Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Whitleys in southern Spain!

During this holiday season we are so thankful for your support through prayers and giving to our projects and the CBF Offering for Global Missions. Your support makes it possible for the stories below to take place. We appreciate your ministry to immigrants and the most neglected here in Spain.

A Sereer Thanksgiving: Afella Lol!

This year for Thanksgiving we invited a Sereer family to “mi casa” for a traditional Thanksgiving celebration. It is hard to find whole turkeys here in Spain, so we had turkey legs, and turkey breast slices, along with mashed potatoes, corn, bread, green bean casserole made with fried onions from the states, dressing balls made with spices from the states, apple cobbler, and banana bread. We enjoyed sharing this American traditional meal and celebration with our friends from Senegal; and hearing in their language, Sereer, that it was afella lol!

The Sheep Saga Continues…

Recently we bought and delivered the supplies for the more secure sheep pen to Malle and the guys from Senegal. They soon had the new improved pen up and ready to go; so we found the small warehouse/barn where the man from Mauritania sells the sheep and we bought Clara and Randa. We loaded them in the “veggie vehicle” along with a bale of hay on the top and took them to their new home. The children scattered fresh hay on the floor of the pen to make a cozy home for our new sheep. This reminded me of the hay in the manger where Jesus was born that was used to make his bed and keep him warm and cozy.

The Gift of Christmas: Emmanuel; God with us…

This year we will be delivering Christmas gifts to many of the immigrants from Africa. We will be delivering blankets, vegetables, pasta, and rice from the kilos of care project. We will also be giving MP3 players donated by First Baptist Church, Blue Springs, Mo. The MP3 player will have the story of Jesus’ birth from the gospels loaded onto it in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, or Wolof. Please pray with us for each of the immigrants that will be receiving this gift; that they will begin to understand about Emmanuel; God with us.

Ladies in Waiting

The International Cluster of CBF has been focusing some of their efforts to help stop human trafficking. Many of the people that are hurt by human trafficking find themselves trapped in a life of prostitution. In hopes to help in a small way to alleviate the problem of human trafficking, we are reaching out to a few prostitutes in our area in Roquetas and Almeria, Spain. We hope to give them a MP3 player with the Christmas story from Matthew and Luke.

Please pray for us as we begin this new ministry to “ladies in waiting.”

Celebrating the Holidays

We attended a joint prayer service with the immigrant churches in Roquetas. It was awesome to worship and pray in English and Spanish with people from Spain, Germany, Romania, Argentina, America, Ghana, and Nigeria. Joel was asked to speak about reaching out to Muslims in our area, then the entire group prayed for missionaries who minister to Muslims and we prayed for our Muslim neighbors. Please pray that each Christian living here in Roquetas and Almeria will be sensitive to their neighbors and will look for opportunities to share the gospel with them. Also, please pray for Emmanuel, a Christian man from Nigeria, who is going to be working with Joel to reach out to the Muslim men in our neighborhoods.

During the month of December we will be doing a presentation in our church, Iglesia Evangelica Bautista, in Almeria. They have voted officially to take part in the ministry to African immigrants in Roquetas, and they have asked us to give a presentation about ministry that they can provide for these immigrants and how they can reach out to the lost in their area. On the day of our presentation, Megan is also going to announce to the church that she has asked Jesus into her heart to be her Savior. She is planning to be baptized this summer/fall when we are in Texas. Please pray for us as we give the presentation in Spanish and pray for Megan as she grows in her faith in the Lord.

Megan, Cade and Dylan will be doing two Christmas programs this year. The will do one in our church in Almeria in Spanish, and then they will do one in the Nigerian church in Roquetas in English. Megan will wear a shepherd girl’s costume and the boys will dress as two of the three kings. These are all very popular costumes in Spain during Christmas and Three King’s Day celebrations. Joel will also be speaking and our family will lead in singing a Christmas hymn as well. We are looking forward to celebrating Christmas with churches from Spain and Africa in both Spanish and English.

