Why doesn’t God work in signs and wonders and miracles as He did in the past? I hear this asked all the time, but with all due respect to the question, He does.
The greatest miracle happens every day. An infinite gap crossed, an un-payable debt paid, death crossed over to life, a soul regenerated—yes, salvation. Salvation still happens today, and that is the greatest miracle of all. And if you think this is a cheap shot at the answer, consider this: any other miracle God does on this earth is temporary. Even when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it still resulted in a second physical death for him. Only salvation lasts for all eternity.
And the change accompanying salvation baffles the secular mind. Some of the most loathsome people become, to the shock of everyone around them, some of the kindest. Still more amazing is that the change doesn’t end with the night and day transformation from old to new, it continues, growing ever brighter to the full dawn of day, and then onward for all eternity as we come to know Him more.
Sometimes we learn the answers to life’s questions in books and quiet conversation in the house, and other times God teaches them in the dusty, stifling heat of an impoverished village swallowed up in the middle of the African wilderness.
This past January in Nigeria was a perfect reminder of this miracle that continues to amaze me. Thanks everyone for your prayers and support, making this one of the most powerful and encouraging trips I’ve been on yet.
Makoko: Bittersweet Reunion
The town of Makoko is the poorest place I have ever been in my life; people survive in ramshackle huts stationed over still, rancid water full of garbage and human waste. In this terrible place, the life expectancy hovers around 25. If these troubles were not enough, the government is attempting to destroy the entire community for being an eyesore without providing so much as another place to live.
When we sat down and started talking to the chief, he told us how he was fighting for his people, even while he was under pressure from the government and the village. He said that Christ alone would rescue the village, and that he’d refused people’s attempts to get him to use charms from the local superstitions to aid him. On the other hand, he also rebuffed offers by the government to make him a very rich man in return for betraying his people. We were overjoyed to hear that the chief is walking in integrity since his salvation.
But then we asked him, “What will happen if the government still tears down your land and God allows this, what then?”
Without hesitation he said, “Even if they take our land from us, we will still follow Christ wherever we go.”
I was incredibly encouraged to hear this. God does not promise us physical victory over every situation, only the contentment to glorify God and to demonstrate the power of Christ in every situation. In this world we will have trouble, but Christ has overcome it all.
Yet not all was well, because the first thing we noticed about the chief was that he was wearing a Muslim’s outfit with the outline of a beautifully architected mosque. When we asked him about it, he wisely replied that man looks on the outside appearance, but God looks on the heart.
While it’s true that God looks at the heart, man still looks on the outside appearance. This means that your outside appearance can affect your testimony. As an example, even though it would be safer for me to do so, I would never wear a Muslim prayer cap when visiting the Middle East, because I am not a Muslim.
So pray for the Chief. He is doing well in the Lord, but there is yet wisdom for him to grow in, and the pressure on him is unrelenting.
Sprouting Seeds
In one of the villages we visit near the place where we stay, the people mix Islam along with local superstition to produce an idolatrous hybrid of the two. While they attend the mosque regularly, they also sacrifice to the gods of Africa, but even here, the seeds of the gospel planted over the past two years have begun to take root.
When we arrived for our first visit, we went to see the chief in his hut and found several elders distressed at our presence there, complaining that we were there to lead them away from their old religion. And the chief, a Muslim man, actually rebuked them, saying that we had only done good for the village.
This is a living example of 1 Peter 2:12- “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”
Despite the controversy, the chief and the elders all came to hear two hours of teaching, and afterward I was shocked to discover that we had finished a fully functioning water well for the village. Since my last visit in May, we not only started drilling, but also completed it, a borehole sunk over eighty meters deep into fresh water. In the commissioning ceremony, we handed out glasses of pure, clean water from the well: crystal clear and sparking in the afternoon light. The chief, several of the elders, and even a few members of the team from the States, myself included, drank of the water!
This is the first time I have ever drunk any more than an accidental drop of local water, and here I was drinking an entire glass of the stuff, to no ill effect.
What this means is that the water is so clear, so pure, and so healthy that even weak American immune systems can handle it. This will not only change the health of the entire village, but their way of life as well. Instead of walking down a steep path into a ravine with fetid water, now the locals have a source of water right in the village, and the women we asked said it had already changed their lives, and they thanked us profusely.
But even better than pure, clear, drinking water is the living water that Christ offers. No matter how clear the water, no matter how much their health improves as a result, they will still die. So imagine how encouraged we were when we talked to the chief, and he told us that he had turned from idolatry, saying, “The idols cannot save us- because we made them, but Jesus Christ lives in the heavens. Only He can help us.” One of the first converts, a man named Solomon, told us that all of his children had become Christians over the past two years, and his wife had become a believer even over the past year.
The signs of the change are spreading throughout the village. We passed housing for idols that now stood empty, with the locals wondering what to do with their extra storage space. And the chief told us that for the first time in the history of the village, there was unity.
The chief (left)
Born of the Spirit
After the team left, I returned to the village with only one of our translators, finding it surprisingly empty. I was slightly concerned, not even two years prior a group of youth had threatened an earlier team. Would there be a surprise waiting for us?
We made our way through the empty town square, relieved to find the chief sitting in the breezeway in his home. After greeting us, he told me he only had a few minutes because he was leaving for the nearby city. I was downcast because I had prepared a teaching that would take at least forty minutes. Resigning myself to the new circumstances, I began to teach 1 Peter 1:3-8 about the living hope of Jesus Christ, and very quickly, the chief got lost in translation, possibly because my translator still has troubles understanding my English.
The Lord works in many ways to bring humility into my life. I breathed a prayer with a sigh, giving up on 1 Peter. At the Lord’s leading, I switched back to the original plan: recounting Elijah’s life and trials, and weaving the story told in 1 Kings 17 along with the idea that Jesus is our living hope.
