Odds, Bobs and Musings

Free Background / Wallpaper for your computer

2011-12-12T20:46:00.001Z

Here are a few pictures of Loron Christians in Ivory Coast.

The images below are 1280x 800 resolution. If you would like a different resolution, send me a note (briggsntm@gmail.com) and I'll get back to you.

Click on image to get to the full-sized picture (it doesn't appear as the full size, but it downloads the full version), then right-click and select 'save image as'.

Once you have downloaded the image to your computer, right-click again the image and select 'Set as Desktop Background'.

If you have any problems downloading the pictures, let me know and I'll email them to you.

Gorée Island Revisited

2011-11-06T12:11:00.006Z

Marinaand I visited the island of Gorée yesterday.It is located just off the coast of Senegal and was used as a staging post totransport around 70,000 West Africans into a life of slavery in theAmericas. For a summary of some little-known facts about the slave trade,click here.

Click on picture for larger image

Point of No Return

Loron Church Leaders Appointed

2011-10-24T16:29:00.000+01:00

Representatives from most of the Loron churches in Ivory Coast gathered last Saturday in Gogo to participate in the appointment of three new church leaders. Joel, Donald and Moses became the first elders and pastors of the Loron church.

Two of NTM's leaders in Africa, Danny Germann and Dan Rabe,
came to Ivory Coast to take part in this important event for the Loron church.

Eli preached an encouraging message during the morning meeting.
His son, Daouda, translated into French.

A section of the attentive audience

Moses, Donald and Joel

Loron Church Leaders

2011-10-08T22:37:00.001+01:00

At the end of this month we are planning to appoint three Loron men as elders and pastors in the Loron church. We praise the Lord for the leadership, vision and faithfulness that each of these men has shown over many years as they have been involved in teaching and encouraging the Loron believers. We would ask you to pray for Joel, Donald and Moses as they take on the responsibility of nurturing and shepherding the Christian community among the Loron people.

Donald

When Donald was a child he lived for a time in the same village as the NTM missionaries. However his family moved to another village a full day’s walk away, and it was many years before he had an opportunity to hear the Gospel. When he eventually did, he responded with enthusiasm to God’s love and trusted Christ as his Saviour. In his late teens he taught himself how to read and later became involved in helping to teach literacy to others. He had a desire to take formal Bible training and recently completed a two-year course at Bible school. He got married in April.

Joel

Joel was a teenager when NTM missionaries first arrived in his village. That was over 25 years ago. He was one of the first people to respond positively to the Gospel and has been a faithful believer and Bible teacher, and also a hard-working member of his community, over many years. Like most Loron adults he never had the opportunity of an education, nevertheless, he learned how to read and write and eventually became the Loron literacy coordinator, supervising dozens of literacy teachers in 10 villages. Over the past twenty years he helped to bring the Gospel to a number of other Loron villages, where there are now thriving groups of believers. He is married with six children.

Moses

Moses became a believer in the early 90’s. He was around 25 years old. His father was the first Christian in their village, but it was Moses who learned how to read and who began to take an active interest in teaching God’s Word and caring for the believers. He lives in an area where there are not many believers, but he has faithfully taught in the local fellowship, has taught many to read and write and is highly respected in the community.

Donald baptising believers, Oct 2010

Joel going to preach in a village in the bush

50 Missionary Maxims

2011-08-07T20:04:00.001+01:00

1: – "The gospel is good news only if it gets there in time!"

2: – "We talk of the Second Coming, but half the world has never even heard of the first!" -- Oswald J. Smith

3: – "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him." -- C.T. Studd

4: – "The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed!" -- Hudson Taylor

5: – "I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light." -- John Keith Falconer

6: – "It is as necessary for people to hear the gospel as it was for Jesus to die."

7: – "This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth!" -- Keith Green

8: – "The mark of greatness in a church is not how many it seats but how many it sends!"

9: –"If God calls you to be a missionary, don't stoop to be a king!" -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

10: – Is it fair that some people should hear the gospel twice before everyone has heard it once?

11: – "In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been." -- Robert Moffat, missionary to Africa (villages like these still exist today!)

12: – "God uses men (and women) who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him." -- Hudson Taylor

13: – "While vast continents still lie shrouded in darkness ... the burden of proof rests on you to show that the circumstances in which God has placed you were meant by Him to keep you off the foreign field." -- Keith Falconer

14: – "Sympathy is no substitute for action." -- David Livingstone

15: – "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God" -- William Carey

16: – "The supreme task of the church is the evangelization of the world." -- Oswald J Smith

17: – "If a commission by an earthly king is considered an honour, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?" -- David Livingstone

18: – "Believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story." -- K.P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia

19: – "I believe that in each generation God has called enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth. It is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond!" -- Isobel Kuhn, missionary to China and Thailand

20: – "People who don't believe in missions have not read the New Testament. Right from the beginning Jesus said the field is the world." -- J. Howard Edington

21: – "Let my heart be broken with the things that break God's heart" -- Bob Pierce

22: – "If God's love is for anybody anywhere, then it's for everybody everywhere." -- Edward Lawlor

23: – "If you take missions out of the Bible, you won't have anything left but the covers" -- Nina Gunter

24: – Don't say, No! when God says, Go!

25: – "Our God of Grace often gives us a second chance, but there is no second chance to harvest a ripe crop." -- Kurt von Schleicher

26: – "The reason some folks don't believe in missions is that the brand of religion they have isn't worth propagating." -- unknown

27: – "Christ wants not nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible." -- C.T. Studd

28: – "If the Great Commission is true, then our plans are not too big; they are too small."

29: – Is Christ’s final command our first concern? (Check out: Matt 28.18-20; Mark 16.15; Luke 24.47; John 20.21, Acts 1.8)

30: – "Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love" -- Roland Allen

31: – "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply" -- Hudson Taylor

32: – "Missions is not the 'ministry of choice' for a few hyperactive Christians in the church. Missions is the purpose of the church." -- Unknown

33: – "The church’s goal has not been reached -- until

the unreached have been reached! "

34: – "Any church that is not seriously involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission has forfeited its biblical right to exist." -- Oswald J. Smith

35: – "Missions; not an option, but an absolute."

