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.