November happenings...

The Boomerang Express comes to Spain

This summer the Boomerang Express traveled all across Texas for Vacation Bible Schools in many different churches. Our three year old niece told her mother when they were talking about Jesus being in heaven, “No, mommy, Jesus comes on the Boomerang Express!” Two churches in Texas donated their VBS materials to a Nigerian church here in southern Spain, making it possible for us to team up with other volunteers and have a Vacation Bible School for African immigrants in Spain. Songs, games, snacks, crafts, and Bible stories, traveled from Texas to Spain, and could be heard coming from the First Baptist Church of Roquetas de Mar, where folks from Nigeria, Spain, Romania, and America worked together to bring about a fun and informative experience for children from these countries as well. We learned about worshipping, following, serving, and obeying Jesus. Jesus is in heaven, and this year he came to Spain on the Boomerang Express.

Matilda’s story

We bought Matilda the sheep and put her and a friend in the sheep pen that we helped set up at one of our African friend’s houses. When we came back to Spain after being in the states for our operations, we went by to check on our friends and Matilda. She was nowhere to be seen and our friends had moved out of the house. We began calling to try to find them, but we could not get in touch with any of them. Then one night Malle called to say that they had moved because there was no work near the old house so they had to find a place where there was work. We were surprised to learn that they still had Matilda! The children were so excited when we went to their new house in the midst of still more green houses and saw Matilda living in her new pen. Joel bought some feed and took it by on another day for the guys to feed to Matilda, and they discussed getting new sheep as well. A few nights later Malle called to tell us something about the sheep, but Joel couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell us, so we went by the house and pen the next day, but Matilda was not there. We found out that she had been stolen during the night. We were all disappointed, especially the kids. Our sheep had been lost, then found, then lost again. The guys were already figuring out how they could fix the pen so that it would be more secure and any new sheep we buy will hopefully not be so easily stolen. On the way home Megan said, “Mom, Pawpaw has goats in a pen; and they never got stolen.” We talked about how that was one of the many reasons we lived in southern Spain, because people were sometimes so hungry or desperate that they would even steal a mangy old sheep like our beloved Matilda.

Conversations: Reincarnation, Religion, and Relationship

I have found in about 16 years of ministry that the key is a personal relationship with the Lord and not religion. As I have had various conversations here in southern Spain with people from different countries around the world, I am still finding the key to be the same. In recent conversations with a friend from Argentina who believes in reincarnation, and another man from Argentina, and a man from Sierra Leon, I realized that each individual was disenchanted with religion; therefore, we talked about the possibility and joy of having a personal relationship with God through His son, Jesus.

Please pray for the people we encounter here, that the Holy Spirit will open their hearts to a personal relationship with God.

Conversations… (cont.)

Here in southern Spain we have friends from many different religions: Evangelical, Pentecostal, Catholic, Muslim, Reincarnation, and Atheism. Our conversations with our friends are often interesting, but it all comes down to a personal relationship with Christ. Please pray for our friends; that the Holy Spirit will open their hearts to be interested in a personal relationship with Jesus. Please pray for us as we look for open opportunities to talk about faith issues; that we might “make the most of each opportunity.” ( I wrote this recently and before I could even get it posted to our blog, God gave us a great opportunity to plant seeds…)

Planting Seeds in Open Doorways

“Bienvenida a mi casa; mi casa es tu casa.” (Welcome to my house; my house is your house.) Thank you for praying for the location of our new project, “mi casa es tu casa.” We now have a great little house and the door is open! One volunteer has already stayed in the upstairs guest house and we have another team coming next week. We have also hosted an African lunch and ministry discussion in the lower floor ministry center. This Saturday night we will host the African and other immigrant pastors’ meeting. We will make chocolate chip cookies for them to try for the first time.