36: – "We are debtors to every man to give him the gospel in the same measure in which we have received it" -- P.F. Bresee

37: – "Only as the church fulfills her missionary obligation does she justify her existence." -- Unknown

38: – "God had only one Son and He made that Son a missionary." -- David Livingstone

39: – "God isn't looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him" -- Hudson Taylor

40: – "Lost people matter to God, and so they must matter to us." -- Keith Wright

41: – "All the world; every creature; every nation; to the uttermost parts of the earth; to the regions beyond; where Christ has not been named"

42: – " The mission of the church is missions" -- Oswald J. Smith

43: – "He was not willing that any should perish"

44: – If we found a cure for cancer, would we not tell others about it? Why then do we not tell others about the cure for sin and death?

45: – "Millions dying there have never heard—and millions there have never cared!"

46: – "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose" -- Jim Elliot, missionary to the Auca Indians

47: – "You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving." -- Amy Carmichael, missionary to India

48: – "The Bible is not the basis of missions; missions is the basis of the Bible" -- Ralph Winter

49: – "'Not called!' did you say?
'Not heard the call,' I think you should say.
Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face -- whose mercy you have professed to obey -- and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world. " -- William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

50: – "Is Christ’s final command our first concern?"

Kyle and Jennifer's Wedding in Shetland

2011-06-22T20:58:00.004+01:00

Our son, Kyle, and Jennifer were married in Shetland on June 15. They went to Cyprus for their honeymoon. Here are a few photos of a very special time. (click photo for larger image)

Southern tip of Mainland, Shetland

The Happy Couple

Cliffs of Eshaness, northwest Shetland

Seth and Caleb

Tombolo at St Ninian's Isle

Sumburgh Airport

Laura, Leanne and Marina

Lerwick, looking up to the town hall on the hill

Viking ship in Lerwick Harbour

Bible Teachers' Seminar

2011-05-05T00:26:00.000+01:00

Last weekend we held a special seminar in Gogo, Ivory Coast. We were focusing on training Loron Bible teachers how to evangelise by teaching chronologically through the Bible, i.e. starting in Genesis, and going right through to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

For the past couple of months Marina has been working hard on revising, formatting and printing sets of the 85 chronological Bible lessons that we have developed for the Loron teachers. She photocopied well over 900 lessons making up elevens sets in all.

Pray for these Bible teachers as they return home with these teaching materials, and as they endeavour to present a clear message of the Gospel to their communities, surrounding villages and other ethnic groups in the region.

Altogether, twenty one Bible teachers from eight Loron churches participated in the training.

Waken Up You Sleepy Christian!

2011-03-21T21:42:00.000Z

Waken up, you sleepy Christian!

Wedding in Boba

2011-03-21T21:17:00.002Z

Marina and I attended a Loron wedding in Ivory Coast over the weekend. Donald Pale, a young Loron believer who is training to be a pastor, and Marcel, the daughter of Hovare, one of the first Loron believers, were married in a little village called Boba just a few miles from Gogo. It's the first time we have ever seen a white wedding dress being used in a Loron wedding!

Click on pictures for larger image

There is joy...

2011-03-04T22:27:00.008Z

… there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

Lu 15:10

Almost three years ago we distributed several hundred little solar-powered radios among the Loron people living in the rolling hills of southwest Burkina. Since 2008 we have heard sporadic reports of small groups of Loron folks listening to the chronological Bible lessons, recorded in their own language, that were being broadcast by the local radio station, but we were not aware of any one in particular who wanted to hear more about the gospel.

Last Saturday, Marina and I made a special trip into the region to visit three of the villages where we knew people had been listening to the evangelistic Bible lessons on the radio. We arranged for one of the Loron Bible teachers, Joel, to come from Ivory Coast to accompany us to help ‘spy out the land’, looking for openings to begin face-to-face Bible teaching or maybe even to start literacy classes.

We visited the large Loron village of Nyolka - which means ‘Thirsty Place’ - but we were a little disappointed with the response of most of the people there. The chief of the village was quite abrupt with us, which was very unusual for a Loron village leader, and he didn’t really want to spend any time talking with us. The others in the village were clearly intimidated by him. We did, however, get some requests from a few of the young adults for more radios.

The second village was a lot more encouraging. The people in Lata seemed to be a lot more open to hearing more of the Bible teaching and were also interested in the possibility of starting literacy classes. They are going to meet together and arrange another time for us to visit them again with the goal of setting up regular visits.

At the third village, located right down near the border of Ivory Coast, we went to talk with a young semi-educated Loron man who had shown some interest in learning how to teach literacy. As it turned out, he told us that he is a travelling salesman and that he wouldn’t have the time to spend teaching others through the literacy course. As we chatted with him and the other folks in the village, we got talking to a lady who told us that she had become a Christian after hearing the gospel on the little radio we had given to her. Praise the Lord! She has been crossing the border into Ivory Coast to attend a little church there. She brings her children with her. She said that it had been very difficult for her as she is the only Christian in the village. Please pray for Mariam.

25 Years Ago Today

2011-01-28T12:22:00.003Z

On 28 January 1986, just off the east coast of Florida, the space shuttle, Challenger, disintegrated seventy three seconds after take off, resulting in the deaths of the seven crew-members.

At that moment, we were on an Egypt Air Boeing 737 somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea on our way to Ivory Coast for the first time.

During 1985 there had been a string of airplane hijackings, and about eight weeks before our flight was due to leave for Ivory Coast, an Egypt Air jet was hijacked, and most of the passengers had been killed in a botched rescue attempt in Malta. Although a little anxious, we, nevertheless, decided to go ahead with our flight through Egypt. Although it had doubled our journey time, we had chosen to fly with Egypt Air because some missionaries had recommended it to us as the cheapest way to get to Ivory Coast.

We were travelling with three small children, including Kyle, who was only six months old, but the all-male crews on our Egypt Air flights were very helpful. After a long trip from London, we landed in Cairo just after dark. We carefully descended the airplane steps with the children and in the dim light of the airport apron the first person that we saw on the ground was an Egyptian soldier wearing what appeared to be a Second World War steel helmet. He was holding a Lee-Enfield rifle close to his chest and he looked like he had not shaved for a week.

