A Prayer-Wake for the Lost
Posted by Linnea...

It was bedtime, nearly 9 pm, but the church was slowly filling with women. This night most were in their daily work clothes, having come directly from the supper dishes or other occupations. They were tired, and some stretched out on the wooden benches to grab a wink or two before the meeting began, because they were here to fast from sleep for a night. I had not slept, but I had grabbed an evening Coke for an extra boost and had brought a cushion to sit on. Five years ago I had joined this women’s prayer veillée for the first time, and remembered the agony of the long night sitting on the hard bench—but also the passion and quiet joy of joining national sisters in prayer for the lost. The “Nuit de Destin,” the commemoration of the night that the angel Gabriel allegedly handed the Koran to Mohammed, is a night when many Muslims gather to hear portions of their holy book read aloud. This year, with a confusion in the dates between towns and countries and their reading of the moon phases and the political exigencies, we heard no all-night readings in Ferke. But the women in the “Year 2000 and Beyond” evangelism movement met on the earliest of holiday’s proposed dates, October 18th, to pray for people around the world who do not know Jesus yet, but follow Mohammed instead. They began with calls to prayer from their president, Sarata, and the local Baptist church district president, Donya. They sang in four languages. French songs were led by the Groupe Musicale, with electric guitars, keyboard and drums. The djembe drum was the sole accompaniment for the rest: Jula (the language of Islam here), Cebaara (from the neighboring region), and Nyarafolo, the local language. The Nyarafolo are still a Least Evangelized People group, with just .5% who know Jesus. Most are animist, with a strongly syncretized Muslim population as well. Tonight the women prayed for Muslims in Europe, Asia, the Islands, and throughout Africa. Sali read the prayer summaries, people group by people group, and assigned them to women to pray through in the large group. Four at a time, they stood and prayed that God would move mightily among these peoples, protecting the Christians who lived and/or worked among them. There were about 150 women and young people there; it took all night. Sali, my dear Nyarafolo friend, is a secretary at the town hall (currently out of work, since government services here in the north are still in limbo). She reads French fluently; Lydie, from Mali, translated to Jula. The women prayed in whatever language felt most comfortable to them: Jula, Cebaara, Nyarafolo, Yoruba, Wobe, Baoule. A few, like me, prayed in French. It was a festival of languages, a fervent prayer battle for peoples, a long hard fast from sleep. By 3 am some of the women could no longer keep their heads from staying bowed on the back of the bench in front of them, overtaken by exhaustion. Leaders rose and walked the aisles, waking them. Sali, ready to read the next requests, shouted: “Alleluia!” The group responded, “Amen!” If they weren’t loud enough she repeated her shout until the response was uniform and strong. Together they struggled to do this work that is so dear to their hearts. I was quietly overjoyed to realize that over half of the women attending were praying in Nyarafolo. There may be few Christians among the Nyarafolo, compared to the other groups in the church, but the number is definitely growing. And they are committed believers, ready to work long and hard for their Savior. Many of their dear ones are still walking in the darkness. As they prayed around the world, I knew they were praying around the town and into the villages. At 5 am, indeed, Sali shifted the subjects to prayer for this area. They prayed that the leaders of Islam in the Ferke area—the imams and marabouts—would come to know Jesus. They prayed that their own walk would confirm their talk and be a strong witness to those around them. They prayed for the country and its ongoing political crisis, for peace to come after the pivotal dates at the end of October, for the authorities to be wise, for people groups to forgive each other. Pastor Wonvaga Philippe, working in the western and northern Nyarafolo villages of Sonyono and Wacenvogo, gave reports on how the persecuted Christians were standing firm. In Wacenvogo (where this group of “Year 2000” women had started the church through their evangelism efforts) the Muslim chief has locked up the chapel and taken the keys, saying he will not allow the believers to worship there unless they also add Muslim practices. The Christians now meet in small groups in two family courtyards. In Sonyono three recent converts (the chief and his wife, and the former diviner) continue to grow in their faith in spite of constant death threats. Spiritual warfare there has included prayer for a paralyzed toddler, who as a result is now walking and talking. Another young