The most exciting thing that has happened through new “open doors,” was the wonderful opportunity that God gave us to plant seeds. Recently in our Spanish Baptist Union conference, Billy Hanks with the International Evangelism Association out of Salado, Texas spoke about how we need to “be good dirt,” based on the parable of the sower and the seed. He reminded us that “we never lead anyone to Christ, we just plant the seeds.” Tiffne was able to talk with two different friends from Africa about our belief that Jesus is God’s Son and that we can have a personal relationship with God through faith in Him. Joel had the opportunity to lead a prayer after an end of Ramadan festival asking for God’s blessing on the upcoming year and acknowledging His desire to have a personal relationship with us.

Please continue to pray for our friends that the Holy Spirit will continue to open the doors of their hearts that they might desire this personal relationship with a loving and merciful God.

Also, please pray this month as we hope to host some of our African friends for an American Thanksgiving dinner at “mi casa,” that this might open doors of opportunity to discuss our thankfulness to the Lord.

Baby Naming Ceremony

Thank you for praying for the three babies that were born the last few months. We were invited to attend a baby naming ceremony. One week after a Senegalese baby is born the family has the ceremony. Early in the morning, the father takes the baby in his arms and whispers in his ear his new name. Then the family kills a sheep and the women begin the preparations for the meal of rice, vegetables, and sheep – theb yappa. As the women prepared the meal on this day, we ate beñes – fried dough, and we drank tha cre – milk, corn meal, apples, and chocolate all mixed together. After eating and visiting, an experienced person shaves the baby’s head so that he can grow new hair. We also drink a very strong tea called attaya together.

Please pray for baby Usman who has a broken collar bone. He is doing well. Please pray that the collar bone will heal correctly.

September '09 Update

Meet Matilda…

Matilda is a sheep. We went on a wild “sheep” chase to find her. We followed a group of our African friends through the town of Roquetas, then through tons of green houses, down a really bumpy road, around and around a round about, back down the same bumpy road, until we came to a sort of warehouse/barn that was filled with sheep and goats. We bought two from a man from Mauritania. The kids decided to name them Crazy Ann and Matilda. The sheep were none to happy to be tied up and riding in the back of our “veggie vehicle.” We had prepared a pen for them at the home of some of our new African friends who live amongst the green houses located just behind Megan’s school. When we released the sheep into their new pen, the children thought they were so happy to be in their new home, but maybe they were just relieved to be untied and out of the “veggie-vehicle.” These sheep are a part of a new project to help to feed the immigrant families in our area. Megan, Cade and Dylan understand this concept as we once visited a family who had a sheep in their yard and later when we were eating some barbeque, Cade asked, “Where is the sheep that was here in the yard?”
“You’re eating it.” No problem.





Kadi’s Bags

Kadi is from Senegal. She has two little boys. Mohammed is 3 and Papi is 2. She is expecting another little boy in September. She and her husband have lived in Spain for several years. He fell from a construction job site and seriously hurt his leg, so he is unable to work at this time. Kadi has been looking for work for as long as I have known her. She sells bags from Senegal and other trinkets on the beach to make ends meet. We decided to try to sell some of Kadi’s bags at the mission marketplace this summer in the United States. When the folks who are in charge of the marketplace saw the bags, they asked us to send more to sell at another market in November. When we arrived at the mission marketplace this summer we brought the extra bags. The next day as I turned the corner to visit the spot where the bags were being sold, I couldn’t believe it – they were nearly gone – even the ones for November! When I visited Kadi, I said to her, “Remember that we were praying that God would help you find work, He has answered our prayer. We need to buy all of the bags that you have left.” Kadi is going to call her mother in Senegal and request more bags as well.



Prayer Update:

• Thank you for praying for our family during all of our surgeries. Everything went relatively well and we are glad to be back in Spain.

• This month Megan will go back to school. She will have a new teacher. Please pray for Megan and her new teacher as they begin the school year.

