Hi family,
It’s 9:30am Thursday morning here in Conakry, which would be 11:30pm back home in Hawaii. I’m sitting on my couch at home and I wanted to write a blog because it’s been so long. It has been a little less than a month since I’ve updated. I’m sorry about that but we’ve just been really busy since returning from the south eastern part of the country, not to mention the difficulties of getting to the internet and it’s tortoise like speed. First though, I just want to thank all of you who were praying for me. My body was battling some type of parasite for about a week but I was able to go to the doctors and get meds to kill those nasty buggers. I feel fine and ready to finish out the next two weeks!
Last time I told you guys about the investigative bible study through Matthew that we started. Tonight will be our fourth meeting. It has been going well and we haven’t really found a consistent core group of guys. We consistently have about 9-12 of us but we’re getting new people all the time. When I say new I’m not talking about strangers, I just mean more of our friends that have never come yet (that’s a praise->we have a lot of friends!). So that is one thing you can pray about. There are a few of them that are consistently coming and generate good discussions and questions. Perry explains context and then facilitates the discussion and turns the questions back to them to get them to think and then answers. All of this is in French, so matt and I keep quite most of the time just praying haha. I must say though, I was very surprised that by knowing the context of the passage I can follow their questions and conversations in French and can pick up a lot of it! So I was really excited about that =) Tonight we’ll be showing a film called “The God Story”. I think it’s about creation to Christ. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Before we got here I remember discussing goals with our Hands On big boss Emily in Niger and I was thinking, “How in the world will we ever get a small group started, let alone a church in an area with all Muslims?” I was feeling discouraged and pressure and it just seemed overwhelming when I actually go here. God quickly reminded me that it wasn’t any of my business to be worrying about that. He is God and He has people here that our responding to His calling. He does the work and we just follow. I was just so relieved, like duh rocky you know that! Well looking back at that and seeing now where we are having three small groups (beau and us, the guys on the block, the kofi students) is such a blessing. God has really given us the grace and worked out His plan for us in this area.
The English club and our two classes at Kofi have been great(that’s a praise->read former blogs). We basically give them topics at the beginning of class and break them up into groups to have discussions and debates about the topic of the day. We have awesome, interesting, and at times heated discussions but I want to share one in particular with you. A week ago we asked them “God knows ALL THINGS, if you could ask God one question, what would you ask Him?” (atheism is a joke here). So here are some of their questions (remember Muslim context):
*Why do people who pray still poor? -Cissé
*Why was I born in a poor family? -Ali
*Why I was not born in U.S.A.? –Sekouba
*Why so many problems in Africa? –David
*Why does God create human beings and leave them to suffer, while He could solve all their problems? -Maiga
*God, why you have killed all my parent, now I’m alone in the world? -Rock
*God knows we are His children, why He let satan in this world? –Paul
Now it gets even crazier.
*Why Life and Death? -Mariam
*Why do I have a Soul? -Sanoussy
*After death, where will I go after Last Judgment? -Traoré
*After death, what God reserve for me in the Paradise? –Soumah
*If I die right now, what God reserve for me? -Shaun
*Why Paradise and Hell? –Mamadi
*God! How to avoid sin in my life? –Togba
*Oh my God! Can you forgive all my sins? –Vanessa
*Oh my God! Can you forgive my sins? –N’Deye
*Why people say Jesus is savoir of Christian? –Soulei
We we’re able to discuss a lot of these topics and I know the both of us were able to share are opinions. For example, Shaun who asked if he were to die today what is reserved for him (nick this is the tall kid that really liked you). We went out to grab food and hang out with him and two other guys that day after class and God opened the door to share my testimony and then the full Gospel. The conviction was there and it set in, you could just see it in his eyes. Please pray for him and the others as we continue to befriend them, looking for opportunities to share the answers to these questions with them.
Perry has a lot on his plate as we prepare to leave. Please keep him in your prayers as he will be following up on the ministry we’ve been doing that’s not including his own personal ministry and family. He is planning to start a small discipleship group with Beaufils and a couple of the young guys at a Baptist church here. They’ve never been discipled and it will be a great core group for Beau. He’s also going to be carrying on the two investigative groups with the guys on the block and the Kofi students. He’s been with us meeting a lot of these guys and building his own relationship with them so that is good. So please just pray for that. We were here for five months but Perry will be here for who knows how long.
I’m going to head out to the awesome new cyber café that we’ve discovered and try to get this out because my batteries dying and we don’t have current. So I hope you guys enjoy the update. We are planning at the moment a presentation at Waialae when we get back, so were excited about that. We’re also excited to finish out strong and get home to our girlfriends, families, and friends. We thank you so much for all your prayers. Mahalos
><>rocky