Peter (6), Kyle (9 months), Laura (4) in Morofe, Yamoussoukro, early 1986

We followed the other passengers into a large, noisy reception hall and we immediately began to experience some of the things that make travelling in Africa so interesting, or frustrating, depending on your attitude. After spending a long time retrieving our suitcases, we discovered that the hotel room and meals that we been promised were non-existent. The airline had no helpdesk in the Arrivals lounge, so we asked around to see if there was a place we could spend the night. We were eventually shown into a tiny room at the far end of the terminal that had two small, bumpy single beds, one of them having a thin mattress on a wooden box. Peter remembers it like he was sleeping on top of a coffin. There was a single light bulb hanging on a twisted wire from the ceiling. Having slept for only a couple of hours the previous night, we were all exhausted, so we made the best of our situation, and, in spite of our spartan accommodation, we had a surprisingly good night’s sleep.

The following morning we went to the airport restaurant for breakfast. The prices were displayed in Egyptian Pounds, so we had no idea what the prices were in Sterling. We asked if they took British pounds, and the person behind the counter nodded, and with a big smile, said, “Oh, yes”. At least, I think that is what he said, because he spoke in Arabic, and at that time, I did not know a word of it! We selected a few basic items of food, just to keep the hunger away. When we got our bill was, it was obvious we had been well and truly ripped off.

We had to sit in the departure terminal for a couple of hours until we could check in our baggage. There were dozens of cats roaming around the terminal, licking crumbs from beneath the tables in the restaurant and searching for food in overflowing rubbish bins. Apparently, in ancient Egypt, cats were sacred. They may still be considered so in Cairo airport. Around noon we finally boarded our next plane and took off from Cairo on the second leg of our journey to Ivory Coast.

Our flight was scheduled to make two short stops in Nigeria before going on to Ivory Coast, so we settled ourselves for the long trip ahead. We flew low over the pyramids, and, apparently to avoid Libyan airspace, we followed the River Nile for a couple of hundred miles south, and then headed west. It was fascinating to see the irrigated fields along both sides of the Nile, but just a mile or so from the water’s edge it quickly became barren and soon there was nothing but sand and desert as far as the eye could see.

The Plateau, Abidjan

We had a very comfortable trip to our first stop in Nigeria, the northern city of Kano. After disembarking a few passengers and gaining a few more who were going to the next stop in Lagos, an announcement came over the loudspeaker system. We were informed, in Arabic and broken English, that there was a problem with the hydraulic system in the wings of the aircraft, and they were not quite sure if it could be fixed. After sitting for over three hours in the hot African sun, the inside of the airplane became extremely uncomfortable, but eventually the fault was repaired, and we were able to continue our journey towards Lagos and, as we were hoping, to Abidjan in Ivory Coast.

However, another problem arose. Someone informed the airport authorities in Ivory Coast that our flight had been cancelled, and the missionaries who had gone to meet us at the airport were left in a quandary as what to do. After a brief stop in Lagos in southern Nigeria, and a change of crew, we took off again and finally arrived at Abidjan airport in Ivory Coast just around midnight, several hours late. After gathering together our suitcases, we made our way through customs and then out into the main Arrivals area. As soon as we passed through the exit doors, we came upon a crowd of passengers, who were shouting and pushing and shoving, all trying to grab one of the few taxis left at the airport. We stood off to one side and waited until things quietened down a little, hoping to catch a glimpse of the missionaries who had come to meet us. The terminal soon emptied, but there was no one there to pick us up. The folks who had come for us had gone home, because they had been told that we would probably arrive the next day.

Having delivered their passengers to the city, some taxis started arriving back at the airport. With our limited French we managed to find a taxi driver who spoke a little English and who said he knew the location of the Mission Evangelique in the city. We hired two rickety taxis, and with our windows wide open, we set off into the balmy African night. As we crossed the bridge from the airport over the lagoon to the centre of Abidjan, we marvelled at the skyline, replete with fifteen and twenty-story buildings bedecked on top with huge Nissan and Coca Cola neo signs. Abidjan was a very modern city, boasting the only ice rink in West Africa.

When we arrived at our destination, we discovered that the taxis had brought us to the Mission Catholique. By this time, it was 1:30 in the morning, so we had to return to the airport, where we spent the remainder of the night in the main entrance hall. We tried to make a bed with the suitcases for the children to sleep on. One of the workers at the airport who saw our predicament took pity on us. He brought over some Johnnie Walker Whiskey cardboard boxes and laid them out flat so that the children could sleep more comfortably. Marina and I did not sleep very well that night!

The next morning, with the help of some WEC missionaries, we were able to make contact with our mission guest home. Raymond and Marie Parker, NTM missionaries working in Abidjan, immediately came to rescue us. They were horrified that we had spent the night at the airport, and were very apologetic, but it was not their fault in the least. We spent a couple of very relaxing days with them at the mission guest house, and they showed us some of the many interesting sights in Abidjan.

We registered at the British Embassy, and then we travelled 150 miles north by bus to Yamoussoukro, the capital of Ivory Coast where the New Tribes Mission headquarters was located, to begin a year-long French course and orientation to West African culture.

Christmas and New Year in NI

2011-01-23T15:50:00.001Z

We just had a few very enjoyable weeks with family and friends in the UK. We spent most of the time in Northern Ireland, but we also got to spend several days with Kyle and Leanne in Edinburgh, Scotland. We returned to Burkina last Wednesday.

Click on picture for larger image

Stephanie, Seth, Caleb and Rebecca

Seth wasn't quite sure what to make of the snowman!

River Bann, Gilford

Stephanie and Rebecca

Leanne and Caleb

Visiting Loron Churches

2011-01-03T00:22:00.001Z

During 2010, Marina and I had the privilege to witness first-hand what the Lord is doing among the Loron people in northern Ivory Coast. There are nine groups of Loron Christians meeting together regularly for worship, Bible teaching and fellowship. Here are a few photographs of the various meeting places and groups of Loron believers.

Disputed Election Results in Ivory Coast

2010-12-10T14:33:00.003Z

The red/pink regions on the map voted for Ouattara; the blue for Gbagbo

The result of the recent presidential election in Ivory Coast has been
disputed and political confusion reigns in the country.

The Independent Electoral Commission declared Alassane Ouattara
[watara] to be the winner of the poll with 54% of the vote. However,
the current president, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to allow most of the
votes from the northern part of Ivory Coast to be counted, claiming
intimidation, and a constitutional court subsequently overturned the
initial result and declared Gbagbo to be the winner.

