Exclusive stories from the mission field
Islamic extremist groups are a growing danger in Africa, but often the greater threat to Christians comes from Muslim relatives. In one country, a young mother who left Islam for Christ fears she and her two children will be left destitute if her husband discovers her faith.
Local missionaries in South Asia, with the region’s longstanding traditions of belief in demons and deities, are used to doing spiritual battle.
Native missionaries in a country in West Africa did not know what to expect when they went to preach to inmates at a prison they had never visited, in a town unknown to them.
They had a plan for how to proclaim Christ in a way that would most resonate with the inmates, but some things you couldn’t plan for in the Muslim-majority country.
After a more than six-hour trip, they were stunned to be greeted by a social service officer who had witnessed their preaching in the prison closer to their ministry base.
While conflicts between Muslims and Christians do break out from time to time, relations between the two groups in a north-central African country have historically been tolerant and cooperative.
So when a fervent Muslim who fanatically tried to convert Christians to Islam was offered an opportunity to translate the Bible, it seemed to him a task well suited to his education and abilities.
He welcomed the opportunity to mingle and discuss Scripture with prospective converts to Islam.
A native missionary who pastors a new church recently led an evangelistic outreach in an undisclosed village in Kenya where he met a man who appeared deeply troubled, forlorn and shunned.
He had a desperate air about him, but in time the missionary found he had charisma and an engaging laugh; why did villagers avoid him?
As they were talking one day, the man swallowed and decided to tell the pastor his secrets.
In the countries of North Africa where only a scant few have heard the gospel, Muslims are taught that Christians worship three gods including the Virgin Mary, and they routinely hear that the Bible is riddled with major textual corruptions. While the Bible alone has been known to lead some people to faith in Christ, amid the region’s miasma of misinformation a personal connection is critical; one question leads to another, and nothing short of face-to-face answers will do. Following up with those who contact their website, native missionaries travel to different regions of the country – increasingly, with results forbidden by the surrounding society.
A Muslim woman was suffering from an illness that neither witchdoctors nor medical doctors could cure: She was convinced she was surrounded by snakes. Though nominally Muslim, Rachida was raised with voodoo belief in a prominent serpent spirit.
Ben Adebayo was earning a good living cultivating human body parts from people he killed for witchdoctors who use them in potions or amulets, which in many parts of Nigeria are believed to make people invincible. “He used this to make so much money, and he became so deeply involved in killing that he destroyed more than seven girls,” a ministry leader said. With the same intent, Adebayo arranged to meet a young woman who, he was unaware, was a missionary with the locally based ministry.
Caroline’s husband didn’t come home and beat her because he was drunk; he beat her because she was drunk. In a remote, undisclosed village in Uganda where few people could read, Bwambale Nakonde* believed that if he punished his wife enough times she might stop being an alcoholic.
Mamadou was a shaman in West Africa who made amulets and charms inscribed with verses of the Koran for people trying to ward off illness and evil forces. In the peculiar blend of Islam and tribal animism practiced in some parts of Burkina Faso, a shaman can make a decent living as a traditional “healer” providing trinkets and incantations attributed with power to keep malicious spirits and other beings at bay.
