December 1, 2010
By an Alliance worker, serving in Guinea
The following is an adapted excerpt from a post-Thanksgiving report about the situation in Guinea, a West African nation in which the average individual lives on $1 a day.
This year’s Thanksgiving celebration was small for my wife and me. We had just returned to our home after a week of meetings with other Alliance staff in Guinea-during which the provisional national presidential election results were released, bringing anger and violence to the country.
Groups of drunken, drug-induced youth went on a rampage in the town where we live. More than a dozen homes were burned or ransacked, four trucks were torched, and almost all of the non-natives in the region were expelled from the area, including members of the local C&MA church who were chased out.
Additionally, a letter awaited me, asking that we vacate our computer center’s premises so local officials could house one of their members whose home was ransacked.
Tensions
Tensions remain high as we await the final election results, which should be released within the next 10 days. Many in this area have said that if the results are not reversed in favor of their candidate, they will begin a civil war. We know that reversed results will lead to even greater outrage in the country’s major cities.
In seeking to see God’s hand in all of this, we must turn to the book of Habakkuk (3:17-18). This Old Testament prophet foresaw the imminent destruction of his country, yet he prayed:
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
We want to follow Habakkuk’s lead as we seek the Lord for people who desperately need to know Him.
Prayer First
Prayer needs to be our foremost work in striving to see God’s Kingdom established in this dark corner of the globe. Our Fula (AKA, “Fulbe” or “Peul”) team is asking 1,000 people to commit to pray for this people group once a week—for their salvation and that they will become communities of Christ who will impact all of West Africa.
During the past few months we have also been preparing a series of Bible stories to present orally, so we can communicate the gospel to the more than 70 percent of people here who cannot read or write. We praise God that this preparation is coming together well. But we would ask that you pray for the final process of preparing relevant questions to highlight the spiritual truths in these Bible stories.
We also praise God that the New Testament is now ready to go to print in Arabic script—most Guineans who read and write are more comfortable doing so in this script, so this could be a major step in seeing many desiring to put their faith in Jesus. Pray that the printing process will go smoothly and that we will have these New Testaments in hand next year.
May God keep you, and may you bless and thank Him—even when times are tough.
What You Can Do
“Please continue to pray and give to the Alliance Great Commission Fund; this is how we get our support,” says our worker in Guinea. “At present, this fund is being hit hard because of economic difficulties in the United States.”