May the peace of God be with you.
Greetings with Esther 4:14, “For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
We arrived here in Senegal last September and have now spent one year here. The work has been very difficult, but through the Grace of God we have managed to make more and more contacts.
Before we came we were initially told there were three members in Senegal and many interested souls; however, not long after, I was surprised to find out that there were no members or interested souls. It was hard to accept this transfer after hearing that news, but we trusted in the Lord that He will be with us because this is His work. So we decided to accept this transfer and leave South Africa even though they wanted my husband to remain there to work.
Senegal is a country where the majority of the population is Muslims. Christians make up just four percent of the population and the majority of them are Catholics. When we arrived, we knew no one except a few contacts my husband made when he came previously for a six-week trial. We started everything here from the beginning. We had to make friends with people first, then present them the message of salvation. Many people we met last year rejected us but we still carry on in the courage of the Lord.
Christians in Senegal are few and most are not serious about their faith. They go to church for interests like finding jobs at church, money, and so on. To have members here you must buy them. Many Sunday churches do that. They open schools and training centers, then collect the people, giving them work in exchange for becoming church members.
I was sad to not only hear this, but we experienced it also. People have come telling us that we must fix the economy of our church first if we want to get members. Some, after hearing the truth we teach, say that they believe in it; but they frankly tell us that they cannot leave their church to come to us because of their job.
This has made the work even more difficult.
We thought that if this is the only way to win souls here we would rather pack our things and go back to South Africa. But then again we asked ourselves the question, “will the Lord who has brought us to Senegal abandon us?” The answer was, “no”, so we decided to pray more and ask God for people who are sincere—people who are looking for the truth and the truth only; who are unwilling to sacrifice the truth for money or jobs which we do not have to give to people so they can become our members.
The Lord has answered our prayers and we have five to seven people coming regularly and two of them are preparing for baptism. Let us hope they will not change their minds. Please pray for the work in Senegal as it is just so different from other countries.
Most of the people coming are young people and they love music. We pay for their transport and then we invite them to come eat at our place. It is just my way of bringing them to our house so they can hear the truth while they are with us.
Every Sabbath I make food for everyone. The General Conference sends us a little money for that and I also use our second tithe for this purpose.
There is a young lady who comes with her mother to learn how to cook vegetarian meals and they have proposed the idea of having cooking lessons for women so that they can learn how to cook vegetarian meals. However, I need a table because kitchens here do not have tables, and over here wood is expensive. I cannot afford one. This is another one of our challenges.
Since we started a clinic some good results are being seen, even though we do not have all the necessary equipment.
I wanted to start a sewing centre together with another woman who was a Senegalese who knows best how to sew clothes; but again, I could not get the financial help I needed.
It is discouraging sometimes but we keep on working with the Grace of the Lord.
We are now organising a three day seminar next month about health. People are happy and are looking forward to it.
We are living in an apartment in a Muslim country where religion is not tolerated. It is not safe at all.
We arrived here last year, in a new country, where we had no members or interested souls, and all the efforts we have been doing seem not to be noticed by anyone on earth. And this has discouraged me a lot at times.
We are starting the work here and we need to build a strong foundation based on the Rock which is Jesus Christ; so if people come looking for money only and not the truth we will not baptize them. That is why we are not in a hurry. We want people to accept our message first and then be baptized. We do not want the work to suffer after we are gone.
We would like to open up schools, training centers, etc. Things like that will draw people to come to us and there we will have opportunity to present the truth to them, become door to door is not easy here. We depend on the contacts of contacts and some contacts do not want to present us to others.
This is just in short of what Senegal is like and the challenges we are facing.
May God bless you. Yours in Christ,
Dorcas Ndomba, wife of Brother Judicael