The UN, EU, African Union, IMF, World Bank and numerous individual
countries have stated their support for Alassane Ouattara. The Ivorian
military is supporting, at least for the time being, Laurent Gbagbo,
so, he is still the de facto president.

Both Gbagbo and Ouattara have been sworn in as president of the
country and they each have created a government.

Please pray for a quick and peaceful resolution to the current stalemate.

Crisis in Conakry

2010-11-18T15:54:00.002Z

What an eventful trip! What started out as a regular 6-monthly, 3-day gathering of NTM’s West Africa leaders in Guinea Conakry ended up taking two full weeks of our time, culminating in a rather tense exit from the country’s capital as widespread political violence swept the city.

On our way to Guinea earlier in the month, Marina and I were held up for several days in Bamako after our flight to Conakry had been cancelled at the last minute. The final round of polling in the presidential election in Guinea was rescheduled to take place on the very day we were supposed to arrive and the authorities belatedly announced that they were closing the airport, so we had to quickly make new plans. We eventually got to Guinea three days late.

We enjoyed meeting the missionaries who work at the MK school and NTM centre and also some of the new NTM folks in Africa who are learning French and African culture. After our committee meetings finished we travelled to a village to visit the missionaries who live among the Baga Fore people. Marina had spent a week with these folks earlier this year, helping them get their literacy programme off the ground. She had really enjoyed her time with the missionaries and wanted to visit them to see how the teaching was progressing. It was a thrill to hear that the first class had completed the course just before our arrival. We had a great time with the two families and single lady as we discussed their plans for Bible translation and starting Bible teaching in the local language. The next day we left their village to return to the Guinean capital, Conakry, for our flight back to Burkina.

The four-hour trip to the capital was rather uneventful, although some of the views, especially the mountains along the road, were quite outstanding. The ‘highlight’ of the journey was when, at a security checkpoint, we were brusquely ordered out of our taxi by a young, over-zealous soldier and told to open our suitcases. I’m not sure what he was looking for, but after a thorough inspection, and satisfied that we had no contraband, we were allowed to continue on our way. For Marina and me, it was no big deal, but our taxi driver was very angry at the way we had been treated.

We wanted to avoid the street demonstrations that been taking place in various parts of the capital since the election had taken place, so we arrived at the airport about 5 hours before our flight was scheduled to leave. We found a couple of seats in the corner of a large, rather dull waiting room on the ground floor and settled ourselves for a long wait.

After about two hours a police officer came over to us and told us that our flight had been cancelled. We were incredulous and wondered what we were going to do. Due to the political tensions in the country we have no missionaries living in Conakry, and we didn’t know where we could go to spend night, so we contacted Idrissa, a Guinean man who helps our missionaries with business in the city. He said that he would come to the airport to get us and help us to find somewhere to stay. We eventually got a room at an Assemblies of God mission station. The French couple in charge of the guesthouse were extremely friendly and helpful. We had a comfortable night, despite several power outages during the night when the fans stopped turning and it got quite warm and sticky.

At 7am the next morning, Idrissa went to the Air Mali office to rearrange our flights. He was first in line and was able to get us seats on a flight apparently going out that afternoon. However, events were taking a nasty turn in the city. Counting of votes from the November 7th poll had been going on for eight days and activists from one of the parties claimed that massive fraud was taking place. They were becoming increasingly angry and frustrated. Just before noon they started to block roads and burn tyres. We were supposed to leave for the airport at 2pm.

The French missionaries at the guesthouse had invited us to their home for lunch. As we sat chatting, we heard a burst of automatic gunfire and then sporadic gunfire echo around the city. Things were getting serious. The French embassy contacted its citizens and told them to remain where they were, including children at a French school.

We phoned Idrissa to try to find out what was happening and he assured us that despite the violence – two people had reportedly been shot dead and many wounded - he would still be able to get us to the airport by avoiding the trouble spots. We assured our French hosts that we would be fine and said that we from Northern Ireland and had some experience with this sort of thing. Nevertheless, we were beginning to wonder if, indeed, we were going to be able to get our flight out of the country.

Idrissa turned up for us a few minutes earlier than planned. We quickly loaded our bags and started our journey through the city to the airport located on the southern end of the Conakry peninsula. The roads, which had been bustling with people and traffic the previous day, were eerily deserted, apart from a few desperate taxi drivers looking for a fare. Idrissa raced along roads and through districts that he knew to be calm, avoiding areas of the city that had seen the worst of the violence. At one junction he showed us a spot where, earlier in the day when he had been going to get our tickets changed, he had seen a man being severely beaten. The whole thing seemed rather surreal.

Thankfully, we soon arrived, without incident, at the airport. We were first in line. Slowly others trickled in from various parts of the city. It was not long until we were all sitting in a beautiful new elevated departure lounge looking out on blue skies and an empty runway. The peace and calm of the air conditioned lounge was in sharp contrast to the heated tempers and high humidity of the rest of the city. We were still not sure for certain that we were going to get out of the city, so it was a relief to see the 50-seater Air Mali Bombardier plane arrive at the airport. The check-in staff promptly set up their stall and the passengers were smoothly and efficiently processed, and we were soon belted in to our seats ready for take-off. Thirty minutes ahead of schedule, the high-pitched engines roared into life and the wheels speedily and gently lifted off the tarmac.

One hour and fifteen minutes later we touched down at Bamako airport in Mali, just in time to get checked in on a connecting flight back to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.

Meanwhile, back in Conakry, Idrissa was trying to make his way back home from the airport. Unfortunately, he got caught up in a mob and his car was slightly damaged as he tried to get away. He was able to get to a friend’s house where he parked his vehicle in the courtyard. He remained there until the trouble had passed, and was able to return home later in the evening.

Our connection flight from Bamako to Ouaga was delayed for several hours because they had to replace the plane we were supposed to take, but, eventually, just before 2am, we pulled up in a taxi at the SIM guesthouse in Ouagadougou.

We thank the Lord for His grace and protection. We would ask you to continue to pray for the country of Guinea, and also for the missionaries who live there as they endeavour to bring the light of the Gospel to the unreached people groups in that country.

Ivory Coast Election Results

2010-11-06T21:15:00.005Z

Long-awaited presidential elections took place in Ivory Coast last Sunday (October 31).

None of the 14 candidates received over 50% of the vote, so another poll will take place on November 21 between the two candidates who got the most votes in the first round: Laurent Gbagbo, the current president; and Alassane Ouattara, a former prime minister of Ivory Coast.

