After spending nearly 50 days waiting in Ivory Coast, our team was anxious to hit the road again.
If I have ever lacked trust in God’s timing before, I can testify now all the more how he places you where you need to be, more than where you think you should be. As if that isn’t enough, our God gets you where you need to be and when you need to be.
Despite the month long setback, we made our way towards the middle of Ivory Coast. We visited 4 villages in the same day, and in all four villages we saw signs of God moving. Specifically in the second village we visited. After our time was coming to a close we asked if there was anyone sick or injured we could pray for. The village enthusiastically said yes as a handful of people asked for specific prayers. As we were sitting in an open wooden framed grass hut, we prayed for five people. After we were done praying, every one thanked us before we were going to leave. But that wasn’t the end. We felt stirred to pray again , but this time we requested that all of the children around watching laid hands and prayed with us. This time as we finished praying, an elderly African lady was beaming. Her smile seemed to reach both ears. Through the translator she explained to us the pain was gone! She went on to say she was hurt last week carrying a lot of wood and couldn’t turn her back. She pointed her finger and waved it back and forth signaling no as she started twisting rapidly side to as if she was trying to win a hoola hoop contest! She explained I couldn’t do this before :)
This next story in Burkina Faso has made my trip. While we were visiting our second village of the day, again we were about to leave before we saw a boy who was blind in one eye. Of course hoping for our God to move again through a healing, we asked to pray for him. As we finished praying and started to say our good byes, one of the elders of the community asked us to pray for a girl who was severely burned. A little later we found out severe meant she didn’t have skin for a large part of her stomach, right thigh, and right hand. The only treatment she had for her severe burns was wrapping them in leaves. So we prayed for the girl and began to think what can we possibly do to help this girl out? While we were processing a man came from the back of the village came and began speaking to our translator/church planter. This man said he wanted to accept Christ. He went on to say what we were doing in the village was a good thing. He had been thinking about accepting Jesus for a while now, but today he made sure. In the moment when he got down on his knees and cried out to God, I could feel the Angels in heaven rejoicing over this once lost soul. Suddenly having skipped lunch, running on lack of sleep, and standing in 100+ degree heat didn’t matter anymore. The only thing that matters in the end was happening in that moment, I will never forget it.Shortly after the man accepted Christ, he met with a church planter to decide when he would be baptized and when they could set up times of discipleship.
After this man confessed his faith we decided the girl with the burns could not continue in the state she was in. We elected to drive her to the nearest hospital. We dropped her off and waited a little while before we left. When our team was paying for her medical bill we learned she had a disease. If she would not have been brought into the hospital in the next three days, she would have fallen into a coma and died. Suddenly the extra month in Ivory Coast started to make a little more sense.
Isaiah 55:9 As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
We ask that you pray for this village in Southwest Burkina Faso. It is still very much unreached, and mostly Muslim. Pray God uses this man who as accepted Christ as a great influence in the community. Also pray the girl who we took the hospital that she may see the love and light of Jesus in the situation!
