Imagine . . . Christians and Muslims gathering together to partake of a meal on Christmas day. It was a beautiful sight.
The idea was birthed during a conversation with AFM president Conrad Vine. I shared the idea with our Malinke project team, and they liked it. The idea grew from plans for a small gathering with some community leaders at our house on Christmas to a meeting attended by the entire Kangaba SDA church and 10 community leaders. True to His promise to supply the needs of His cause, the money needed to host the event came together. While ladies in the church planned the menu, we worked to prepare an invitation card.
With no Hallmark store around where we could buy a suitable invitation card, we had to make one ourselves. Enter the challenges. Although we found a template online, we encountered a problem with our printer; the control panel buttons were not functioning, and we couldn’t print the invitations. The printer is still under warranty, but Mali has no service centers for that brand. I prayed that God would help me fix it, and then I disassembled the control panel and put it back together. Praise the Lord, the buttons worked, I printed the invitations, and we delivered all 10 to community leaders across town on the Friday before Christmas.
Revelation 22:17 says, “And the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’” We needed the printer that day to extend the invitation to come. I know it was the Holy Spirit who fixed the buttons and not my tinkering; one week later, the buttons no longer worked.
Not all 10 leaders came, but other people attended and brought guests. So, our place was filled on Christmas Day.
The Quran speaks of the virgin birth of Jesus. So, I shared verses about Jesus from the Quran and the Gospel of Matthew. Attending were one of the imams and the mayor of Kangaba, who both shared a few remarks after the meal. They expressed their gratitude at the invitation, their joy that Christians and Muslims could come together like this to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and their willingness to accept our invitations in the future. Please pray for us and the Malinke project that we can continue to uplift the love of Jesus, our wonderful Savior.