Over the next couple of weeks the two candidates will be vying for the votes that the third placed candidate, Henri Bedie, received.

We are praying that the second round will be as peaceful as the first; that stability will return to Ivory Coast; and, as a result, normal missionary activity will resume among the many unreached tribal groups in the country.

IT Workshop in Gogo

2010-10-23T17:39:00.001+01:00

Can you believe it? Last week we had our first computer training course in Gogo!

Five literate Loron men and women learned some basic computer skills, working mostly in Word. We were able to rustle up a number of second-hand laptops and we borrowed a small generator and power regulator from the village, and, hey presto, we had afternoon classes up and running.

At the same time we had a week-long seminar for new literacy teachers from a number of nearby Loron villages, and Marina also introduced a new numeracy course to some who had completed the reading course. We had a very tiring but profitable week.

We have now returned to Burkina to wait for the elections results in Ivory Coast at the end of the month. Pray for free and fair elections on October 31.

Loron Bible teacher, Donald, with his new motor cycle

Benoir with his pet monkey

October Events

2010-10-13T23:50:00.000+01:00

Amazing cloud formations at the end of rainy season

4 miles through tall grass on a narrow, bumpy track on the road from Gogo to Boba

Hovare Elijah giving a word of exhortation as Kyle is baptised

Kyle was baptised on Sunday along with 20 new Loron believers

Kyle, Leanne and Jennifer (Kyle’s fiancée) painted the school in Gogo as part of the aid4gogo project http://aid4gogo.blogspot.com. They also presented a new ball to the students.

Back to Burkina

2010-08-18T15:18:00.001+01:00

Marina got back safely on Monday from her trip to Mozambique. She spent a week with NTM missionaries who are working with the Moniga people, helping them to get their literacy programme off the ground. Pray for the team there as they prepare to start teaching the Word of God to the Moniga people at the end of the year.

While Marina was in southern Africa I spent time with family members here in Northern Ireland. During that time we went to see the RAF Red Arrows display team. It was a excellent show. Watch video highlights that I took of the show here: (85 seconds), longer version: (5mins)

After a slight hold up because of the possibility of airport strike action in the UK, we were able to book our flights yesterday to return to Burkina Faso next week. All being well we will be returning to BF on Friday, August 27 to continue with the work among the Loron people. We have a full programme planned for the next several months including a Bible conference for the Loron believers and a literacy training seminar for new teachers.

We appreciate your interest in the work among the Loron people. Thank you for your prayers and support as we continue to 'declare His glory among the heathen, His wonders among all people',

Paul and Marina

Marina in Mozambique

2010-08-16T16:03:00.001+01:00

Marina got back this morning from her trip to Mozambique. She has been travelling for three days, including an over-nighter from Johannesburg, so she is quite tired. She went there to help the New Tribes missionary team working among the Moniga people to start their literacy programme.

click photos for larger image

Trip to eastern Senegal in June/July

2010-07-29T00:21:00.013+01:00

Click picture for full-size image

Coming into Bamako, Mali on the way from Burkina to Senegal

Interesting views along the way

Storm racing towards us

Travelling companions from Senegal, Guinea, Mozambique and Australia

One of the scores of mosques that we saw on the 10-hour trip to eastern Senegal

Chantal Pilon from Quebec who works among the Konyagi people of Senegal and Guinea

Bonere, a Konyagi church leader

Car wash and laundry in the River Gambia

The flies are free!

A bean sandwich for breakfast - it was actually quick tasty, and spicy!

Chatting with Ron Abram who works among the Budik people

Part of a Budik village

Children's workers seminar

2010-06-09T13:58:00.003+01:00

Loron Children's worker seminar, June 2010 (Mina is 2nd lady from the right)

15 Loron Christians from 4 different villages attended the children’s worker training seminar in northern Ivory Coast at the weekend. Mina Savou, a WEC missionary from Fiji taught the course.

Only four of the Loron folks had previous Bible teaching experience, but we had a great time learning together how to effectively communicate with children. During the classes we witnessed some very gifted Loron believers in action for the first time and praise the Lord for the potential for the future.

Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray for the Loron children.

Loron Children

2010-06-03T14:39:00.007+01:00

Ivory Coast - Liberia - Guinea trip

2010-05-08T21:14:00.011+01:00

Welcome to Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Baga Fore Literacy class in Guinea

On March 31, Marina left Burkina Faso and travelled via Mali to Guinea Conakry. She had an 8-hour layover in Bamako airport on the way there. David and Rachel Burke, missionaries from Northern Ireland who work among the Baga Fore people, met Marina at the airport and brought her to their village.

Marina was introduced to the villagers outside the mosque after Friday prayers and that evening the ladies from the village performed a welcome dance for her.

She was thrilled with the progress that the team had made in preparing their literacy materials and how things had been organised with the villagers for the start of the teaching programme. The village had picked a group of students to form the first Baga Fore literacy class. After taking a couple of days to finalise the literacy materials with the members of the Baga Fore team, on Monday, April 4, a new literacy school was started for the villagers.

Pray for Gene and Judy Bacon as they head up the literacy campaign in preparation for evangelism and church planting.

The same day that literacy classes were starting in Guinea I met up with NTM missionary, Dan Rabe, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Dan’s parents were among the first New Tribes missionaries to come to Africa in the 1950’s and Dan is now the chairman of the new NTM leadership team in West Africa. From Abidjan we travelled to the town of Tabou in the extreme southwest corner of Ivory Coast.

There we spent the night with Pastor Anatol and his wife. The pastor was excited to discover that I was from the same country as a missionary, William Brown who works with UFM, that he had met last year.

Canoeing on the Cavally

On Tuesday morning we travelled with Lesley Wolfe, an NTM missionary who has been working among the Glaro people for many years, in her Toyota 4x4 pickup to a little village near the Cavally river which forms the border between Ivory Coast and Liberia. Lesley is working on Bible translation in the Glaro language and has been making steady progress. This summer she will be getting some more translation checked in preparation for publication.

After greeting the village chief we asked him if we could leave Lesley’s pickup at his house while we crossed the river and spent a couple of days on the Liberian side of the river. Permission granted, we said our goodbyes and walked the several hundred yards to the water’s edge where we crossed the wide but gently-flowing Cavally river in a dugout canoe.

