Story from Ron Yearwood, New Tribes church planter in Africa
Seni Camara was my cultural informant. He was like my village dad. Whenever I needed advice on what to know or do culturally, I went to him. When I prepared my lessons for the chronological teaching, I told it to Seni first and he gave me the words to say so that it could come out sounding like a native Tanda speaker. All the way through, Seni kept saying, “Wow, this message is so true.” As I continued teaching about the promised redeemer, Seni would ask,
“Who is that Redeemer? Is it Muhammad?”
I would respond, “Let’s just wait and see.” After the lesson on Nicodemus and being born again, Seni said,
“I believe this message! Ron, how long ago did Jesus die? Was it about 5 years ago?”
This startled me, so I asked, “Seni why did you say 5 years?” He replied, “Well you came to our village about 4 years ago, so I assume that it was 5 years.”
I said, “Seni…it was about 2000 years ago.”
He looked at me in shock. His mouth fell open; his eyes welled up with tears, and overflowing with emotion, he said,
“2000 years! 2000 years! All my parents and ancestors have died and gone and you all have only just come? Ron, What took you all so long! You waited till we held Islam and it is very difficult for us to change. Why did it take you so long?”
I did not have an answer for Seni.
Seni Camara recently crossed the border into Guinea Bissau to help take the gospel to his birth village with us. A few years ago as we headed home on furlough Seni came to give his farewell and appealed to us to take a message to our churches:
“Please tell your people that my people have not rejected the Gospel. They have not rejected it.” Shaking his head he said, “They have just never heard it. They have never heard it.”
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