Poverty is a weapon that our enemy Satan uses to stop the flow of God’s children from darkness into light. As citizens from a third-world country, my wife and I have lived it. As a matter of fact, we have experienced all the evils that come with it—starvation, corruption, illiteracy, war and sickness to name a few. Genuine, principled faith in God is a rare thing in this kind of situation because survival is the order of the day. But among the poverty-stricken, a few giants of faith can be found.

For people living in poverty, there is only one reliable way out—education. In the developed world, education is viewed as a fundamental human right. However, in less developed countries like Guinea, West Africa, education is not a right but a privilege.

Each year in Guinea, more than 30,000 high school students take the national college entrance exams, allowing them to graduate from high school if they pass. This year, the exams started on Friday, June 22, and ended on Tuesday the 26th. The second day of the exams was a Sabbath. Among these 30,000 students, there was one giant of faith.

Maurice Bonnet’s father abandoned his family years ago, leaving the mother to support the children. Maurice has been attending our school and church with his mother since he was ten years old. In fact, they were the very reason why we started the school. Since he was a boy, he has wanted to become a pastor.

When Guinea’s Ministry of Education announced the schedule for this year’s national college entrance exams, with one day falling on Sabbath, Maurice fasted and prayed for God’s direction. He told God in prayer that, no matter what, he chose to do His will.

On Sabbath, the second day of the exams, Maurice dressed up in his church clothes, took his Bible and began walking to church. The exam center was on his way to church. As he walked by it, some of his friends and teachers saw him and called to him in disbelief, asking him where he was going. He calmly responded, “I have an appointment with my God.”

“What about your future?” a teacher asked.

“It is in His hands. That is why I have to respect my appointment with Him. He will be there, and so should I.”

They laughed and ridiculed him as he kept on walking to church, praying in his heart for God to forgive them. The following Monday, he went to school to continue his exams. This time, no one spoke to him, instead they whispered among themselves and point at him. Some teachers went to his class just to see who he was.

What are the chances that Maurice will get a university education if he fails his college entrance exams? Only God knows. Guinea has a growing population and a limited number of universities, so they have a selection system that shows no mercy. If you miss a day of the national exams—even if you are sick—you will fail and must retake the test the following year.

Should Maurice be penalized for his faith? No! Will he fulfill his dream of becoming a pastor? Yes! God has already made provision for him and many others through the BDAS (Bilan des Acquis Scolaires), an officially recognized equivalent to Guinea’s national college entrance exam. Dr. Marc Coleman, previously director of the AFM Susu Project and now AFM’s Africa Field Director, developed the BDAS in 2009 specifically to give Sabbath-keeping students a path to higher education. The Guinean government education officials were elated with the quality of the test and asked us to generalize it to include non-Adventist students. Maurice is now preparing to take the BDAS.

A young lady who happens to be Maurice’s elder sister took a similar stand for the Sabbath several years ago. She was the first student to take the BDAS. She passed it and was accepted into one of Guinea’s government universities. She graduated this year with a degree in international development.

Dear brethren in Christ, the battle for souls on the front line of missions is very real. We need your prayers and support to develop the BDAS into an internationally recognized exam that will enable conscientious Sabbath-keeping students all over the world to have a path to higher education. As a =church, we have schools in place, but we do not have other exam options in place to compete with national exams. It is a worldwide problem. We should not let the devil cut thousands of Adventist students off from university educations. Our vision is to make the BDAS available wherever Adventist young people face a Sabbath conflict in their national exams.

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