A deep work in a few

© Louise Perkins

I’d love to introduce you to two guys.

It’s a huge privilege and joy to share life with the students and staff at SOW (Servants of the Word) Bible School here in the Gambia. This year it looks like I’ll focus my energies on just two students in Year 2. Sadly, the class has whittled down from 11 a year ago (not the norm, I hasten to add). 

• Some had valiantly had a go but concluded (sensibly) that they need to improve their basic literacy before being able to benefit significantly from such a course; 
• One we’ve sent off to Nigeria to a full-time Bible school there for a year; 
• A couple are in teacher training and have (frustratingly) been placed at the other end of the country;
• Some are simply too stretched financially not to spend the hours they would spend in class earning.

So, it’s sad for those men and women who have had to drop out. And we by no means intend to cut ties with them; we will keep seeking to encourage them. But we trust that God is in control. He is the Lord of the harvest who deploys his people where, when and how he ordains. And so we recognise this unusually small class as an opportunity from the Lord for us to invest deeply and thoughtfully in these 2 who remain. It’s a great privilege to be a teacher with a 1:2 ratio, it’s lots of fun to really get to know these guys well, and it’s a joy to see their relationship grow as they study and learn together, and spur one another on. It’s often been said that a key to truly fruitful ministry is “a deep work in a few for the sake of the many”. I believe that.

Will you pray with me for these two young men? First, I thought you might appreciate me introducing you…


Alieu (names changed) is tall, well-built and cheeky. He came to the Gambia from Sierra Leone and got sucked into the bumster way of life here. Bumsters are notorious hustlers who get by through (usually) petty crime, often fleecing tourists and whoever else they can. Alieu's life was typical of that community - unrestrained stealing, drugs, alcohol and sex. He’d tell you that - despite his bravado - it was miserable. He became very sick, and when no doctors could help, one doctor said his only hope was to try a marabout (traditional healer / witch-doctor). As is very common, Alieu ended up selling all he had to pay for the ‘assistance’ of various marabouts, but all the sacrifices and charms achieved nothing.

One bumster friend of Alieu’s came from a Christian family and, whilst he didn't care about Christianity himself, he sensed that “their God has power”. Alieu thought it was worth a shot. So he resolved to go to a church service. His girlfriend kept trying to dissuade him, employing various tactics to distract him or discourage him from going. Sometimes he’d be on his way to the church, but he’d bump into some mates en route and choose the easy option of sitting down with them and joining in their boozing.

Eventually he made it. Having grown up in a Muslim environment, the initial experience of church was shocking. In his mind, religious meetings meant taking off your shoes, approaching with an attitude of quietness and respect, men and women being separated… By contrast, at the church, everyone was singing, dancing and drumming! It was like a party! But instead of being offended (as many would be), Alieu loved parties and so loved this!

Alieu felt a totally unfamiliar peace and joy when in the presence of these Christians, which was deeply attractive. In time, God restored Alieu to health, and he found himself continuing and desiring to go to church with an increasing hunger to know more about Jesus from the Bible. He got baptised when he received Jesus as his Saviour and only hope for life and eternity, and his life began to be transformed by the love, grace and peace of God through Jesus.

Two years ago, someone from Alieu’s church took him along to a workshop about Bible storytelling - an important and effective technique particularly aimed at people with low literacy (though Alieu is actually well educated and very bright). Whilst there, Alieu heard about SOW and decided to enrol. He’s now in Year 2, he got an excellent score in last year's external Moore College Introduction to the Bible exam, and recently did a practice exposition on a part of Philippians in class, which was one of the clearest sermons I’ve heard in the Gambia! 

 

**

Tijan is from remote rural Guinea - "the forest” region - extremely different from coastal Gambia with its tourist industry and mixture of African & foreign nationalities. He’s short, earnest, but with a high laugh and a big smile, and speaks with an extremely strong Guinean-French accent (Guinea being francophone). Whilst studying at university in Labé, Guinea, Tijan met a pastor who sensed that Tijan had both the willingness and embryonic gifts for Christian ministry of some kind. This pastor was from the same tribe as Tijan, and had connections with some Christians in the Gambia…

Two years ago, this pastor duly sent Tijan here to be taken in by a community of believers from his tribe (which spans national borders), many of whom have suffered greatly for their faith. It’s one of the least reached people groups in the world (0.05% Christian) The purpose of his coming? To be trained at SOW - somewhere where he would read and study the Bible, and be taught how to interpret it accurately and how to teach it clearly.