woman recently turned to Christ, and her furious father is trying to kill her using animist sorcery. The Pastor encouraged the women to pray constantly in support of these brothers and sisters. He urged them to continue their evangelism thrusts as well. Every hour or so, the women turned to “hot singing” again in their struggle to stay awake, and to add praise to intercession. Four or five young women would frequently move to the center aisle and praise the Lord with a circle dance while the others sang and clapped percussive rhythms. At 1 am, and again at 5:30, they had “coffee” – hot sweet chicory and bread. Two pastors gave short messages urging them to be women who solve problems for those around them, who make a difference, who bring Good News—women like Esther, Naaman’s little slave girl, and the women who were the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection on Easter. Most of all, we all prayed. Twice the wind blew into the hot, humid sanctuary, and rain sprinkled down for a few minutes making popcorn sounds on the aluminum roof. The women instinctively pulled their pagne cloths around their shoulders. A child put on a worn parka. Babies were asleep on cloths laid out on the cement floor, or wrapped onto their mom’s backs in pagnes, nursing on demand, rarely crying. At 5:45 am, I piled nine women and small children into my van, the only vehicle there, and brought them as far as my front gate where they left to find their way to their various homes in the neighborhood around me. The rest were making their various ways homeward to other parts of town in small groups in the early dawn. Some would break their fast and grab a few hours of sleep. Many would head straight to work. My friend Christine, her fourth child sleeping on her back, went to her hairdressing stall in the market; it was market day, the last one before the feast of Ramadan, and many Muslim women had appointments to have their head braided. She knew she would be there until at least midnight. She had prayed and led singing all night; today she would love her neighbors and earn as much as she could in her struggle to provide for her little ones. She is one who is fulfilling the commission given the women by Sarata just before they left the church. “You know,” she said, “how your youngest-born have a very special place in your heart. Women have that place in God’s heart—they were the last creatures that he created. The men think that we are weak, but God loves the weak! When we work for him, the glory goes to him! In the whole world, women are at work for him. It is not easy to pass a whole night without sleep, but we did it for love of our neighbors and love of our Lord. Prayer has been our work this night. But our hands and our mouths can work too! Let’s not stop with the evangelism we did at Wacenvogo. Let’s choose a new field and go out again!” With prayer, passion, and their eyes on the fields becoming white and ready for harvest, the women of Ferke are on the move

Bryn Goes to Church at Tiepogovogo
Posted by Linnea...

I woke Bryn early Sunday morning, his first day “home” in Ferke after years in the States. Like all those Sundays in his youth and childhood, Bryn struggled out of bed, grabbed a quick breakfast, and fell asleep in the backseat of the van on the way to church in the village. We wheeled our way through ruts and flooded sections of the gravel road, marveled at the growth of the mosquito-chaser bushes since our last trip to Tiepogovogo a month ago, and forded the stream rushing under the decrepit bridge. When we parked under the shade tree behind the little church building, we woke him up. He definitely rose to the occasion. In fact, as we strolled through the village, greeting old friends and some new ones who had just walked over for church, everyone commented on how very tall he had become. (He’s even taller than his dad now.) The phrase was repeated so often (‘wi ko kpa?aliwa!!”) that he even began to understand it. Since in that village nearly everyone is shorter than Glenn, about my height, he did tower over us. And when they had last seen him he was at least six inches shorter. Some, in fact, were remembering him as a kid. They had watched him grow from a baby to a teen, and now here he was in front of them, a young man – with a beard, even, one of the women chuckled. They had named him “Kiyali,” meaning “it’s fine/all’s well.” And having him back among them was fine, too. The balaphones were playing, so we entered the chapel, Bryn and Glenn sitting on the right with the men, me on the left with the women. The kids and babies were everywhere. In fact, the median age in the crowd was probably 15. Pekaly (the big one, since there are several Pekaly’s) was leading the singing, energetically dancing and speaking short exhortations partway through the songs while the balaphones kept on their marimba-like accompaniment. Bryn was into it all in a new, intentional way. French has been