The Kingdom is Growing!!! :)

This weekend was soooo busy!!! On Friday and Saturday we did ministry in a couple of villages with GAiN (another ministry of Power to Change that is very active here in Benin – in fact, they were the ones who invited DRIME to come to Benin!). We went to perform dramas and share testimonies in the morning and early afternoon, and then a Jesus Film team from GAiN would go to the same village in the evening to show the Jesus Film and do some follow-up. We rented a couple of vehicles and took about 10 people from the drama team that we’ve been working with.

Friday

Today we went to a village called Gbegbessa. The drive there and back home was very interesting!! Once we got out of the city of Cotonou, the roads were clearly not made for vehicles! They were dirt paths with bush on both sides and they were barely wide enough for our Jeep and SUV – branches were definitely hitting the vehicles on both sides. And the paths were anything but even – they had huge holes and sometimes the left side of the path was higher than the right side so our vehicle was driving on an angle! We were totally off-roading!! And it was extreme off-roading!! :)
The ministry time went really well!! We had a big group of people come and watch us and everything went really smoothly! After our drama set, about 30 people came up to receive Christ!!! I KNOW – it was soooo exciting!!! PRAISE GOD!!!

The people of this village were so kind and welcoming! When we finished our program, they gave us some pineapples to take home and a meal to eat! I felt bad eating their food because they don’t really have very much, which makes the gift extra generous! But of course it would have been so rude to not accept their gift! And there was sooo much food! It was very very kind of them!! We had also brought some bread and drinks for the team to have a snack and whenever we had garbage or finished a can of pop, a group of kids would rush and try to grab it! It was crazy! It was kinda sad to see them fight over garbage but I just tried to be glad that we gave them pop cans to play with!

Saturday

The village we visited today is called Fanto and when we arrived, our GAiN contact told us that it has a strong voodoo presence. He pointed out some women who were voodoo witches – they wore white wraps on their heads and had big necklaces and bracelets. It made us a little nervous to be in the middle of such an obvious voodoo presence because we didn’t want to be chased out of the village – we wanted to share the Gospel! But I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be. I wasn’t at all worried about them throwing curses at us because their curses can’t do anything to us – we have a Power that is much greater than what they have!!

Again, ministry time went really, really well!! And after our drama sets, about 30 people came up to accept Christ!! So it was another incredible and encouraging day!! One thing I was worried about was how these new believers would be treated after we left. Christians in Benin receive a lot of both physical and spiritual persecution from voodoo leaders. And the voodoo witches in this village looked very upset when so many people came forward to receive Christ so I will definitely be sending lots of prayer their way!! And GAiN will do a lot of follow up in that village as well, so hopefully that will provide protection and hope for these new believers!

After our program, we played some games with the children in the village. We taught them Duck, Duck, Goose and they loved it!! Even the adults gathered around to watch and got really into it!! They would cheer and scream and clap soooo loud every time two people would race – it was like we were in the Stanley Cup of Duck, Duck, Goose!!! :) And yes, I definitely got tagged as the goose a couple of times! Then they taught us one of their games! The person in the middle had to sing this song in French and then choose someone else in the circle to sing the song and do the actions with and then that person went in the middle. And guess what....I eventually got chosen as the person in the middle!!! I was trying to hide in the circle but the person in the middle came right towards me and everyone around me pushed me forward! Jamie and Janna were just staring at me and laughing! I had no idea what to do!!! I didn’t know the song at all!!!! So when I had to go in the middle by myself, I said “Tout le monde chante avec moi!” (Everyone sing with me!), so then I was off the hook for singing the song!! I know...I am very tricky!! :) But it was all a lot of fun and it was fun to see the kids really enjoying themselves!!

Praise Items and Prayer Requests
o Health and safety (as you will read in my next blog entry, all 3 of us have been sick this week)
o Praise God that ministry went so well this weekend and that many people heard about him for the first time and accepted him as their Saviour!
o Pray for the new believers in Gbegbessa and Fanto! That they would be encouraged and followed up with, and protected from any persecution!
o We are having a Leader Retreat with the DRIME Benin Leadership team this weekend so pray that all goes well! Pray that God will give us the words to share and that we would have great discussions!