The Ivory Coast side of the river is highly cultivated with huge plantations of coffee, cocoa, palm and rubber trees, but when we stepped off the canoe on the Liberian side and climbed the steep sandy slope to the tree line, we came to the edge of a virtual rainforest.

After just a short distance we came to the first Glaro village. Most of the folks were away working in their fields but those remaining greeted us and led us to a small grass shelter where we explained who we were and the purpose of our visit.

The Kola Nut

We then participated in the first of many kola ceremonies that took place in the various Glaro villages and homes that we visited over the next twenty hours or so. These ceremonies indicated acceptance by our host of our presence and friendship. The kola is a rather bitter nut, native to the rainforests of Africa, which was served to us in small pieces in a bowl along with a separate bowl of hot spice and some drinking water. I enjoy eating spicy food but I’ve never eaten anything quite as hot as what was offered at each of these village stops. However, I quickly mastered a technique of taking as small a pinch of spice as possible and quickly flushing it down with a good gulp of water. Invariably, though, my lips and mouth would still sting for quite a while after.

When we had completed the kola ceremony a small child entered the shelter with a large bucket laden with bananas and oranges to refresh us for the journey ahead. Once everyone had eaten to their satisfaction we asked permission to leave, and we were soon on our way.

We set out along a narrow but well-worn track covered with tree roots, small rocks and vines. Mawly, a Glaro man who had already walked for several hours from Liberia to the Cavally river to meet us, took the lead along the twisty track. When we had started our trip he had asked me if he could put a bag of cooking cubes that he had just bought for his wife in my backpack. I had gladly agreed but he then insisted on carrying my backpack for me as he reached me his machete.

As we walked, we crossed a number of small streams and water holes, although, as rainy season has yet to start in earnest, there was a lot less water that I had expected. We passed through several thick bamboo growths and heard a lot of birds, but we didn’t see any animals.

Hot and Sticky

After about four hours of steady walking, with a couple of short stops in between to greet some villagers, we arrived at another large river, the Doube.

Everyone, including Mawly, our guide, was perspiring profusely. My teeshirt and jeans were saturated and sticking to my body. A young Glaro boy brought a canoe from the far bank and after a couple of trips we were all safely on the other side. I hadn’t realised that we had actually arrived at our destination so it was a pleasant surprise when we reached the top of the hill and I heard someone say: We’re here!

As we entered the village, people came out of their tidy-looking mud and wattle houses to eagerly greet us. I quickly learned to say: Ao, nateera, the appropriate response to their greeting. We passed by a number of well-spaced homesteads through the east side of the village and arrived shortly at our hosts. Dan and I stayed with Alfred and his family and Lesley stayed at the home of Bligh, one of the other main men in the village. They offered us each a double bed complete with mosquito nets – another unexpected but welcome surprise.

Their greeting and hospitality was quite overwhelming. After walking for several hours seeing nothing more than a curtain of, at least, forty shades of green and the occasional glimpse of blue sky, with a thin brown thread of a track weaving its way over rocks and around trees a few yards before us, here we now were in a large clearing in the middle of the Liberian jungle being treated royally and being given the best that could be offered. It was a very humbling experience.

The purpose of our trip was to ask permission from the village elders to send a new missionary family to their village. The work among the Glaro people had started over twenty years previously in Liberia, but missionaries had to leave there because of a long war in the 1990’s. Then the war in Ivory Coast, which started in 2002, had forced the missionaries from another Glaro village, so the work has been very slow and difficult. So we arranged to meet the village leaders first thing the following morning.

For breakfast we had another hearty meal of rice and sauce. In previous meals we had chicken sauce or fish sauce with big chunks of meat, but this morning we had a choice: fish sauce or toucan. I tried the toucan. The spices camouflaged some of the taste but it seemed to be pretty much like chicken. A short time later, when the elders had gathered in a large leaf-covered structure we were summoned to meet with them. After the formal greetings and kola ceremony we presented our request.

Permission Granted?

As soon as we said that we would like permission to send missionaries back to their village, the ladies started to sing and clap and dance. One of the elders, the spokesman for the group, expressed agreement with the suggestion saying that his loud voice was not because he was angry but because he was very happy. The lady song leader came up close to us, with a chorus of other ladies in tow, and sang something specifically to each of us in Glaro. I have no idea what she was singing, but it was obvious that everyone was quite excited about the prospect of having missionaries living among them.

We also asked if the village could provide temporary housing for the new missionary family. We were assured that that would be taken care of. After a few more formalities we asked permission to leave as we had a long walk before us back through the forest.

On the return trip, Lesley led the way. She set a brisk pace, and, on some of the steeper parts of the path, it took quite an effort to keep up with her. We made the obligatory stops at a couple of small villages along the way, but we nevertheless shaved quite a bit off our walking time.

When we got back into Ivory Coast we made our way to the village where the new missionary family is currently living and learning some basic Glaro. It was my first time meeting Aaron and Amy Speitelsbach. Aaron is from Germany and Amy is from Tennessee in the US.

Please pray for this young couple as they prepare to move to their new Glaro village in Liberia in the next couple of months.

Burkina Update

2010-02-06T15:01:00.003Z

We have had only sporadic access to the internet since arriving in Gaoua, Burkina Faso, but a lot has happened in the past three weeks or so. We are now back in the capital, Ouagadougou, for a couple of days, so it’s good to catch up on emails and news.

On January 19, just 24 hours after we arrived in Gaoua, we found a very suitable house to rent. It has enough space for an office and also a printing room. We are currently brushing it out (it hasn’t been lived in since it was built four years ago), washing floors, getting it painted and putting screens on the windows to keep out the mosquitoes. We are also unpacking our furniture and the office equipment that we had stored while we were in Northern Ireland. Some of it was very dusty, but almost everything was in good condition. The WEC missionaries in Gaoua have kindly allowed us to use one of their houses until we sort out our own place.

We were given a very touching welcome when we attended church in Gogo, Ivory Coast on January 24. Normally we had to either make a long detour in our pickup truck around the village in order to get to the church from our village home or else negotiate a series of deep ruts and a maze of tall grass. But this time the young Christians in Gogo spent the day before we arrived cutting down the elephant grass and preparing a direct route for us to take to church. We really appreciated their willingness to spend hours working in the hot African sun just to facilitate our arrival. We had a great time with the believers after almost two years apart from them. The work among the Loron continues to grow with new groups of Christians meeting in the villages of Gbarke and Goroko, places that we have never even visited. The Lord continues to build His church among the Loron people.

