The Very First Day

 

So here we are. We are all settled at our ministry location in Mahapleu. We have our tents tightly packed in a little concrete room in a church (where it seems that many members of the congregation spend most of their time).

 

After we made a bit of a recovery from what essentially turned out to be an 82 hour travel day, we sat down with our hosts and ministry partners to talk about plans and expectations for the month and what ministry will look like.

 

They are very kind and gracious and expressed their excitement that we are here. They said we will be doing a lot of preaching and evangelism and also mentioned that one of us would be giving a sermon that evening.

 

We had been given the pleasure of being at one of their services the night before, but only for the first half of it because the services here can go for 4 hours or more.

We asked our translator some clarifying questions, like how long the teaching should be and he responded to the effect that time is not an issue and we don’t need to worry that it will be too long.

 

“Yes but what is a good time to shoot for to make sure that it’s not too short?”

He shrugged “45 minutes?”

 

“Okay.” I thought, “One of us will be giving a 45 minute sermon tonight.”

 

“It’s 10 am now, the service is at 7, oh and we are also going to meet the chief of the village at 4.

okay. Here goes nothing”

 

From the moment this had been mentioned I knew this one was me.

I had no idea what I was going to talk about, or how I was going to talk for 45 minutes to people who don’t speak my language, but I knew this was me.

 

After the meeting we circled up to pray about the ministry and the service that evening. After we prayed my team leader asked if any of us was feeling called to preach and I expressed my willingness along with two others on my team. My team mates expressed that they would be willing to speak but would prefer to have more time if possible so I said what I had already known somehow.

“I’ll speak tonight”

 

Now, public speaking is nothing new to me (thank you New Covenant), but generally I like to have at least a couple days to put together anything over 20 minutes. As soon as the meeting and prayer were over I grabbed my Bible and journal to get started.

 

As I sat down I prayed.

“God, speak through me. Show me what you want to say to these people.”

 

Immediately I heard the Lord say

“I am the same across all tongues and nations.”

 

I started writing.

 

Throughout that morning and through the rest of the day the Lord kept giving me material and stories to tell. As we walked down the dirt path to the church I told Jesus “This is all you” and I prayed that God would be glorified and that these people would hear what they needed to hear.

 

When I was called up to the podium I introduced myself and shared what the Lord had given me. I talked about God’s love and protection, I told stories about the power of prayer, I talked about how big the universe actually is and the fact that God can hold it all in the palm of his hand and yet he cares about the tiniest details and knows each of us by name.

 

God knows every hair that falls from your head and everything that has ever happened in your life.

 

Not only does he know you, but he loves you. And not only does he love you, but he sent his only Son to die so that you could live. I shared Christ’s victory over death and the power of God’s love.

 

As our translator took each of my words and turned them into French, the crowd responded with cheers and “Amen’s” and applause, to the point where I had to wait a second or two before the next sentence.

 

As I finished I shared that I had been afraid that I wouldn’t have anything worth while to say to them that evening. I was afraid that all the stories I had to tell were too American and that I would have nothing to relate to them.

 

And then I shared the words that the Lord had given me earlier that day.

“I am the same across all tribes, tongues, and nations.

I am the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”

 

The congregation erupted.

 

I finished my sermon, with no idea how long it had been (since they had told us not to wear our jewelry or watches, and the one clock in the church was stuck on 2:53), but that didn’t seem to matter as the pastor of the church beamed at me.

 

They had also planned a movie that would help to share the Gospel. We settled in for a full length French film and each played a little game in our heads of trying to guess what was going on. 

 

Our translator later told me though, the plot of the movie matched my sermon so closely that it was like we had planned it.

He also told me that many Africans feel that God is just for white people. Hearing me talk about how God is the same no matter where you are from or what language you speak had an incredible impact on them.

 

Wow.

God is good and he answers prayers and language is not a barrier for him.

I had no idea what these people needed to hear, but he did. 

All I had to do was listen and obey. 

I am so humbled by the way God worked through me to serve both my team and this little baptist congregation in Cote d’Ivoire.

 

It sounds like we will be preaching a lot this month, so I look forward to seeing what else the Lord has to say.

 

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support and thank you for reading!

 

Much Love,

Hattie

 

p.s. this month my name is “Attie” since they don’t have H’s here.