You Will Know Them By Their LOVE

"A new commandment I give to you that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."                          John 13:34-35

We saw this truly lived out through people we met yesterday.  If this was the only day we would have had in West Africa, it was worth everything to see it. We attended a service for Christians who, for the most part, are former Muslims.  They have prayed and asked God to show them which parts of their Islamic culture follow the Scriptures, and have set the rest aside.  The result is a service in which former Muslims can feel comfortable, worshiping in a way in which they can relate, but now singing praises to God and Issa Jesus, and reading and studying the Bible in their own (recently translated) tribal language. 

  So, to maintain the culture in which they are most comfortable, the building is a circle, the floor is covered with mats, they worship in the language of their tribe Fula, [ Fulah; Fulani]. They are from Guinea, referred to around here as Guinea Conakry to distinguish it from Guinea Bissau to the west. Conakry is the capital of Guinea, just northwest of David and Steven's native land Sierra Leone.  One of the SOW students, Timothy, is from this tribe and was part of the congregation - he lives at this compound and rides his bike many kilometers to the SOW Bible college for classes.  David had spent Saturday afternoon with the pastor Modou, and was incredibly encouraged.

These people are showing the radical love of Jesus to the Muslim community in the Subuta village, where years ago it was said that there would never be a Fulah Christian.  When the Fulah translation of the Bible was completed, the missionaries took a copy to the highest Fulah Immam.  He told them they were wasting their time, Jesus is not for Fulahs, no Fulah ever becomes a Christian.  They only had one man, and he was a Fulah slave.  After he died, his wife and children became crazy and they all died, so they use him as an example to the other Muslims of what will happen to you if you become a Christian.   

BUT GOD...   One year later there were pockets of Fulah Christians in all sorts of places in Guinea - they kept naming town after town.  The love of Jesus is mighty in power!

This is Modou, the pastor.  He was a high-ranking leader in Islam who was out to prove how wrong the Bible was and the impossibility of the truth of Christianity.  He was captured by the incredible love of Jesus.  He gives money to help Islamic students learn the Koran - so that they will know it well and be able to dialog about it, and lay its claims accurately alongside the Bible.  He gives money to Islamic students for their fast-breaking at the end of Ramadan, and they learn that Christians show love, not hatred.  He invites Muslims to come live in their Christian compound, pray their Muslim prayers anywhere on their mats, teach the Christians about Islam, bring their Islamic books.  For all these things he is heavily criticized by other Christians, but because he does these things, many Muslims come to know the truth.  When their Islamic teachers say how awful the Christians are and they all must be annihilated, some respond and tell them, no, we know these Christians, they are not like that! Modou is so respected now by the villagers, that he has become one of the elders of the village, even though he is a Christian.  Love wins!!!  
 


Modou's father-in-law Lamin is an incredible man.  He is a Fulah from Guinea who became a Christian in 1982.  He has faced beatings, persecutions,  imprisonments, isolations - he was even due to be executed.  He smiles.  God triumphs.  He is a grandfather of 8, as is Dick, so here are the two grandfathers together.  We were so honored and humbled to meet this man.  










Modou tells us, the Muslims can copy anything we do.  We build a church, they build a bigger mosque.  We build a school, they make a bigger one.   We send students off to university, they get money from Saudi Arabia and send them to even better universities.  But one thing they cannot copy, cannot even begin to come close to, is the love of Christ.  Islam is a religion of hatred, Jesus is about love.  And they have no answer for that.