“Mr Missionary, could you organise a meeting for young people – something that will deal with the challenges of their experiences in the light of the Gospel?”
“Mr Missionary, could we have a Bible study on Saturday afternoon with you?”
“Mr Missionary, there’s another man who could come to a study on Friday afternoon, could we study God’s Word together that day?”
“Mr Missionary, there’s a group of Chadians in town who are looking for guidance to start a local church – they would love to have your help. They want to know if you will come and help if they find a place to rent.”
“Mr Missionary, there’s a group of Tupuri, who have all decided to quit their different denominations and be united in Christ – but they need teaching – could you …?”
“Mr Missionary, we need a programme of evangelisation so we can grow an assembly of Christians quickly.”
“Mr Missionary, we’re not praying enough, we need another meeting – for prayer only.”
“Mr Missionary, we need more teaching – and once a week is not enough. What about a Bible school?”
“Mr Missionary, since we can’t have the Bible study next Friday because you’re travelling, can we have it on another day before you go instead?”
“Mr Missionary, your residence card has expired …!”
* * * * *
All the above (except the last, which I added facetiously), are from recent conversations I have had. A month or so ago, we were chugging along quite nicely, with our group of 4 Christians at Manwi, plus visitors, plus the once-a-month weekend Bible teaching trip to Dompla. We were aware of some Chadian members of “les Assemblées Chrétiennes du Tchad” who had some vague needs – but seemed to lack direction or the will to put anything together. We were aware of the fact that all the Christian Tupuri of every denomination meet together every Sunday afternoon – and of the potential of that to develop into some kind of local church in the future. But all of these things were just vague rumblings which did not intrude on our little routine.
Then life started to get complicated …
Gabriel, our Chadian friend, decided some time ago that he wanted some help with Bible Study – so he decided that if I could make some time for a study with him once a week (in addition to the study at Manwi), then he would come and do some work in our garden one morning a week. That was fine with me. However, then others wanted to join the study – but it’s hard to find a day that suits everyone. Also, not everyone has the same knowledge of the Bible, so you really need several different types of study on different levels! What to do?
Raoul, our old language helper, then suggested that the group of Manwi Christians had a responsibility to evangelise. However, when they started to talk about evangelising, he posed a whole lot of questions about the church and suggested that we needed more teaching about the local church to ensure we’re all on the same page before we go out with the gospel! So, we have organised to have a monthly workshop on the local church which started on Sunday past. The concerted programme of evangelisation awaits!
Meantime Gabriel has informed me that a group of the Chadians would like to meet with us, but that Manwi is too far for them to go. They would like to have a place in town … if we could just help them! He has also informed us that a group of his fellow Tupuri just out of town have withdrawn from the various churches they attend to form a single, unified group. While this has great potential in forming a Biblical local church, the group would appear to be a mixture of real Christians and mere church-goers, which presents its own problems.
So, now what? We’ve got a variety of groups threatening to form local churches, but just not quite able to put it together – but also seemingly not able to join up together. Then we’ve got lots of different people asking for help in studying the Scriptures but all at different levels and all available at different times! How do we put it all together? Where do we concentrate our efforts? Which groups can work together? Which Bible studies should be associated with which groups of people?
Add to that the fact that we have daily responsibilities to home-school Clare and we’re supposed to be carrying on with lessons in the Fulfulde language, and you have a serious timetable problem! Recently we have also experienced a raft of problems – first having to change banks, then having to renew our residence cards, then having to call a plumber to fix a major leak (which was only discovered because the water authorities finally granted us a water meter – nearly 2 years late!) and latterly having to re-install everything on our primary computer (3 times!). Although those are all simple enough tasks at home, here a 20-minute task can take days!
So where do all these new things fit in and how can we work out the puzzle?
There are two obvious responses: firstly, I have become more and more convinced through our time here that it is the intervention of Almighty God that works out all these puzzles and, to some extent, that we are more witnesses of what He is doing than the means by which He does it; and, secondly, I have started to wonder, with so much going on and so many opportunities, surely there must be somebody out there whom the Lord is preparing to come over and help us?! It couldn’t possibly be YOU, could it?
Give thanks for all the interest and opportunities … but, also, PLEASE PRAY!