Tijan struggled through his first year, unable to find a decent job, but this term we rejoiced when he landed a job as a school-teacher, teaching French. It requires phenomenal hard work and is met with a meagre salary. After full days of teaching, he comes to SOW for Monday and Tuesday evening classes, and then again on Saturdays. Such times would be key opportunities to offer private tuition (where teachers’ money is really made here). Instead, Tijan decides to come faithfully to SOW.

He works incredibly hard, and is making slow but good progress with his English. Beautifully, his classmate Alieu is very patient with Tijan’s much slower rate of English reading and comprehension. There are often lovely moments in class where Alieu takes it upon himself to correct or clarify something for his brother. One battle we’re fighting together is to break Tijan’s habit of dropping the consonants at the end of words, which is common in French. So, for example, “On dit un mot” (“one says a word”) is pronounced in French, “O[n] di[t] u[n] mo[t]”. This leads Tijan to do the same in English - he’ll passionately declare, “The WOR of GO!” (= “The WORD of GOD!”) I’ve just about got used to it! But communicating clearly in English is a massively useful skill, not only here; so as much as I enjoy dusting off my school-level French, we’ve agreed that we’ll only speak English in the classroom. (Unless I can remember a French word or two to translate when necessary.)

Most impressively, Tijan has a phenomenal zeal to use his God-given gifts to serve Jesus by making him known through the sharing of his word, the Bible. He longs to do that back in rural Guinea, after this season of training and discipleship here.

** 

So that’s my class! I’m loving being with these guys for 8 hours a week in class, and other times too. Will you pray with me for them? Above all, I’m praying that this opportunity for a deep work in them would lead to them being trained appropriately and effectively, so that they can then appropriately and effectively reach many others in all the years that God will give them.

© freeimages.com

Doing the two-times multiplication table is surprisingly exciting. And actually quite staggering. Get this… If I, by God’s grace, can make a lasting impression on these two, through the regular opening up of God’s word this year, and then they could each do the same in two more, each year, for (say) 21 years… Guess how many people would have been discipled after those 21 years? More than 2 MILLION!!! 2,097,152. (Do the sums yourself if you don’t believe me!) That’s more than the current population of the Gambia!

It gets crazy when you add on just a few more years… 25 years? 33,554,432. 30 years? 1,073,741,824.

Could the reason we often don’t see that kind of growth be the shallowness of our work in people?

So please pray for a DEEP work in these precious FEW (two!) for the sake of the MANY! And that in the future, God would do a deep work in many others through them, and on and on and on… For God’s glory!

10 Ways to Actually Pray for Missionaries

 © freeimages.com

I gather that more books have been written on prayer than on any other topic in the Christian life. We Christians all know that it’s an extraordinary privilege we have - to call the God of the universe our Father, and approach his throne of grace confidently!! But I think we all struggle to pray as well. Why is that?

And off goes another book about prayer… Which I’m not going to write! I suppose there will be theological reasons why we don’t pray, emotional reasons, circumstantial reasons… I wonder if a surprisingly powerful factor might be quite practical reasons though. As Don Carson put it - we simply need to “plan to pray”.

One of the most significant books I’ve read on prayer is Carson’s masterpiece, A Call to Spiritual Reformation (IVP, 1992), which surveys some of the Apostle Paul’s prayers and what we can learn from them for our prayer lives. It totally transformed my approach to prayer when I read it 10 years ago, and I’m sure it would do the same again if I gave it a fresh read! Funnily enough though, along with all the epic theological elements in the book that had such a big impact on me, something that has stuck with me, as if I read it yesterday, is a most basic piece of practical advice, from the start of the book - “plan to pray”! It’s a simple but penetrating point. Carson elaborates:

“What we actually do reflects our highest priorities. That means we can proclaim our commitment to prayer until the cows come home, but unless we actually pray, our actions disown our words.” (p.19)

So. Dare I ask - what’s your plan? How will you pray for missionaries?

That obviously takes for granted that you want to pray for missionaries. I believe we should! I won’t try to persuade anyone now. Suffice it to say, the more we love and follow Jesus, whose parting words to his people on earth were, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), the more we’ll want to be part of that. Many are not called to go anywhere further than across the street, though such endeavours still ought to be backed prayerfully by others. Some are called to go further from home, and they certainly need the prayerful backing of others.

So, what’s your plan?

I’ve been really encouraged, since coming to the Gambia, when friends have told me how they pray for me. One friend wrote to me recently and, after assuring me that he is keeping me in his prayers, he added, “On Thursdays and Sundays FYI”. He’s got a plan! And I’m so grateful.

My goddaughter’s parents have a lovely book they’ve made for her with photographs of people to pray for, including me here. They’ve got a plan! And I’m so grateful.

