Day #2 started out cold and rainy, and it took a while for the ladies to assemble - but assemble they did, to huddle under the thatched roof and listen to the Word of God.
Our time for prayer requests lasted nearly two hours, as more and more ladies kept coming up with heavy burdens and serious needs.
Flo shared that a just few minutes ago, she received word that her mother had died. Susan shared that God had already healed her partially from blindness and paralysis, but that she still suffered from some trouble. Pauline, Mary, Joyce, Vicky, and others brought in feverish children.
One young girl from Jele requested prayer for her sick grandmother and for her own relationship with the Lord. She confessed that though she had accepted Jesus, she sometimes went out to the disco with her sister, where they drank alcohol and behaved badly. The girl sat with her head bowed and would not look at us as she spoke, and Vicky sensed there was a heavier burden weighing on her heart. Finally the girl shared her story. Her father, mother, and her father’s other wife had all died, leaving her alone with her grandmother. Her uncle had refused to keep paying her school fees, saying that she was “only a girl, and would marry soon anyway.” The girl began cutting firewood to pay her own school fees, but when the grandmother fell ill with tuberculosis, she had to start using that money for food. The girl said that she is all alone now and wants to commit suicide.
We prayed together, and Vicky promised to feed her and her grandmother if the girl would promise to stop going out to the disco and keep working to pay her school fees. She told the girl that she could not carry this burden alone and that she needed to choose to give it over to Jesus and seek out fellowship and with the other sisters in Jele.
Another lady from Jele came up and shared how her husband of twelve years had left her and their three children. The troubles that followed were many. Vicky encouraged her to take time every day to sit before the Lord and pour out her heart to Him. “Some days you won’t even be able to speak,” Vicky said. “Some days you’ll only be able to cry and sing a little. But God will speak to you.” Vicky pointed out one of the literate sisters from Jele and encouraged the lady to ask her to read a few verses from the Bible aloud every day.
Before we returned to Nimule, we were able to hand out t-shirts and small gift boxes of toiletries to the ladies, who were glad to receive them.
The conference was a blessing to us, and we hope that it encouraged the ladies as well! Please pray for them, that they would choose to walk continuously in the newness of life and that they would continue in fellowship with each other. Please also pray for our plans to start a weekly Bible study in Jele. Pray that believers there would be established in the faith.
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