We spent only one night in the village that first weekend before returning to Burkina Faso. We weren’t sure what condition our village house would be in. The following weekend we returned to Ivory Coast and spent three more days visiting other Loron churches and literacy classes in the region. It was thrilling to see progress among the Loron believers and Marina was very encouraged with the students who have successfully completed the literacy course.

We are planning to spend a few more days next weekend visiting more village churches. Thank you for praying for us as we travel.

Later this month I am planning to travel to Senegal to attend NTM leadership meetings. As a new leadership team we will be discussing how we can help the existing NTM tribal missionaries in West Africa. We will also be looking to the Lord for guidance as we expand into unreached territory. There are scores, possibly hundreds of ethnic groups in the region who have never once had an opportunity to hear the gospel in their own language. Pray that the Lord will give us a clear vision of the task ahead and that many more missionaries will be raised up to bring the light to ‘the regions beyond’ between the Atlantic and the Sahara.

Missionary Videos

2010-01-06T09:15:00.002Z

About eight months ago I uploaded a variety of missionary videos to YouTube and several Christian video websites. I recently counted how many times the videos had been viewed and I was amazed to discover that they had received over 15,000 hits!

If you haven't checked the videos out yet, click the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/user/paulbriggsy

Is it fair?

2010-01-05T00:17:00.006Z

I don't think we ever uploaded an article that was written by Noel Davidson about the Loron work. It was published in the LifeTimes magazine here in Northern Ireland in 2009.

___________________________

IS IT REALLY FAIR?

‘Is it fair that some people should have heard the Gospel twice when others have never even heard it once?’

When Paul Briggs read these words in a book of missionary challenge* they struck a chord in his heart. He and his wife Marina had become increasingly convinced over a period of two years that they ought to be giving their lives to serving the Lord in a full-time capacity. This pointed question added a new impetus to their thinking.

‘Wouldn’t it be a tremendous thrill and privilege to explain the Gospel to people who had never heard it before?’ they reasoned.

Paul and Marina were members of Bethany Free Presbyterian Church in Portadown where one of the elders had been supporting the ministry of the New Tribes Mission for many years. On observing the young couple’s patent interest in evangelism and hearing them express an interest in missionary outreach, he was quite happy to give Paul a pile of back-numbers of the Mission magazine ‘Brown Gold’ to look through.

When he and Marina had read these, and heard from others that New Tribes Mission had a Bible School in Matlock, England, they decided after much prayer and spiritual consideration to apply to study there. They were accepted and began a four year course, commencing in 1981. As part of their missionary training they spent some time at a ‘Boot Camp’ near Pittsburgh, USA, and it was there in 1983 they felt led of God to volunteer for service in Ivory Coast, West Africa.

In fulfilment of this call they arrived, with their three young children, Peter who was six, Laura who was almost four and six-month old Kyle in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast in 1986.

They had to spend a year in the capital, studying French and acclimatising to the local culture with two other families, before moving north into a village to join some missionaries working among the hitherto unreached Loron tribe.

Living in an African village, where the standard of hygiene wasn’t quite what they had been used to in Portadown, presented the new missionaries, and mum Marina in particular, with specific challenges. Their fourth child, Leanne, had been born while they were in Yamoussoukro and was now about seven months old. Marina found it hard when the African women reached out to hold and carry her baby. Marina realised she had to let it happen and handed her precious little one over into outstretched caring, but not always spotlessly clean, hands. She had come to help reach these people with the Gospel of the love of God, so how could she withhold her child from them?

A pressing priority for the newcomers to the village was to learn the Loron tribal language and this was to prove more difficult than learning French in the capital. There were no language schools in the bush and very few of the locals could read or write so Paul and Marina relied on the aid of ‘language helpers.’ Having learnt basic phrases such as ‘What is this?’ and What is he doing?’ in Loron they were able to build up a basic vocabulary by pointing, asking, listening and remembering. It was a tedious process but they were keen students who wanted to become fluent enough to communicate effectively with the villagers as soon as possible and so they learnt quickly.

In October 1987 and just six weeks after they had moved into the village, Paul was to discover very forcibly how important it was that they persist diligently with their language studies. He was trying to make sense of a chart of Loron pronouns when two men appeared at the door of the mud hut which he was using as an office.

Paul recognised one of them. His name was Chavaray and he had helped Paul and Marina settle into village life. He introduced Paul to the newcomer, Hovaray, who had, his friend maintained, an interesting story to tell.

Chavaray understood a little French and Paul understood even less Loron, but between them they were able to make Paul understand what Hovaray had to say.

The Loron man in a Muslim robe had embarked on a quest for spiritual truth and had experienced an unusual dream. Although he had spoken to many people none of them could satisfy him because they could not tell him what his dream meant. Perhaps ‘the whites’ in the village could help.

In his dream Hovaray had seen a book, with writing on the front of it, within a walled enclosure. As Hovaray talked, Paul thought, and still struggling to understand what this intense man was trying to explain, showed him his English Bible.

“No,” Hovaray said. “That’s not the book.”

Paul then had another idea. What about a French Bible? No. That wasn’t it either.

The visitor was convinced this was the right place for the wall outside to keep the village cows and goats out was exactly like what he had seen in his dream, but where was Paul to go from here? Then suddenly it dawned on him. A year or two before, Swiss translators had produced a copy of the Gospel of John in the Loron language, but as few could read, it hadn’t been much used. Reaching up Paul took one of these little booklets from a shelf and handed it to Hovaray.

There was a sudden intake of breath and then an excited cry.

“This is the book!” he exclaimed. “This is it!”

Firmly convinced that he was well on his way to discovering the truth he had been seeking, Hovaray began attending the weekly Bible studies under a large mango tree at the edge of the village. He asked pertinent questions, showed a tremendous interest in what was being taught and within several months of that first encounter with Paul had trusted the Lord Jesus Christ.