Writing prayer letters is a funny old experience (as is writing a blog, really). Typing, typing, typing, sharing, sharing, sharing. “Is it worth it?? Will people actually pray?? Will people even read?? I trust that some do. I don’t want to write too much and bore people… Or do people actually want to hear more? Let me be succinct. But I need to explain and give a picture of things…” It’s not easy!

But the writing is (part of) my side of the bargain. The other side is people praying. And I know that’s not easy either! Hence this blog post. Because (here we are finally…) I thought it might be helpful to offer a few practical suggestions on how to actually pray for missionaries. Here you go - take or leave! Ten tips in no particular order:

1. Decide to spend a few minutes praying through any prayer email / letter immediately when you read it. 
2. Save up prayer emails / letters into a folder and schedule a fiercely guarded time into your diary each week to pray through them. N.B. Depending on the volume, storing them up like this can make for quite a tiring prayer session. If more than 5(?), I’d go for two separate slots. 
3. Stick up a world map on a wall, and add pins to mark where people are for whom you’ll pray. 
4. Then pick an activity that creates a pause in your day to pray for a different pin each time - e.g. as the water is boiling / coffee is brewing. 
5. Pray for people you know in different continents each day of the week. (Could be done with #3.) 
6. Use triggers. For example, whenever you see someone walking a dog, say a quick prayer for a missionary you know who has a dog (hint hint). Or I heard of someone who prayed for some missionaries every time she saw the same model of car that they had. 
7. Pick a memorable place that you pass regularly (a tube stop on your way to work / a park on your way to the shop) and decide to pray for a missionary every time you pass it. 
8. Accept that you can’t pray for everything and pick one thing to focus on from a particular prayer email / letter. Write it in a prayer diary (start one!). 
9. Use the PrayerMate app and customise it to however it best suits you. I recommend it highly. It requires a bit of effort to get used to, but many people find it pays off. 
10. Commit to meet regularly with some others who also know said missionary to pray for them - once a month / once a term / whenever. You could write them a note when you do so too - they’d love that! 

I currently benefit from doing three of the above. Why not pick two or three that help you?

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” (Colossians 4:2)

Let’s plan to do so, and make it happen. Remember Carson’s words? “What we actually do reflects our highest priorities.” May God help you and me to plan and to pray.

When I Am Weak: Humidity and Humility

On the cool tiles - he’s got the right idea. I do the same sometimes!

It’s 4 showers a day kind of stuff.

I never owned a record player, and my dad’s was rarely used. But whether or not you’re old / hipster enough to have familiarity with one, you probably know the expression, “sounding like a broken record”. And I fear that that is me talking about the heat! Every time someone asks me how I’ve been getting on / how my day’s been / what it’s been like being back in the Gambia, it’s impossible not to talk about the most unrelenting pressure that I feel pretty constantly pretty much every day… The HEAT! The horrendously humid heat…

I really do hate the thought that I might come across as whiney or complaining. That would be inexcusable. God has been so, so good and generous to me in countless ways. Nevertheless, this is certainly a trial!

Please know that I don’t want to make you pity me. I fight against the pride of self-pity and don’t need you to make it harder! Rather, I want to take this opportunity to boast in my weakness.

Boasting in weakness

I get my cue from another. Far from the triumphalism and bravado of many so-called ‘apostles’ in the African church today, the Apostle Paul endured a huge amount of suffering, just like the Lord Jesus whom he served. It could have made him a laughing-stock compared to the worldly impressive ‘super-apostles’ out there preaching a different message. But Paul was glad to brag about not his strength or success but his weakness.

“[After listing many difficulties and hardships…] Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” (2 Corinthians 11:29-30)

He mocked his snooty opponents by boasting as they did, but about his sufferings and weakness! Because it revealed the genuineness of his ministry and, more than that, it pointed to the sufficient grace of Christ -

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it [a particularly painful trial] away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (12:8-10)

What extraordinary words.

Now - I’m really not suffering like Paul! Or like so many of Jesus’ people around the world today. I’m not suffering (many) insults (at least not to my face!) and I’m not being persecuted. So what am I going on about? Well, I certainly am experiencing “weaknesses” and “difficulties”! And I do believe that, like Paul did, I can testify to God’s sufficient grace and all-surpassing power in this mini trial, in a way that I hope will magnify Christ Jesus - make him look bigger and me smaller.

Earlier in this letter of Paul, he described us in our weakness as “jars of clay”, the then equivalent to plastic or paper bags - they serve a purpose but are weak and easily broken. Why has God made us like that? “…we have this treasure [the ministry of the gospel] in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” (4:7)

If I weren’t struggling like I am, aware of how weak I am, then I might be tempted to think I’ve got a measure of impressive ability about myself. I really don’t! I’m just a plastic bag. So I too can “delight in my weaknesses”, as I battle with the heat, because it shows that the power that creates anything of any value through my pathetic efforts is clearly from God and not from me! It’s humbling - in a very, very good way.

