“It works!” exclaimed Madariatou. She was excited to tell me about her recent experience with prayer.
Baptized early this year with her husband Roger, Madariatou is one of our five Muslim-background converts. She is also a “first-faith” Dendi Muslim convert. In our jargon, that means we are the first Christian group she has joined, coming directly from Islam. “Second-faith” or “third-faith” converts are people with Muslim-backgrounds who met Christ with other Christian groups before discovering our three angels’ messages.
Madariatou is very dear to our project. Some months ago, her father threatened to disown her, but she remained faithful. As we offer special prayers for her almost every day, we ask the Lord to touch her heart and invite her into a personal prayer-life experience with him. Praise God, it happened recently.
Madariatou has a traditional oven in which she bakes bread to sell to supplement her husband’s income as a carpenter. In June, early in the three-month rainy season, heavy rains destroyed part of her oven. She was devastated. Mud bricks to repair it cannot be made during the rainy season. And the idea of not being able to earn any income for three months was unthinkable.
After searching in vain for two months for some bricks to buy, Madariatou heard a sermon about prayer and decided to bring the matter of her oven before the Lord. Having been an Adventist Christian only seven months, she didn’t yet feel comfortable or confident in prayer, and she had never prayed alone before. Also, she didn’t want to tell her husband about her prayer. So, every day at our group’s three daily prayer sessions, she brought her petition to God silently, wondering what would happen.
Just a few days later, Madariatou met an uncle who asked her why she looked so sad. She told him about her oven. “How many bricks do you need?” he asked her.
“About 30,” she replied.
“Come to my house and take as many as you want. They are free,” he said.
Overcome with joy and gratefulness to God, Madariatou began to sing the few hymns she knew. She could not believe that her prayers had been answered so quickly. But she still faced a challenge: how would she get all those heavy bricks home to her house? She talked with two different vehicle owners about transporting her bricks, but they both said the $2 she had was far too little. Just as she was beginning to despair, a third man drove up and said he would do it for $2. Another answered prayer!
In her joy, Madariatou asked the man, “Do you know that God sent you to me?” The man did not understand what she meant, but she just smiled and thanked him. A few minutes later, she was home with her bricks.
Two days later, while telling me about her first experience with the power of prayer, Madariatou promised to take her new Christian faith even more seriously and always attend the prayer meetings. Praise God! He knows how to draw His children to Himself.
