As the dawn breaks and the sun begins to rise, you hear a litany of calls to prayer going out f.rom the many many mosques that populate the city of Dakar. I am not sure that some see as well as others, because they are not in sync with each other. The mosques are houses of prayer where real dedicated Muslims are to pray 5 times a day. Prayer this afternoon has just started. One started their call bout 5 minutes ago. Since then 3 more have started … at various times!
Most of the dedicated, however, will only go 3 times … morning, noon and evening … every day. They carry prayer beads, as the Catholics will carry the Rosary, to pray and reflect on the names of Allah during the day. If they do this, give alms, make a trip to Mecca at least once in their life as well as other things, THEN Allah may consider their works good enough to get into paradise. God is very powerful to the Muslim, but they know very little about his grace. For Him to provide a sacrifice for us is unbelievable. It all about what they do for Allah not what God has done for us.
This has caused me to reflect upon our faith. God, our heavenly Father, sent his Son to become our sin offering, to pay the penalty for our sins. He exercised grace and mercy toward us. Yet we do not show the outward dedication of a nominal Muslim. It would be unthinkable for the follower of Mohammed to only go to the Mosque only once occasionally. Going to pray at church more than Sunday morning is almost as unthinkable to the nominal Christian as NOT going to prayers in the mosque is to the Muslim. Yet we do not fear God as does the Muslim. They would never consider him as Father, as loving, as gracious and merciful as we understand Him as believers.
God is active and we are seeing him at work. I had a conversation yesterday with the contract driver for the mission here in Dakar. He has been a taxi driver, but has had to rent his taxi each day. To rent the taxi from the owner, it will cost about $25. per day plus their fuel. They cruise the streets waiting for fares to be picked up. That will determine if they are going to make any money for the day. You can go across town for about $2. so most of their fares are less than $1 on average. So they have to pick up about 30 people just to break even. The taxis that they rent are of less value than the clunkers that were traded in at home. The driver is hoping to purchase his own vehicle. He has paid 500,000 toward a vehicle on a down payment which about half of what is needed. His comment was I hope to get my own vehicle so that I could take you to the Casamance. The cost would be about $1,200. He had a friend come to give us a ride in one of the vehicles. Bonnie was more impressed … I think because she could open and close the door by herself! And that the clutch worked so the gears did not grind when he shifted. And that the windshield was intact. The seats and their covers were all original. The windows were all up and worked. Even had air conditioning. Of course, it cost more to use that one … I do not know if it was because it was new or that he was a “friend” of Ibrahim.
The meeting this afternoon with Chris Darby of SIL (we know the agency as Wycliffe) was cut short because, I believe, he was having a kidney stone attack. They are pushing forward on the translation work for the Mandyak. Chris is the one whom Pastor Roger and I met in Sedhiou and then in Dakar on the last trip.
Be sure to look for the blog that the team will post. It should be one worth reading. She called me at lunch. She said listen to this. Larry was explaining to a lady that she could not trust her witchcraft and Jesus at the same time. It had to be one or the other. Cindy was beside herself with what is happening, what the church did to prepare for the clinic, and whom she has met again after a period of time.
Thanks for your prayers. Cindy and I will meet with Jefferson Cordiero on Wednesday morning.
Thanks for your prayers. It just so happens that the Father is doing a lot . Some dots are getting connected.
Sam
No comments:
Post a Comment