Wilmont, Devlin, and Samuel are Liberians who are church planting among Muslims in Guinea. These three led the prayer time for the whole school each morning. Here is how they prayed, “Almighty God, correct us by your word, teach us sound doctrine that we could teach your word in truth and power, and win the lost.”
Let me tell you, in six years of teaching with TLI in over a dozen countries I have never heard anything like this. There’s more.
On a class break I asked them about church planting in Guinea. They said, “What is happening where we live is happening all over West Africa: Muslims are moving into traditional Animist and Christian areas. We are now minorities and have to ask permission for everything. People will not rent houses to us when they find out we are not Muslim, we have to pay more in the market for food ... but God has called us there to preach the Gospel and plant churches.” As you might imagine, Liberian churches cannot afford to send and support missionaries, so these men support themselves by making soap.
Their biggest challenge in church planting is that if people become Christians, they will be kicked out of the community and lose their jobs. “So,” Wilmont said nonchalantly, “when we had a family come to Christ, we gave them our soap business so they could eat, and we started another one.” That’s right, they gave away their own means of support so that new believers could feed themselves. No whining, just joy that God was adding to the Church.
I was incredibly humbled to have them in my class and came away deeply impressed by the students, our national partner, and their network of churches. Thank you for partnering with me to serve our brothers in Liberia. I believe God is going to do great things in this school over the next three years. Join me in praying for these pastors, won’t you?
