-a recent prayer letter from John & Tammy Cooley | Burkina Faso

This week Tammy and I took a plunge we’ve not taken in some time.  While we’ve never been the likes of a David Livingstone or many modern missionary heroes, we have made an effort to make ourselves available to the Lord to do things we believed others wouldn’t be willing to do.

This week we accepted an invitation from our former church planting partners to bring a group from our work in Koupela to their 11^th annual youth camp.  We knew our guys would love it, that it would be a chance to start integrating Pastor Samuel, and reintegrating Pastor Pierre, into the group of Independent Baptist pastors developed over the last 14 years.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that we might be past spending many more nights in those living conditions, but the camp turned into something far more than we expected.  The messages were challenging, the fellowship with the young people was fantastic, and seeing the maturing that has taken place in many of the pastors trained over the last fourteen years was exciting and challenging.

Lahmi, maybe 12 years old and an orphan, sat next to Tammy, or I, near the back of the main meeting building throughout the week during the preaching.  We didn’t talk much, but Tammy had given him a pen to take notes with and he seemed to have sat next to us intentionally each night.  After a few kids had shared what the camp had meant to them, Lahmi disappeared out the back door.  It was evident he’d been crying when he came back and was still hurting over something.

As we talked with Lahmi, he was again weeping, such so that he was difficult to understand.  He explained that he’d had two friends recently die unsaved and that he knew he didn’t know his Bible well enough to share the Gospel with some other Catholic friends his age from his neighborhood who were also in jeopardy of dying and going to hell.

I gave him my Bible, promised to get him tracts to help him to share the Gospel as simply and clearly as possible, and that we would not leave the building until he and I had talked to his pastor to ensure that someone would accompany him to visit his friends with the Gospel.

I have not seen even a committed adult as burdened about the spiritual condition of others perhaps since I was a kid myself.  Lahmi’s desperation had produced, what seemed to me, a kind of spiritual maturity.  Yet I really think Lahmi’s response to what he heard at camp represents what Jesus meant by a childlike faith.  He simply believed, like a child does, what he’d heard all week, and he didn’t just hear salvation messages.  The messages were well-balanced and included teaching on evangelism, the believer’s responsibility to master the word of God, the need to correctly present and defend the Gospel, and the need to genuinely love others we minister to.  This kid just heard all of that and believed it.  He recognized it all as his responsibility.

Further, Lahmi’s story is far from over.  Many more faithful believers will invest much more in his life if he is to become the fruitful adult believer he seems destined to become.

While so many have been involved in our little friend’s life, only One really deserves the credit.  He’s the One who, by His love and sacrifice, has made escaping hell possible.  What a privilege it is to know Him.