If you missed yesterday’s blog, go back and read it before continuing the saga here. This is an amazing story of a man who came to Jesus days before returning to Africa and how God is making himself known through this man as he simply follows Jesus each day. If you want to read the whole story, or pass it on to a friend, I’ve also included on the website with some other stories of God’s incredible ability to transform lives. You can find it here.
Let’s continue from yesterday:
8/3/2006
It has been too long since last I wrote to your friends and to you something other than ordinary days and many questions. Here many are praying every day for the spirit of his love to fill each of you up so that it flows over you like the waters that are too much for a dam in the river. When this happens you will all be living as the clay pots you have me reading about in Paul’s letter Corinthians. That is how it has become with us. I am remembering that here so many of the wells are having water bags in them for pulling up to get the water and that no one is ever remembering what the bag looks like but only the taste of the fresh water when they are no longer being thirsty.
Tell the peoples you know that they can be praying for us also. Everywhere we are going people are turning from their old ways to walk after Jesus. This He is doing and there is nothing ever before in front of my eyes such as this. For people that are always in fear since being tiny children are finding the peace of our Jesus. Mostly they are being born in the parts of the land that are following the Islam that is afraid and filled with rage. (Not all of Islam is walking away from peace, but our hearts are sad for those who are).
But now some are becoming angry and filled with hate toward us because of the changes inside the peoples who are knowing Jesus. One brother has been beaten so badly that he is very near to die. But the power and trust in Jesus is with him and he is smiling and saying we should change his name to Job because he is reading those words of Job who is saying even if they are killing me I will still trust only in God.
And we are learning what he is saying. As we are running from a village in the night’s blackness so thick that there is no seeing because the angry men there are coming will shouts of death on their tongues. One brother John is falling off the road and a stick is going through the top of his leg to be out the other side and the blood is everywhere. And we are hearing the voices and shouts following after us and Samuel is saying to us that John will be dieing from the bleeding and that he cannot keep running and we are saying back to him that if John is staying that they will be killing him anyway and so what can we do. And Samuel is saying back to us that the letters of Doug to us are always telling us to be praying first and thinking after so that is what we should do. So now as the lights and voices are coming closer they are praying for Jesus to help John and I myself am learning what the Bible is saying about watching and praying, and thinking later that this is meaning something different. And the bleeding is stopping and so we are breaking off the branch and saying if there is no bleeding then leave it in the leg until we find the doctor. And as the angry ones are getting closer we can see from their light that we are in a deep ditch by the road and they are running right past us but not one of them is seeing us and then we are escaping to another village where things are being safer.
When we are finding the doctor and he is pulling out the stick and cleaning the leg inside then there are two children coming to the doctor who have been hurt and he is leaving to look at them and then coming back to us and saying who is it that is helping John and we are saying that our Jesus is working through Samuel to do this, but he is not understanding us. So he is taking Samuel to one of the girls and saying that he should be sowing up the vein in her leg so that it will not be bleeding or else she will die and there is no time to wait but to help both girls or else the one will be dieing. Samuel is saying to the doctor that he cannot do this because he does not know how. The doctor is saying back to Samuel, How is he then sowing up the big artery in the leg of John and why he will not help to heal this girl as he has done his friend. Samuel is saying that all he can do is to do as he has done with John and the doctor is saying to do it, but he is not understanding. So Samuel is kneeling beside the bed and praying for Jesus to help the little girl and the doctor is screaming that the girl will be dieing, but the Jesus who hears is with her and she is being made well. The nurse who someone is running to find is coming and hearing the doctor and she is walking in and looking at the young girl and taking off the clamp and saying the doctor is working very well on her with the sowing and there is no bleeding. And the doctor is saying her mind has been lost and he is coming to see. And when he is looking down he is seeing the sowing that Jesus is doing on the young girl is perfect and looking just like the sowing on the leg of John and then he is saying if he does not see this with the eyes of his own that he is not believing that Jesus is the healer. After Samuel is speaking to him then kneeling next to Samuel in the blood of the little girl and he is believing in the blood of Jesus and becoming one who will follow Him. This is the real miracle of Jesus.
And we are telling him that all this is not us that we are like the bags in the well that no one remembers and Jesus is the living water. This is not what happens every day but our Jesus is always able to show us that he has power to do what no man can do if when doing it he is showing himself to those who will believe. But we are with John trusting him if we live or if we die. And to some this would be the words of fear, but to those who hear the voice of our Jesus in their hearts this is the life of freedom and the road of peace and they are walking down that road with us.
Please be asking your peoples to pray for the peoples telling the story of our Jesus to those who are living in fear in the villages of the angry people. Every day the danger they are living in is real and we are needing Jesus to protect them and to pour his water of life out through them. If this you will be praying for us, then you must know that we are praying for you this also.
Your friend and brother because of Jesus,
Jamal
8/20/2006
We are still feeling in our spirit that this thing that Jesus is doing here is not for outsiders to control or pay monies for and for the faith of the peoples here to turn to them instead of our Jesus if this is happening. How could they be leading us somewhere that Jesus could not? How could they be sending more money and things for helping than Jesus can? No he is wanting the people here to be trusting only him and walking the path deeper into his love.
I am taking the advice that you are giving me to not be using your name as much here for this same reason because you are saying that God is the father of me and of you and that we then are only brothers together in him. This I am always knowing because this is what your heart always shares with me even when it not among the words that you are speaking. As you told me this is to protect the hearts of others who must be like Peter on the water and always looking to Jesus with his name always upon their lips.
Yet sometimes when Samuel is being stubborn then we could say to him let us ask our brothers for help and you would be one who would be helping and then I could be using your name sometimes.
I was beginning to be wondering how it is that faith is growing in the peoples. Not just the faith of beginning to turn to follow Jesus but the growing faith in the hearts that journey with us. I am reading in many places about how Jesus is saying to the disciples…”What has happened to your faith that it has disappeared?” This I am not wanting to happen to the people here.I am reading this in Luke’s letter chapter 1 and this is what Jesus is saying in my heart about the journey he is walking with us:
“…to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”Walking in the morning SON and the path of peace,
Jamal
Wonderful. Thank you for sharing these stories. The Lord is awesome!
Wonderful. Thank you for sharing these stories. The Lord is awesome!
Thanks so much for sharing these emails. I’m just catching up on reading here after a week of vacation, and thinking of a couple of people I met along the way. I suppose in our conversations I could have brought up the difference of new life in Christ, but didn’t. Could their lives have been renewed as well, like Jamal? Was Jesus trying to tell me to say something about Him to these people and I refused? It’s hard to say, but perhaps I will be more attentive to Him the next time.
Thanks so much for sharing these emails. I’m just catching up on reading here after a week of vacation, and thinking of a couple of people I met along the way. I suppose in our conversations I could have brought up the difference of new life in Christ, but didn’t. Could their lives have been renewed as well, like Jamal? Was Jesus trying to tell me to say something about Him to these people and I refused? It’s hard to say, but perhaps I will be more attentive to Him the next time.