Thursday, May 31, 2012

Summer update



Norma’s prayer

Norma has been teaching our ladies class for about three years now.  She is from Ecuador and is a member of our Spanish church.  She has lived in Spain for 9 years and feels called to missions.  She recently started having ladies class twice a week.  On Wednesdays she teaches sewing and on Fridays she teaches reading, writing, math, and Spanish.  On one of the first Wednesdays, four of the African ladies noticed that Norma was at “mi casa” early so they dropped by early to talk.  They were telling Norma of the struggles that their families were having in finding work.  Norma asked if she could pray for them and they said yes.  So she prayed that they would find work.  Norma is very open with these Muslim women about her own faith, so she prayed in Jesus name.  For the next two weeks only one of these ladies showed up for class and Norma began to be afraid that she had offended the other ladies, but she didn’t ask any questions.  Then one Friday morning, Fatu, said, “Norma, do you know where the other ladies are?”  And Norma said no that she did not.  Fatu said, “They each got work the day after you prayed for them!”  So that was the reason that they were unable to come to class – they had temporary work.  Once they were able to return to class, they rejoiced with Norma for the answer to their prayer.
Each of these ladies comes from the Jahanka people group.  This is an unreached people group with no Bible in their language and no known Christians among them.  What an incredible thing to watch God work among them!


Ladies Class to Church

Our Spanish church meets in Almeria, about 40 minutes from “mi casa” in Roquetas.  Mary Angeles, a Spanish lady from our church went to Roquetas once a week to teach sewing class to the ladies from Africa.  After teaching for about a year, she became very ill and passed away.  She was 68 years old and each of the African ladies respectfully referred to her as “Grandmother.”  After she passed away, Norma asked the African ladies if they would like to visit our church and present a thank you plaque to the family of Mary Angeles.  Even though many of these ladies come from a Muslim background of several different unreached people groups, they were very willing to visit our church to say thank you to the church, Norma, and Mary Angeles’ family for their love and support over these few years.  So one Sunday morning we loaded about 22 African ladies and their children into 6 different cars and off we went to the Baptist church in Almeria, where the ladies read thank you speeches and presented the plaque to the family.  It was amazing to hear Maisatta and Maiamma read in public, knowing that they had just learned to read in the last year.  It was also amazing to look around our church and see so many people from different countries and to realize that for many of them and their people groups this could be the first time that any of them had ever been in a Christian church.  God is opening some huge doors!


Diapers, Milk, and baby lotion

Diapers, diapers, diapers and more diapers along with milk and baby lotion…
We have more than twenty ladies in ladies class now from over 6 different African countries and many more people groups.  Several of these ladies have babies, babies, and more babies:   Mariamma has twin babies; others have a baby and a toddler at home.  Thus, ladies class is usually crowded with precious little faces as well as their mother’s.  These past few months, as many of the immigrants do not have work, they were running low on many things for their children.  We decided to provide diapers and milk; and then added the baby lotion.  We ended up providing these things for about 20 little cuties!  When the African ladies tell us thank you, we often explain that these gifts come from you all in the churches in America.  We also tell them that it is our pleasure to help – and what a precious group to have the privilege to help – all those babies!


Sunday “Mi Casa” Worship

The work in Roquetas continues to grow.  From ladies class, kids club, giving out vegetables, and visiting African immigrants in their homes, we and our church in Almeria began to see the need for a Bible study and type of house church at “mi casa.”  The first few times that we met we had to translate the Bible study from Spanish to French and English.  After the Bible study we often have fellowship and twice we have been able to celebrate an African child’s birthday with cake and all the trimmings!  Please pray for the folks that are coming to this Bible study/house church.  There are families that come from Catholic backgrounds, Protestant backgrounds, and Muslim backgrounds.  This past month we were happy to have several of our friends with Muslim backgrounds who come from unreached people groups with little or no access to the gospel in their home countries.