“Please pray,” the old man said to our church group in Ourabourga. “I am tired of sacrificing chickens. It doesn’t work anyway. The fetishes just ask for more and more, and nothing really happens.” He isn’t quite ready yet to completely leave fetish worship behind, but he tells his son and the other members to stay away when he does sacrifices. He doesn’t want them to get involved. He tells them to follow God all the way and not to have anything to do with the fetishes anymore.

Sometimes this man can hardly walk, and he talks like he’s drunk even though he isn’t. Two weeks ago, he came to the meeting in this state. Colette and I think Satan sent him there to disrupt the meeting, but, as in the story of Baalam, God used his mouth to pronounce only blessings. “Yeah, listen to her.” “Yes, the judgment will come.” Despite being under some type of satanic influence, he was brimming with affirmation.

Last Sunday, another old man came to the meeting and listened intently. At the end, he told his story. “This is the true God,” he began. “I have been searching a long time for the true God. Some time ago, my wife got involved with another church, and I came one day to see what they were doing. They sang for a while and then turned off the lights, and all the people began engaging in debauchery. I got my wife out of there before they could do anything to her and told her not to go back there. That that was not the real God.” (He was referring to a cult here called Christian Celeste that mixes Christianity and old-testament practices with pagan sea-god worship.)

He went on to say that he had tried several other churches but never found the true God. But when he met our group, he felt right away that he was in the right place. “I am tired of the fetishes,” he said. “They don’t work. I am wearing these strings and feathers on my arm because I don’t know how to get free, but I am ready to get rid of them all. I am ready to take them off.”

We invited him to stay after the meeting so we could talk with him. He ended up wanting to do more talking than listening, so I asked the two people who have been in the group the longest to try to talk to him and explain about God and how Jesus had conquered Satan. Next Sunday, we will see what will happen.

These are not the only older men who are disillusioned with the traditional way of life. In the other groups that Bony and Colette are leading, older men are encouraging the younger people to get away from the fetishes and follow the true God. They tell them not to look back but to look forward. And they remind them that you can’t do both at the same time.

Continue to pray for the older generation here that they will make a total commitment to the true God. Pray that we will know how to touch their hearts and bring them to the One who can take them out of darkness and into the light.

Also, please pray for more missionary workers. The harvest is ripe and ready to be gathered, but there is hardly anyone to harvest it. We go forward on our knees as we fight against spiritual darkness. We know that it is only by the power of God that we can ever reach His children. 

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