• We are involved in a couple of new projects. Please pray for the “mi casa es tu casa” project as we begin to find a location for ministry use. Please pray for our new sheep project as we are looking for culturally relevant ways to help feed the immigrant community here in southern Spain.

• Please pray for the three new African babies that will be born this month. We (and their families) are anxiously awaiting their precious arrival.

• Please pray for Maria del Mar, she was born 5 weeks early and is in the hospital in El Ejido. Please pray for her family as well. Her father is still looking for work and a good place for his family to live.

Thank you for “standing in the gap” through your prayers and giving. We really appreciate your involvement in ministering to these people who do not have a personal God who is their “refuge, strength, and ever present help in times of trouble.” (Check out the new posting, “standing in the gap,” at the “thoughts along the way” link above.)

June 2009

Sin Dios, ni Patria, ni Amo

These words of graffiti are written on the apartment building where some of our immigrant friends and families from Africa are living in a neighborhood near our home in southern Spain. These words mean, “Without God, or Home Country, or Love.” Many immigrants come to Spain from Africa in search of a better life, survival, peace, or just to find a way to feed their families. When they arrive in Europe they often find these dreams very hard to attain; and they become lonely, hungry, and sad. We hope to become friends with many immigrants in order to offer them friendship, hope, and a sense of “home.” We are hoping to start a center for immigrants called “mi casa es tu casa:” (my home is your home.) This center will serve immigrants from Africa and provide a place they can come to receive food, clothes, friendship, learn Spanish, share meals from their home countries together, and discuss spiritual questions in a home setting. (For the full project description see below, towards the end of this post.)

Please pray that we will be able to help our immigrant friends “experience God, a sense of their home country, and love” here in southern Spain.

African Experience in Yegua Verde

Yegua Verde (Spanish for “the Green Mare”) is a small community in the middle of many greenhouses. Many immigrants live here and work in the greenhouses. Recently we were invited to a new friend’s home in this area for a meal. It was an incredible day. We arrived with vegetables and drinks, and Tiffne began helping the women prepare the meal of cheb-o-gin (Wolof for “rice and fish.”) While the meal was cooking we watched a video and looked at pictures of a beautiful Senegalese wedding. The children also enjoyed seeing the sheep that was tied up in the yard. During the day there were about 15 people from Mali and Senegal visiting together. The men ate from one large platter, while the women and children ate from another large platter. In Africa, each person just eats a pie shaped portion in front of them. The platters are placed on a mat on the floor and everyone gathers around to enjoy the delicious meal. After lunch, which we ate about 3:30 p.m. we drank ataya – delicious, very strong African tea with mint leaves from their garden – while we watched the men cut up the sheep that they had killed, and Megan had her hair braided into cornrows. For the rest of the evening we visited outside while everyone cooked the sheep seasoned with salt, pepper, and magi (an African version of beef bullion) on the grill and enjoyed tasting the “barbeque.”

Prayer Update:

• Please pray for Megan as she finishes first grade – her second year in school here in Spain. She will have a dance recital at the end of school also. Please begin to pray for her new teacher next year.
• Please pray for us as we prepare to travel to the states this summer for medical stuff. It is possible that Cade, Dylan, and Tiffne might each need small surgeries. We will also all have various medical appointments and check ups. Please pray that our medical situations will be able to wait for care in the United States and not need sooner treatment here in Spain. Pray that the follow up after our surgeries will be straight forward and easy to accomplish.
• Please pray for our friends from Africa, that during the lean months of summer they will have enough to eat and would also begin to understand the “Bread of Life” that will satisfy the hunger of their souls.

mi casa es tu casa project description:

Project Info:

mi casa es tu casa

Account #: 89834

Contact Info:

twhitley@thefellowship.info

blog: http://www.nabcsf.org/

click “Banana Boat Blog”

Being an immigrant, migrant worker, or refugee in a new land can be lonely, depressing, and often times just plain scary. Through our work in the Almería province of southern Spain we have seen hundreds of internationals live through this type of despair just hoping beyond hope that they can find a job, a friend, or a meal. This project “mi casa es tu casa” is aimed at providing a place of rest and help for those internationals struggling to find a way. We hope that this ‘casa’ will provide hope and a sense of ‘home’ to those that have left their homeland and families in Africa. We also hope that this ‘casa’ will be a place of rest and spiritual growth for missional church team groups who come to work alongside our ministry. It will be their ‘home away from home’ in a sense too.