As I spoke, men gradually filtered in, including some of the village elders, listening and hanging on every word. The chief’s ride arrived, and he also stayed for the whole time.
This message was not evangelistic in nature, and I know that it was not my superior storytelling that intrigued the men. I was using the life of Elijah to show them that if they came to Christ, it would actually make their lives more difficult. It wasn’t the best sales pitch, but we aren’t called to be salesmen. It is the Lord who calls.
When I finished, and all became quiet, the chief spoke, “Gradually the entire village will turn from idolatry to serve the living God. Please pray that God will give us the power to turn to Jesus Christ.”
That is incredible theology from a man either unsaved or newly born into the faith.
As my translator began to pray for the village, I noticed the chief praying quietly along with the him. When they finished, I felt a strong leading from the Lord to ask if the men were ready to receive Christ, telling them that I would think nothing less of them if they did not, but they were resolute. So I told them to pray—to deal with God right there. We would not tell them what to pray- no ‘sinner’s prayer’ here; this was to be a conversation between them and God.
Before I even knew what was happening, the men had bowed their heads and were praying quietly, and right there in the dark breezeway of the chief’s hut, the men began to pray. The air was electric; something inside me said that the Spirit was moving, and at the moment their lips began to move, the still air in the hut gave way before a sudden rush of wind that blew through the hallway. Not once before was there so much as a breath of air, and not once afterward; it reminded me that Jesus said that being born of the Spirit was like the wind: you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.
When that powerful moment concluded, we said our goodbyes, and one of the elders asked us if he could ride part of the way back with us. As the car jolted and lurched along the dirt tracks I would hardly call a road, I spoke with him, asking him his name and things about his family. Finally, I asked him how what he thought about the teaching and he said, “Today, I received Christ.”
I was stunned and amazed; the Lord used this weak vessel, these frail lips to accomplish the ultimate miracle—spiritual resurrection. Others did the hard work, sowing in hard soil and tilling rough ground, and I reaped what I did not labor for. For the rest of that day, I had a huge grin plastered on my face, even occasionally bursting out laughing for no reason at all, so great was my joy.
People from the village waving goodbye
But even in my joy I also, with guarded caution, ask you to pray for the elder who confessed Christ, that the seed that sprouted in his life has found its way onto good soil. Please be praying for our new brother, bearing in mind that perhaps this was one of the elders who was initially complaining about our presence in the village.
God showed me three things that day: He is strong, He is loving, and He uses even a frail man of flesh like myself to carry eternal life to others.
Sobering Reality
While the gospel is on the move in some places, it appears to have stalled in one of the first villages we ministered to, where the message was first received with joy. Like the seed that sprouted quickly in the rocky soil only to wither away in the scorching sun, the people have mostly turned back to their old ways, exiling Amos, the only man who continues to attend the church, because he refuses to participate in local sacrifices to the gods of Africa.
We exhorted Amos not to grow bitter but to love those who threw him and his family out of the village. Pray for him, even that he may one day return and minister to the community who hated him.
The chief of the village is an old man who my heart is incredibly burdened for. He is over 90 years old, surviving so many years to finally hear the gospel which he at first received, and is now rejecting. Please pray for him, and pray that God would give us the wisdom to know how to show kindness in the face of their persecution, so that perhaps they may also come to Christ.
Preaching the gospel message in the village
Yet even here, the gospel is sprouting in the surrounding communities. In a nearby village, where many people walk thirty minutes to attend the distant service outside the village, the elder and another man asked us for just one thing: Bibles. Imagine that! They know we already put in a well nearby, and yet the only thing the chief is concerned with is receiving living water. Pray for this community, and pray that God would supply the means for us to drill for water here as well.
UPDATE: Since I originally wrote this, eleven people from the village that exiled Amos are now attending services once again. Pray that they would persevere!
Isaac (right)
The Face of Persecution
It is not only Amos who is facing persecution, for in the north, our brothers and sisters are facing death every day for their faith. We spent several days ministering in a home for the orphans of such persecution. And it was during one of the teaching times when I was sitting in the back with an orphan on my lap when the awful truth hit me. “This little one’s parents were violently taken from him, something he may even have witnessed.”
And I looked around at each one of the children’s faces. Each of the 311 children there have lost one or both parents violently. I knew this on a fact level already, but it was then that it hit me hard, and it was all I could do to keep from weeping.
Another boy named Isaac came up to me my first day there and asked me, “Will you be my friend?”
I said yes, hoping I’d be able to pick out his face from among the hundreds, and by the grace of God I was able to single him out the next day. He came with us to minister in the villages, and while we were walking the path, one of the children from a neighboring village was telling me, “I want to be a banker, and my dad’s a pastor!”
Isaac, who was walking next to me, commented, “My dad was a pastor too. But then they killed him.”
Again, I was struck and speechless. The things these children have been through are things that no child should ever experience. This world is broken and fleeting; I pray our Lord comes quickly.
So the question remains: Is Christ worth it? Is He worth our very lives? Is he worth being exiled for and estranged for? Is He worth losing your parents over? Here in the states we do not face this kind of persecution, yet we are timid about sharing the gospel. When will we too count the cost, saying that Jesus Christ is worth it? When will we agree with the apostle Paul that to live is Christ and to die is gain?
I encourage you all to consider the courageous examples of our brothers and sisters in Nigeria who remain true till death. Go preach the Word while it is still legal—while we remain free to do so. Pray for our brothers and sisters who are suffering in Nigeria, that they will remain faithful even to death.
Thank you all for your participation in the ministry through your prayers and support. I could not go and experience such amazing things for the Kingdom without you. Please keep praying that I will share the gospel with boldness as I should, both stateside and abroad.
Pressing on in the faith,
- Paul
