Adults in our community are more resistant to the gospel. Therefore, our church is mainly comprised of children, teenagers or young adults. We are working with them to cultivate them into young disciples who can, in turn, soon be disciple-makers. By God’s power, we are currently harvesting the first fruits of this labor.
Ananias, a twelve-year-old boy, was baptized in 2023 during our first Pathfinder Camporee. He is very involved in church activities, and we believe he can be a great future leader in Guinea-Bissau.
However, when I returned from our furlough in the U.S., I realized that Ananias was not attending church. When I asked some members what the problem was, they told me that Ananias’ uncle, Simão (Simon), was not allowing the young man to go to church, claiming that they were Catholic and that keeping the Sabbath was nonsense. His uncle even said the Sabbath was not in the Bible. I then made plans to visit them to try to help Ananias, but unfortunately, every time I got ready to go, something went wrong, and it was not possible to visit them at their house.
This continued for three weeks. Then, to our surprise, Ananias arrived for our discipleship Bible class one Friday. We were all happy to see him. Ananias then told us a beautiful testimony:
In one of his conversations with Simão, Ananias stated that the Sabbath was a biblical commandment and showed him some Scripture texts. Simão was impressed and asked Ananias where there was a church because he wanted to meet the people and ask if this was true.
That Sabbath, Simão went to the church and came back home more impressed, yet he said nothing to Ananias. On the next Sabbath, Simão went to the church again. When he returned home, he said, “Ananias, you are right. You can go to the church.” We are now working to win Simão for Jesus. Ananias already took the first steps.
A few days later, we went to the second Pathfinder Camporee. Ananias was one of the highest performers of the Bible contest, showing that he really has the word of God stored in his mind and heart.
Though I was, at first, worried about not being able to visit Ananias (and even though I thought I should try harder to go to his house), after hearing this story, I understood that the Spirit of God was enabling little Ananias to witness from within his own home. Sometimes we think that things are going wrong when, in fact, God is making everything work out even better than we imagine.
Many do not believe in evangelization by children. Still, the story of Ananias leaves no doubt that the kingdom of heaven truly belongs to the little ones (Matthew 19:14). God is doing great things in Guinea-Bissau. As Scripture says, we are seeing the fulfillment of the promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon young people and children (Acts 2:17).
Thank you for helping us to reach Ananias and many others in Guinea-Bissau. Please keep them in your prayers.
