No Believer Had Ever Come to this Home

“We visited a 68-year-old woman who had a son with a mental problem.… No group of believers had ever visited this family.”

Though we have just arrived in Africa, this story (following) was shared with us by Solomon, a new leader from Zambia, who has been receiving online training for the last three months. Because of his progress, we will meet with him next week in Rwanda where he will receive intensive hands-on training from African leaders. He so appreciates what he has received so far:

“Within a period of three months I have accomplished what I couldn’t in 27 years of pastoral ministry. Thank you for the training! We now have 10 groups of disciples; I was only responsible for the first and last group. The rest of the groups were established by my disciples. We have a total of 63 disciples with 25 new baptisms. We have learned that the proportion of our harvest is dependent on how much seed we sow. We should never be content with the current work, but we have to cultivate a lifestyle of disciple making.”

He goes on to explain how he and five disciples visited the woman with the mentally ill son:

“Her house was decapitated, and the grass was falling off! She was happy to see us and welcome us. We remembered the teaching on connecting with persons of peace by helping solve problems. So, we sent one of us to buy foodstuffs and gave it to the lady and her son. We later engaged someone to do the thatching of the roof.

“Our gesture attracted a group of about 30 neighbors. We then shared the word with them. They encouraged us to establish a Bible study group. They told us that no group of Christians had ever visited this family or shared anything with them. They said that what we did is a demonstration of the love of Christ.”