Although they had planned initially to stay just one year in the village assisting the other missionaries, Paul and Marina realised that God had a work for them to do there in helping translate the New Testament into the Loron language. They also began systematic teaching of the scriptures beginning with the creation story in Genesis 1 and leading through the Old Testament and on into the New, from which they were able to speak of the love of God and the provision of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This proved an effective mode of witness for by 1992 there were three separate groups operating in different villages with a number of the villagers being saved. When the couple were more proficient in Loron, Marina had a dual role to perform. As a mother she home-schooled their four children, and as a missionary she joined another missionary wife going through the Bible study programme with the women in the villages. From that point on, and with a number of believers growing, Paul and Marina taught them the importance of witnessing to their faith. With the motto of ‘each one reach one’ the Gospel was spread and others came to trust the Lord.

With almost all of the people being illiterate the missionary couple then recognised if the new believers were to grow in their spiritual lives they would need to be able to read the scriptures which they were helping to translate. To help address this issue Marina started literacy classes for any who wished to attend and these proved very popular with some of the younger people especially.

Paul and Marina returned to Northern Ireland in 2000 for two years to see the two older children settled in further education before returning to the Ivory Coast, and their home in the village in July 2002. They were only back in the country and had barely time to unpack and resume their normal routine before the country was ravaged by civil war. Paul, Marina and all the other foreign missionaries in the region were advised to leave everything and flee to either the neighbouring country of Burkina Faso or southwards towards the capital.

The road to Burkina Faso was blocked by the rebel forces so their evacuating convoy had no choice but to travel south. God miraculously opened the way for them to pass through all military checkpoints unhindered and unharmed but when they approached Yamoussoukro it was considered too dangerous to enter the city. Marina found this upsetting for Kyle and Leanne were at boarding school there. Her only consolation was to talk to them by phone and learn that they were also being evacuated to join the escaping party. On meeting up they returned to Northern Ireland, much to the relief of Peter and Laura who had been very concerned as they hadn’t heard from their parents for some time.

Instability of government in the northern part of Ivory Coast made it inadvisable for Paul and Marina to return to the country and so they continued working on Bible translation, literacy and Bible teaching materials in Northern Ireland. In 2006 they moved out to live in Burkina Faso and from there, and with the permission of the rebel soldiers, they made numerous cross-border trips into northern Ivory Coast.

Their first return visit to their village over the Easter weekend proved both heart-wrenching and heart-warming all at once. They were sickened to witness the state of their former home which had been looted and used as the local rebel headquarters and then a prison at various stages in the course of the war. Seeing 200 eager believers packed into the small church on Easter Sunday to welcome them back more than compensated their disappointment about the house, which they vowed to restore, little by little on later visits.

As they look back on more than 20 years working with the Loron people of Ivory Coast, Paul and Marina have much for which to praise God. They have seen 9 churches established in which around 400 Loron believers meet to worship. Twelve Bible teachers have been trained to continue the programme of evangelism and church planting in other villages. A radio ministry has been established in Burkina Faso and around 40% of the New Testament has been translated into the tribal language. Marina has worked tirelessly on the adult literacy programme and now 25 literacy teachers have been trained and they hold classes in 11 villages with a total of 200 students enrolled for courses.

This they feel, however, is only the start, merely a tiny ‘tip of the iceberg.’ Paul and Marina plan to return to Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast in 2010. There is so much more they would like to see done in the will, and with the help of God. They aim to complete the translation of the New Testament, develop the literacy programme even further and tell more people who still haven’t heard it yet, the wonderful news of the Gospel.

They will be glad to return to West Africa and continue the work into which they felt led of God more than a quarter of a century ago. Their work is making a difference to one small tribe in one small country, but the challenge that pricked their hearts can still apply to the evangelical Christian church in the present day. Around 20% of the world’s population in more than 2,300 people groups have never heard a clear presentation of the Gospel in their own language.

‘Is it fair that some people should have heard the Gospel twice when others have never even heard it once?’

‘Well, is it?’ they ask.

If the instinctive response to that challenge is ‘No,’ then we need to consider a second question which comes directly from the Heavenly Missionary Questionnaire.

It is, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’

Can any of us answer honestly, ‘Here am I! Send me?’

NOEL DAVIDSON (LifeTimes, 2009)

____________________________

* Oswald J Smith, 'The Cry of the World'

Seby

2009-11-14T23:31:00.015Z

Seby (SAY-be) was about fourteen years old when we first met him. It shortly after we went to live in the village of Gogo in the summer of 1987. He was the only Loron boy in the region to have spent more than a couple of years at school. In fact he had finished primary/elementary school and was planning to go return to secondary school at the end of the summer.

As Seby was the only Loron person in the village who could speak French as well as his native language, I asked him if he would help me as I made a start on learning the Loron language. He eagerly agreed and over the next few weeks he was a great help as we worked together on a grammar survey of his language. He was very intelligent and quickly grasped what I was looking for.

At the end of September he left the village and went back to school, sixty five miles away, but every summer he would come home and spend his school break in Gogo helping the missionaries with language study and, as we progressed, with Bible translation and developing Bible lessons and literacy materials. We taught him how to work on a computer. During one of his summer breaks, Seby became a Christian.

When he finished his education, he returned to live in the village with his new wife, Eri, a Loron believer. He built a mud house with a straw roof, just like all the other Loron folks. He planted a field, helped with Bible teaching at the church in Gogo and, when he had time, he worked with me on Bible translation.

In 2000, while we were on furlough in Northern Ireland, he was offered a job as a trainee nurse at a small Baptist clinic in Doropo, about 15 miles from Gogo. At first he was reluctant to take the job because he said that he could not stand the sight of blood, but he gave it a go anyway, and after a while began to really enjoy the work. There was no formal instruction with the job and so, in 2006, he decided that he would trust the Lord to help him take a three-year nurse’s training course at the University Teaching Hospitals in Abidjan in southern Ivory Coast, over 400 miles from where he and his family were living.

During the next three years he faced numerous trials and disappointments, including teacher strikes, sickness in his family and long spells of separation from his wife and children. But he persevered. Together with members of his own family and a Christian couple in Holland, Marina and I assisted Seby to pursue his studies. We were thrilled, in August, to learn that he had passed his final exams and was returning to northern Ivory Coast to resume working at the Baptist hospital, this time with a nursing diploma under his belt!

We heard this week that Seby came first in a class of over five hundred students. As I'm sure you can imagine, we are really chuffed about that!

Seby with his wife, Eri

Would You Go Back?

2009-11-11T19:48:00.006Z

If you had been to heathen lands

Where weary souls stretch out their hands

To plead, yet no one understands,