his language here, not Nyarafolo, so he didn’t understand what was sung or said. But clapping and dancing show heart-participation, and that was evident. Glenn presented him, Bryn gave his greetings, Lacina responded for the congregation, and everyone applauded with joy. We prayed, for various requests and thanksgivings. I was asked to thank God for the offering and to pray for the preacher. Fuhoton went to the pulpit and once again astounded us with the way that he applies Scripture to Nyarafolo life and thinking. He is an unusually gifted young pastor! I have to admit that I do not remember hearing his chosen text explained in such a meaningful way ever before. Today his sermon was from 1 Chronicles 13-15 (not yet translated into Nyarafolo – he told the story in his own words). He described how David, with the good intention of bringing the ark of the covenant back to the center of Israelite life, hurried too fast and did not consult the Lord’s instructions for moving the ark. They had a great celebration, moving the ark via ox cart with two men to guide it. But the men were not consecrated Levites, and the ark was not carried on poles resting on their shoulders in the Lord’s prescribed way. So one man was struck down by the Lord when he reached out to steady the ark. This story, told to Westerners, is bizarre and dark. Why would the Lord respond this way, handing out death as the consequence of such a well-intentioned mistake? But Fuhoton, telling it to Nyarafolos, had an audience who was aware of the spiritual power that may be associated with objects, and of the danger of mis-stepping. He told them the background story ( in 1 Samuel 6 and 7) of how the Philistines had captured the ark of the covenant and set it beside their “yasungo”, Dagon. “Yasungo” means “thing-worshiped”, that is a fetish, in Nyarafolo. In the morning, the fetish-Dagon had toppled. A plague afflicted the people in the vicinity. Eventually they gave up in fear and distress and returned the ark to the God of Israel with a guilt offering. Following the prescription of their pagan priests and diviners, they sent it back on an oxcart. David’s initial attempt to move the ark copied the pagan custom. The Lord’s ways are different, and his Word and his power are to be respected. The second time David moved the ark he had learned a new respect for doing things God’s way. He insisted that Levites consecrate themselves, and carry the ark on their shoulders as Moses had commanded “in concordance with the word of the Lord” (1 Chronicles 15:2-15). Fuhoton made the point that, although David failed the first time, he tried again, having listened to the word of the Lord. And the first time he had chosen men for the task who were not prepared to do the work. Using Bryn as an illustration, he asked the people what might happen if they sent Bryn out to the fields to work the ground with a daba (a shovel-like implement with a unique curved handle). That would be foolish – he doesn’t know how to do that work. But put him in front of a computer and he can succeed! So it was that the Levites were those who were set aside, chosen for the work, and who were instructed to do it correctly. At the end of the sermon Sikaaci, Fuhoton’s older brother, asked how this applies to a situation he has witnessed: a believer says he wants God’s will to be done in his life, but then when something bad happens, he gets discouraged and quits coming to church. Fuhoton answered that this is not a walk of faith. When something bad happens to a believer, he must learn to not blame God but instead work to understand what has happened: it might be Satan’s attack, or maybe, like David and the people of Israel, he needs to learn to do things the right way. Glenn entered the discussion with a parable. (I’m often astounded at the way the Spirit gives him instinctive understanding and an application that comes from the culture.) He asked: if a father sends his son to the field to work and the son injures himself with his daba, does that mean the injury was the will of the father? No. But the father knows that such things happen in the course of farming. The father helps him tend the injury, and avoid such problems in the future, so that the son is encouraged and gains knowledge. Does the son quit going to the fields? No. In the same way, we believers need to persevere, in spite of wounds and mistakes. And because we can grow wiser and stronger this way, we can be “glad” even when bad things happen. After a closing prayer, another rousing song began, and Pekaly motioned to Glenn, Bryn and me to join Fuhoton outside the church door to greet people. We danced out, as is proper, and Bryn forgot that he was taller than the doorway and klunked his forehead a good one against the doorframe. But he didn’t give up – he stood in line and cheerfully greeted everyone. And they commented on how when they build their new church building they maybe could install a taller door!