Psalm 51, which I have been trying to memorize. “Have mercy on me Oh God, accordning to your steadfast love…” Today we begin a two day journey to a village where there are very few Christians. Two visitors have come to see if this will be a good place for four new storytellers (yet to be recruited—would you like to be one?) to have their first experience in serving God in Africa.

I don’t know what form opposition might take, but I know that this morning, my heart sensed I needed to be ready in my inner being.  Please pray that I would listen to God’s guiding as we discuss with Nigerian brothers and sisters in the field.  Pray that we would be unified in purpose and that Jesus would use us to prepare the ground for his story to be told in this land!

Strategic prayer 2: Courage

Have you ever sung the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas," where each verse adds to the verses before it?  Well, perhaps you can pray through our strategic prayer points like that too!  Last week I started a series of blog posts on our "strategic prayer points".  Today's new point is: 

2. Courage to step into opportunities, even if we don't know exactly how it will all work out

Dancing in a traditional way!

One way God answered this prayer since October was the courage he gave us to continue partnering with the Nigeria Bible Translation Trust (NBTT) in planning a major Scripture Arts Festival, to be held in the capital this coming June.  Thank God that as a result, together we put on an EthnoArts workshop where speakers of a few languages learned to understand their own cultural arts and create Scripture songs.  Please continue to pray for boldness as we plan for a Scripture Arts Festival that is a bit bigger than any of us are really ready to pull off.

Here are some of the current opportunities of other things we might step into:

• A closer partnership with Calvary Ministries (CAPRO) a Nigerian-founded missions organization
• Partnering with local bookstores to make print and audio Scriptures more accessible
• Sending some of our staff to a conference in Thailand to learn about how we
• Partnering with OneStory to bring some teams to reach oral communities through retelling Bible stories in a natural way.  (Pray for me as I talk with one of our partners about this Tuesday this week... perhaps right as you are reading this!)

These kinds of opportunities are exciting, but they all require us to step out and try something that may not work.  Pray that God will give us wisdom to know which opportunities to follow, but even more the courage to step into them, even when we don't know if it will work.

By the way, want to hear an example of an oral retelling of Creation from OneStory? Try this:
Creation


Now you can continue praying with the first prayer point:

1. Clarity and direction for us as an organization as our Nigerian Missionaries look for new Ministry Partners to pray for and support them financially. Related to this, pray for each member of our team to have all the ministry partners and the full support level they need. (Here is the blog post with more details)