Wild East Stories of Prayer

The door of the big church in the regional capital.

Last week I was helping the National CHE Trainer to facilitate a CHE training for evangelists in the two regions of our country to the East of us (which have a little of the remote feel of the ‘Wild Wild East’ to me). Before the training I was a little skeptical of the pastors here, because I hadn’t heard much church activity coming out of the region where we were meeting and they were certainly the most disorganized to help us plan beforehand. My respect really grew for these people as I sat and learned with them, heard their stories, and shared some more “tools” for them to use in storytelling and health practices to share for households. It is apparent that these regions have even more deeply seated cultural identity in being Muslim and reacting against anything that is different. 

First, I was shocked to hear a story about people repeatedly coming to one pastor’s house searching for a young relative they had heard had become a Christian there. The pastor had to keep telling them that the laws of the country say someone can choose their own religion after age 18, but they told him that this is not what their religion says. The best the pastor could do was tell them he had gone off to study somewhere, as he was being hidden in another village until he got some assistance to go to one of the church’s Bible schools. One of the top prayer requests from all the pastors was for provision to feed their families, because they can’t get people to rent them fields due to their connection to the church, so they have to go far to other villages or use small plots of land no one wants. I was shocked to hear that in one community, a leader offers up a sheep and prayers every Friday in a spiritual effort to oppose any church from getting a foothold in a community. But people have come to tell the pastor that they see these efforts are useless because his church is growing and becoming more and more visible in the community all the time. 

With resistance like that, you may ask, so why even try to be here? Is it causing more energy to be wasted on hate than on positive progress for the community? Despite what people may feel about traditions or what propaganda they may want to spread, I am convinced it is important for these pastors to continue their work in this region because I believe that people’s lives are better when the church is there to help, to teach, and to share God’s love. Our prayer is that the CHE teachings will help them do so more effectively. 

Evangelists having fun learning the basic stories of CHE.

Another striking thing from my time in this area was the amazing examples of the power of prayer. One pastor spoke of being sent to a new town, but having spent all their salary on the moving costs, so they arrived with no food and no connections in town. They fasted and prayed for the first week, getting up at 2am for special prayer sessions. The beginning of the second week, a car pulled up while they were praying in the middle of the night. An unknown woman got out and gave them an envelope with the equivalent of $150, which she said was a gift. That’s more than a month’s salary and gave them a good start for getting themselves established! Another pastor told the story of his sister who hadn’t been able to have children for 15 years of marriage. She of course tried all sorts of things and traditional spiritual medicines. Then he convinced her to come to church for worship and have the congregation gather around her and pray. That year she finally had a baby! There were equal stories about finding places for children to study and providing church buildings. I find these inspiring reasons to add even more prayer for these pastors to be able make positive impacts on their communities. Glory to God!

-- El Padre