Project Goals:

• Provide a safe, immigrant friendly site for groups to meet, study, and fellowship together.
• Create an easily accessible food and clothing distribution site that will allow us to track and follow-up with those that we minister.
• Establish a place that would facilitate congregational mission involvement by providing a readily available place to house volunteer teams who will work in the ministries of this center and with our other projects through the missional church programs.

Project Involvement:

• Pray…Pray for the peoples who make dangerous journeys along the migration routes from Africa to Southern Spain.
• Give…Support the work of CBF field personnel by giving to the Offering for Global Missions or specifically to this project. Send donations to: Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Resource Center, P.O. Box 101699, Atlanta, GA 30392. If giving specifically to this project, be certain to include this project’s account number in the memo line. (project # 89834)
• Serve…Join this ministry by sharing it with others and by participating in mission service.

Love from the Whitleys in southern Spain

twhitley@thefellowship.info

April 2009

Through your prayers and support you are reaching out to people from Ghana, Mali, Cameroon, Romania, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Senegal, the Gambia, Morocco, Western Sahara, Nigeria and Ecuador. Deuteronomy 10:18 and 19 “He gives justice to orphans and widows. He shows love to the foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing. You, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.” Thank you.

Meeting New People, Making New Friends, The Ministry Grows

This past month we have been involved in a couple of different activities that have allowed us to meet new people. We attended a Senegalese Muslim conference and meet several new families that we now visit and deliver vegetables to their homes. One family is a Sereer family with four children. We enjoy watching Megan and their small girls greet each other in Sereer.

We have also started volunteering with the Red Cross immigrant center in Almeria, where we have the opportunity to give out food, clothes, and other services. We have met people from France, Bulgaria, Morocco, Ghana, Mali, and other countries as well. Last week, as I served food, I prayed silently that God would fill their hungry souls as well.

We also had the opportunity to visit an African church called Christ Movement Ministries. The church members are mostly from Nigeria and Ghana. During the service they prayed for our family and our ministry to African immigrants. We enjoyed the Sunday school; Joel specifically enjoyed the African rendition of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” told as “The Boy Who Cried Lion!” The sermon was inspiring as the pastor spoke about how many of them from Africa had experienced rejection from family and friends because of their belief in Christ. We have posted quotes from the sermon and a worship song on “Thoughts Along the Way.” (You can click on the link at the top of this blog page to read the devotional based on the sermon by Pastor Nathaneil Ikeh from Nigeria. – good stuff. Also there are two other new devotional entries.)

Finding Ami

About a year ago, when we first visited 200 Viviendas, we were hanging out at the plaza and I met a young girl named Ami. She was one of the first people that I met that spoke Sereer. I was so excited to learn that there were Sereer people living in Spain. She was a bit shy so I did not learn where she lived and was afraid that I would not get to see her again. Then recently, when we visited the new home of a family that we had met at the Senegalese conference, we were greeting the younger children in Sereer, and in walked Ami. She is their oldest daughter. Again I was reminded of the joy in “hiding and watching” God at work. Now we will be able to visit this family regularly.

Languages

One Friday we visited several new families and delivered pictures and vegetables. At the end of this day I realized that we had greeted or spoken to people in English, French, Spanish, Sereer, Wolof, and Mandinka. Please pray for us as we continue in our language learning that we would be able to keep our languages separate, and remember which is the most effective language with each person, and as we try to communicate in the best way possible in order to one day share with each of them about a personal relationship with Christ.

