A Gospel Journey
A journey to share God’s Word.
Paul* of Ecclesia Ministries continues sharing about his recent trip to share the gospel and encourage leaders. Catch up on the first part of his story here.
Paul continues:
“In the morning, we paid the new driver the fee to continue the journey. He said the road is dangerous with more than 100 checkpoints. He warned us of the risk we were taking.
We started off. Check and go, check and go. We made it to the last checkpoint where I was taken for questioning. ‘Where are you coming from? Where are you going? What are you doing? Who do you know?’ So many questions. They asked me for my phone and found no social media apps. They became so suspicious. Then I remembered a friend in the area who accepted Jesus back in 2022. I told them to call my friend who could testify about me.
They called him. He vouched for me. The checkpoint allowed me to move on and told me nobody would question me again. The Lord provided me with safe passage. I never did get my phone back.
As I arrived at JM*, I found the team who had gathered from different places staying in one of the schools. I knew some from before. I was received with a celebration. They began singing praise songs and giving thanks to the Lord for what He had done. It was a good moment for me to see all those I knew. A smile came to my face as I saw this community of believers.
After a short time, some church leaders came and stopped the community from the celebration and said, ‘It’s not good to let everyone around know that the pastor has come because some people will not be happy.’
They took my bag inside and gave me water to drink and to bathe. Nice traditional food was brought for me.
We went to the station early the next morning to retrieve all the materials. After picking them up we planned for the distribution by dividing ourselves into three teams to share the materials in all 18 centers before I needed to return.
The leaders came with eight horses and saddled all our materials to carry with us. The teams divided accordingly to go to their assigned places. Leaders were eagerly awaiting us in each of the centers. Every location had a list of people who wanted a Bible.
Over 16,000 people registered to receive a Bible. I was shocked. We only had 3,000 to give.
Stay tuned for the conclusion of Paul’s story.
*Names altered to protect the identity of those working in areas of increased persecution.