What’s the big deal?

“Can it really be that bad?”, I hear my cynical British reader thinking… Do I need to just “man up”? I don’t believe so.

We all have different capacities, physically and emotionally. And I’m being honest when I say that this heat drastically reduces my physical energy and emotional strength. I don’t think I’m alone in that.

Maybe you’ve enjoyed sunny holidays to the Med or somewhere, and you’ve loved the temperature being in the 30ºs each day. I have too. There are at least 3 significant differences between that and my current experience:

1. Humidity - in the dry season here it can get up in to the 40ºs. You know it’s hot when that happens. But somehow you’re still able to function. Now, however, the humidity (usually > 80% / 90%) somehow makes the heat stick to you in a horribly unforgiving way. And it just saps out your energy. 
2. Duration - one tends to enjoy such a holiday for a week or so, not months and years. 
3. Activity - on such a holiday, I’m happy to achieve little more than maybe surf, read a few book chapters and go on a couple of strolls (call me middle-aged…). Here, I’m actually trying to live and work, plus with the added pressures of doing so cross-culturally. 

Furthermore, there is just something about the African sun. On paper/screen, 35º (usual daily temp at the moment) might not sound too bad. But the sun is intense here. Much more so than in the UK. Combine that with the humidity and it’s tough. (At night it’s usually equally humid and no lower than 25º - i.e. a hot summer’s day in England!)

(As I type it’s 10.30pm [now cool enough to write!], 27º, RealFeelTM 34º, humidity 88%.)

I’m encouraged that I’m not being totally pathetic by people here struggling too. Maybe this is an area where Gambians and Brits aren’t so dissimilar - whatever the weather, we’ll complain! Here, in “winter”, when it gets down to low 20ºs, it’s talked about as unbearably cold! Someone said to me recently here that the weather in the Gambia is extreme - extreme heat and extreme cold. I had to correct him on one of those!!

People do talk about October as being the worst. Mama dreads it all year. (“Oh October...”) People console me with regretful expression on their faces, “It’s October now…” 

Is it worth it?

I know of two missionary couples who decided they couldn’t stay in the Gambia because of the heat. One couple went to Kenya instead. One couple returned to the UK. I’m thankful that God seems to have made me in such a way that I’m not quite thinking like that. But I am struggling! My productivity would appear to be dramatically lower than in the UK. When the heat is like this, I keep my expectations low. I aim for just one thing per day - a meeting with an individual; a couple of hours of preparation on something; a trip out combining a few errands. That’s a lot less than I would hope for per day in the UK! It’s humbling!

But is it really worth it? All the cross-cultural preparation and ongoing learning, all the finances generously given by people, all the emotional energy, all the relational sacrifices…

Example - the other day, I was due to meet a brother to read the Bible together. It’s a great privilege to have a relationship with him where I can do that. He’s in a tough situation, he teaches me a huge amount about his cultural and religious background and I’m able to teach him a bit about Jesus. I had also hoped to do lots of other things like write a few letters, run a few errands, make some phone calls to people back home, and look over teaching material for a class tomorrow. I had to cancel all those plans. After spending time with this friend and sharing lunch together, the sun was at its hottest and I just had no energy left. I struggled through half a book chapter and then gave up. The rest of the day was a write-off! Humbling!

Is it worth it??

I think so. I believe that productivity ultimately is not about quantifiable results but about stewarding God’s gifts for the good of others for God’s glory. And I haven’t come here on a whim. It was years of praying, discussing, planning, all with many and varied counsellors. And so even if my measurable outcomes seem relatively small, I do believe that, all by God’s grace, they’re making a small contribution to an important and urgent need. I really need people to encourage me with that though - as a dear friend recently did - otherwise, at times, I’ll be tempted to pack my bags!

The purpose of weakness

So it all makes me very aware of how weak I am. One thing a day?! Pretty weak. But oh the joy of knowing that my weakness is not only permitted by God, but that it even glorifies him! My weakness displays Jesus’ sufficient grace and surpassing power all the more. So, as long as that happens, I delight in my weakness in this heat.

And, paradoxically, thinking like this enables me truly to be strong! “When I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor.12:10) True strength is thus not about physical endurance or emotional resilience, but about looking away from myself in my weakness, and looking instead to Jesus - the source of sufficient grace and surpassing power.

In honesty, do you feel weak? May you too know the strengthening blessing of accepting your weakness, and committing it to being for God’s glory. May your weakness, like mine, display Jesus’ sufficient grace and surpassing power.