Nguy’s story

Recently while we were visiting the house in Mojonera, Nguy told us his story. He is the oldest male of his father’s family. His father passed away and left behind three wives and more than 14 children. As the oldest male, Nguy is now responsible for his father’s entire family as well as his own wife. He said that he began to feel the pressure that is felt by many African young men to make the journey to Europe to try to find work and send money home to their families. He told of how many villages put pressure on the young African men and boys to travel to Europe to fulfill their dreams. He spoke of how they would see on television the lives of people in Europe; people who had homes, cars, and plenty to eat; people who seemed to have no problems, and they believed that this was what life in Europe was like. When Nguy’s wife became pregnant, there was even more reason to make the dangerous journey to try to support his family. His family is from Dakar, Senegal, and even though he has a higher education there was no work to be had in Dakar for a long time. Thus he made the decision to go to Europe. He left on a colorful canoe-like boat filled with 98 other young men hoping to make the journey. The motor died out in the ocean. They ran out of food and water and the young men began to perish. Before it was over 25 men had died. Nguy said he lost friends and loved ones. They eventually made some sort of sail and the wind carried them to Mauritania. Nguy knew that he must try again if he wanted to feed the families that he was now responsible for. He got on another boat that traveled for 7 days at sea. He eventually was picked up by Spanish police and taken to a detention center where he was held for some time before being released and flown to Madrid with the instructions that he could remain in Spain and wait for about three years before he could receive his legal papers. Soon he traveled to Mojonera to the house where he lives with many other Senegalese guys who are basically on the same journey. He is sad to have found that the dream he saw on the television and that the members of his village hold is not the reality in Europe. He lives in a small rundown 4 bedroom house with as many as 20 other guys. He gets up every morning at 4 a.m. to try to find work. On the days that he is chosen, he gladly works 8 hours in the large, hot greenhouses. He pays the rent, buys very basic food supplies; rice, pasta, onions, sometimes chicken or fish, and sends the rest of the money back home to Africa, where his wife and year old baby boy, that he has never held, live. His dream is different now; he hopes to wait and work in Spain for two more years until he gets his legal papers and he can travel to Senegal to see his beautiful family.

February Banana Boat update

(Read from the bottom up, if you want sequential order. The newest posts are always at the top.)

• 
  We wanted to say thank you for your support through prayers and giving. Here are some of the ministries that you have been a part of along the way…
  
  • Making repairs and general upkeep for the “veggie” vehicle – we use this cargo type vehicle for delivering vegetables, furniture, rice, pasta, clothes, and blankets.
  • Purchasing rice and pasta for our African immigrant families.
  • Purchasing blankets for folks who don’t have one for the cold nights.
  • Purchasing a few inexpensive small presents (play dough) for the African immigrant children for Christmas or Three Kings Day.
  • Purchasing rice to send on the truck to the refugee camps in Algeria. Many women and children living in the tents in these camps will benefit greatly from your ministry.
  • Your prayers and support are reaching out to people from the Gambia, Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Ecuador, Romania, Argentina, Equatorial Guinea, and Cameroon.
  
  
  Hide and Watch
  
  Each week Joel goes with Dan to pick up free vegetables in our white project vehicle. They sometimes get enough vegetables to fill nearly 70 bags to give out to families and homes filled with young men from North and West Africa. Recently we were disappointed to hear that the warehouse that gives away their excess vegetables for this ministry would no longer be able do so. Just before we got this news, we were so happy to receive a donation to our Kilos of Care project that is set up to buy food for the hungry. We were already thinking that God was finding other ways to provide for these African immigrants who have so little. The following Wednesday, the regular day that we use to pick up the vegetables, we had made plans to do some other work, when Dan called to say that there was another warehouse that was going to give out the free excess vegetables. The new warehouse is in Mojonera – we were so excited to find this out because we had wanted to involve our guys from Senegal in this ministry. We had often thought in the past that it would be great if our guys who lived in Mojonera could be involved with picking up the vegetables and distributing them, but the previous warehouse was just too far away from them. The new warehouse is just two roundabouts down from their house in Mojonera. It is fun to watch God work. I often think we need to get out of His way and let Him do His will. We just need to “hide and watch!”
  
