David Iannacone's Report for January 9

This installment from David is lengthy, but very worth reading... SF

Last night I got to bed at about 12:30am, but one of the SBU students that is with us was up half the night with stomach upset that finally led to a full blown up chuck episode. His name is Ryan and he seemed to be doing better today, but we left him at the missionary’s home just to give him the day to recover. Also, Sam has a bad cough that he came from home with that has gotten progressively worse. We bought him some cough medicine but it didn’t seem to be working last night. We tried another medicine with a decongestant and it seemed to be working better. I felt more like a nurse last night. But, after Ryan had his episode around 3:00am, I got about 5 ½ hours uninterrupted sleep because we were not leaving this morning until 10:00am so I could sleep in a little.

We went to the village of Bloc and met the Chief. We brought him some tea and Cola nuts as a gift. The Calvary group had been to see him back in November and he had allowed them to show the Jesus film in Mandjaku. He and his council seemed a little upset that they did not have a chance to have the movie shown to them in Mandinkan the dominant language of the village. Different tribes live in the village like Mandjaku, but mainly speak Mandinkan. The Kelly’s have been doing chronological story telling of the bible with them and will show them the movie in about 3 weeks.

After we visited the Chief, we went to the house where the people who got married while Calvary was here in November. We did some follow up and while we were talking a woman came and wanted us to go to her house to pray for her daughter Kaolioljatou who has a recurring illness. Cindy is a nurse and thinks that she has some kind of kidney disease, possibly caused by some other sickness that makes it worse. We prayed over her and an old man Mussan asked we pray for him. Then a blind woman in the household wanted us to do the same. Before we left we had prayed for healing for the people whose pictures are attached. All of them except for Malang need our prayers for healing.

Malang is a man who wants to become a Christian, but if he does, he will lose access to his Muslim family. Since the people here have very little, to lose your family is a very difficult barrier to overcome. Until the believers are discipled enough to create the environment of a new family to support the Muslim converts who become social orphans, it will become very difficult. Pray for Malang who leaves for Dakar to live and work. Pray that the Holy Spirit does a mighty work in his life and puts people into his life that can give him the sense of family and security he needs to make that big step of faith.

We also found out that the people of this village have worked the fields to the point where they don’t get much production out of the soil. They need to be able to get fertilizer and the type of seed that will produce a better harvest next rainy season, or they will have a real problem. It is hard to not just say “How much” and We’ll get”, but then they would not see how God has blessed them in a miraculous way. That has kind of been the problem. It is too easy to just give them a hand out instead of a hand up. Through the eyes of the Holy Spirit these new believers now will be able to recognize God’s blessings and show that it wasn’t just some rich Americans that brought them something…it was God who healed their land.

I left the best for last. While Cindy, Andrew and I were praying for the sick, the women with SBU were able to lead a young girl to Christ. Many others that were listening are also on the verge of a decision also. Sam has her name so check with Scott to get her name so you can begin to pray for the spiritual growth of our new sister in Christ.

I know there is more to tell but I have to stop some time. Keep the prayers going for us as well as the ones I have told you about today.

We leave for Zigiunchor tomorrow afternoon and then we leave Wednesday morning to go back to Dakar. That will pretty much put an end to this chapter, but I know there are still many more left to be written. I

God has been so good to us. I wish I could say I will never complain again about anything. But I know it is easy to get back into the old way of looking at things and complain about or be concerned by things that don’t really matter.

Blessings!
David