Sam

A few weeks ago, Abby and I went to our tailor's shop in G-Vegas to drop off some fabric. Our tailor, Sam, speaks English pretty well so we're able to talk to him about a lot of stuff and he helps us out a lot. On this particular day, we talked about the health of children in Mali and how so many of them die from malaria. Then we talked about how the government is trying to improve that by supplying mosquito nets to pregnant women when they go to a doctor's appointment and when they give birth to the child. BUT many of the women never step foot in a doctor's office because they live out in the bush and don't even know the importance of this.

So then Sam started talking about how it is the husband's job to make sure that his wife is getting the treatment she needs. We camped out here for a while, but this basically let to a long conversation about marriage and what his faith teaches versus what we as Jesus-followers believe. We talked and talked and talked about the Bible and how it is the Word of God and that we regard it as absolute truth. He was very open to talking about this and we discussed the many similarities between his faith and our faith. We also discussed some of the differences. We never even brought up the idea of conversion, but he kept saying over and over how difficult it would be to convert because he has just believed his way all of his life because he was born in Africa. And he told us that we believed the way we did because we were born in a western country. But then he said that we were not like other "Christians" (most Africans refer to any westerner as a Christian). He said none of the others that he had met talked about Jesus...and that that's all we talked about! We told him it's because we chose to follow Jesus...nobody made that decision for us. As Abby and I were driving home, we were just in awe. God had totally taken over the conversation, giving us the words to say and keeping us from saying what didn't need to be. We don't know how God will use that conversation, but we know that He will.

Please pray for Sam. He did not come right out and say it, but I truly believe that he has at least considered the idea of following the Jesus Road because he spoke of the difficulty of conversion so often without any prompting from us whatsoever. And while it would be incredibly difficult for a man like Sam to follow Jesus, God can do anything.

Moving

A few weeks ago, my team made the decision to relocate for a while due to some security concerns in West Africa. No specific threats were made to our team, but we want to be proactive. We are still in the same country, but in a big city...not our tiny desert town. We are extremely homesick for our village, our family, and our friends, but we know that God is leading us in this direction...at least for the time being. So right now, this is my home. And just as God was moving in BIG ways in the desert, He is moving in BIG ways here. I mean, He's that big.