  Please continue to pray that God will do His exact will in His ministry to the African immigrants here in southern Spain. Then, with us, hide and watch! (or maybe better said – pray and watch.)
  
  
  
  Conversations with Momodou
  
  Momodou (or Mohammed) is from Senegal. His father is Sereer. He went to school in the Gambia, so he speaks English, Wolof, French, Sereer, and some Spanish. He has been living in Spain for a year, but has been unable to find work. He lives in Mojonera in the house with 20 other guys from Senegal. We have had several conversations. He is an interesting and friendly young man. He has told me some of his story. His father is a Muslim; his mother is a Christian. He has chosen to be a Muslim. When I asked why he made this choice, he just shrugged his shoulders and said that when he was very young his father put him in a school to learn the Koran, so he simply continued on with what he had learned at such an early age. (When I lived in Senegal there was a little 3 year old boy named Usman who came to my kids club each day. He could already quote the Koran because he was already enrolled in the Koranic school in our neighborhood – thus emphasizing the need for children’s ministry to teach the Gospel as well.)
  In another conversation Momodou spoke about his belief in amulets. Amulets are from African Traditional Religion. They are usually made from leather and have some kind of stone or something attached. They can be worn around the neck, arm, wrist, waist, or even hung in the home. Many African people put them on their babies to keep them safe. Momodou was telling me that he believed that they really worked to keep people safe from all kinds of harm. He said that when his mother wore hers she was kept safe from accidents or other problems unlike when she did not wear it.
  In Africa, where many are simply trying to survive, there is a certain type of “layering” of religion. If a “witch doctor” of African Traditional Religion can solve a person’s problems, then that is what the person will cling to. Then, if the Imam (Muslim holy man) is able to help, the person will believe in Islam as well. Sometimes when a person is healed or maybe helped by a Christian, they will also follow the “Jesus Way;” therefore, part of the challenge is helping these people who are just trying to survive to understand about a personal relationship with Jesus, who says in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
  
  Please continue to pray for our friends that the Holy Spirit might begin to help them come to know Jesus as the only way, that they might commit their lives to God through Him.
  
  
  Prayer Update:

• For three weeks now Nguy and Momodou have been helping us pick up, bag, and deliver the vegetables. This week as they were working in Dan’s garage to bag the vegetables, Joel and Dan showed them Bibles and the Jesus film in Wolof. As they seemed interested, Joel asked them if they would like to have one of each and they said yes. So please pray with us again, from Isaiah 55:11, “so is my word that goes out from my mouth; It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
• Thank you for praying in the past for Check, Maria Ellen, and baby Margarita. Margarita is doing well. She is growing and continues her doctor’s appointments each month here in Almeria. Maria Ellen is working on getting legal paperwork for Magarita. Check has gone to Madrid in search of work and legal papers, in order to support his family. Please pray for this family; that God’s will would be done in accordance with their legal paperwork, their future job, and life as a family.
• Please pray for our coworkers as they deal with spiritual warfare in their ministry.
• Please pray for our family as we live and minister cross culturally. Pray for us as we adapt to Megan’s school. Pray for us as we begin to look into schooling for the boys. Pray for us as we seek to find ways to follow up with speech and medical issues for the boys and our family.
• Please pray for Joel’s cousin Scott, a young man in his late twenties. His cancer seems to be progressing.

Thank you for keeping up with us, and for praying for us.
You can continue to e-mail us at twhitley@thefellowship.info .