Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Terry in Senegal

A photo and letter from Terry Stephan, one of our great supporters. (Notice he's wearing one of the Walk for Life t-shirts!)


"I saved my Walk for Life shirt for the meeting with the village chief of the largest village that we visited. We had a blessed trip. We ran into more rejection and hostility than ever. At the same time we solidified major village relationships and had marvelous Story Times with great discussion following.

We had some angry young men at one village meeting tell us that if we really want to help them, we would keep our Christian message in America and send them the money that we waste on air fare and vehicle rental. In another village we had angry young men tell us that they would like to come to America and tell us about Allah, but they don’t have the means. Does our God expect us to hoard all of the world’s means? Doesn’t He tell us to share. How about letting them come to America (our expense) and tell us about Allah? Notice the common thread…angry young men. That is world over. Give me my fair share of the inheritance now!

High points were going to the wrong village and meeting an eighty+ year old witch doctor (marabout) and getting to share the entire Gospel Message. Made friends with the chief in that village with plans to go back there. In six trips it was the first time to share the complete Gospel to an attentive audience (audience of one).

Probably most significant event was meeting with the chief in the enclosed picture. Our contact in that large village died two weeks after we left last visit. Didn’t know what to do next or who to call upon. Went to the chief and asked him to call the imam of their large mosque to discuss who we are and what we are doing. They both welcomed us with open arms and told of all that they knew of the good that we had done in their village on past visits. The imam gave us approval to share stories from the Holy Books, that is the Torah, the Psalms, the Prophets, AND the New Testament.

We used a new interpreter along with an old friend interpreter. The new guy turned out to be a marvelous asset to our work. He is an itinerant evangelist and our trips will allow him to do his work and earn money to support his family. From the point that we dropped him off at the end of the week, he had a five hour donkey cart ride to his village. He lives in the sticks and travels all week to three make shift missions in his home area. He has no income other that serving as an interpreter. He can get some work translating English and French documents into local languages, but doesn’t have a computer or internet. Internet? He doesn’t even have electricity or water in his village. What a blessing he was! As you might imagine, he WILL have a good laptop at the occasion of our next visit.

Next visit is October 21-29. We have so much to catch up on, we pushed the next trip up from November to October. We will be there in late October and then again in late December. The December trip will allow two college students to go across their Christmas Break.

Will I be the only one wearing the Sav-A-Life ministry message in inner Senegal???

God is Good; All the Time!

Terry"