GR Gambia’s first outreach of the year began on the 17th of January 2005, in Ghana Town, a fishing village suburb of Greater Banjul. Ghana Town is actually a Ghanaians-background enclave in the coastal town of Brufut, populated nowadays by Gambian-born Ghanaians fishermen, married to Gambian Mandinka women.
In order to gain the consent of a Mandinka Muslim girl’s parents to marry their daughter, men in the Gambia must first convert to Islam, and this is what happened in the case of the Ghanaians chief of Ghana Town. He was then appointed to be the local imam! Gospel Recordings Gambia partnered with the new Ghana Town branch of the Banjul Bible Training Centre for this outreach to Ghana Town. BBTC had realised that most of the “Christians” in the Ghana Town church were not actually saved, so they asked GR Gambia to join with them in this outreach ministry to their community.
We showed the Mandinka version of the “Jesus” film for several days and shared the gospel house-to-house. Since the Muslim holiday of Tabaski ran from Friday to Sunday, we suspended the outreach program during those days, and then recommenced it the following week, in both Ghana Town and Brufut proper. About one hundred and sixty people accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord. Hallelujah! We thank all of you very much for your prayers for this outreach, without which, nothing of significance would have been accomplished.
During the outreach, we were able to distribute one hundred and twenty audio tapes of “Look, Listen & Live”, and the Mandinka versions of “Words of Life” and “God’s Plan”, (“Kamben Kotoo”). The chiefs of both Ghana Town and Brufut were two of the recipients. The chief of Ghana Town had a stomach-ache, so we prayed for him. The next day, he testified to his healing. Praise the Lord! At the opening of the outreach program, the people of Brufut were still in mourning for the death of their previous chief who had passed away three weeks earlier. It’s his son who is now the chief and it’s to him and his four wives that we gave the tapes. We also shared the gospel with them and prayed for their family.
We had given one Mandinka man who had watched the “Jesus” film, a copy of the “Words of Life” tape in Mandinka, so when we saw him in the street two days later, we asked him how he was enjoying the tape. To our surprise, he told us that after listening to the tape, he had had a strange dream. In his dream he had seen a man standing above his head, holding a Bible. The man had asked him why he wasn’t praying, but he didn’t know how what to answer because he’s always faithfully said his Muslim prayers. After hearing about his dream, we shared with him again about the finished work of Christ on the cross for our sins, and then the man gave his life to Jesus. He then took us to his house to pray for his children who were sick. We took the opportunity to share the gospel with his twelve-year-old son and he, too, asked Jesus to come into his heart. Praise the Lord! Then we asked the father if his son had any charms or jujus tied around his waist. The man confessed that some time before, he’d asked his wife to return to their home village to get some jujus for their children because they were always getting sick with one thing or another. He then called for a razor blade and cut the juju off his son’s waist, as well as removing the charms from the bodies of his other children, too. Praise the Lord!
After we’d prayed for the entire family, the man invited all his neighbours to come over to his house to meet us. The man then explain to his friends that he and his family are now Christians and will be living for Jesus now on. We shared the gospel with his friends, and they, too, prayed to receive Jesus Christ as their Saviour. Hallelujah!
–Augustus Mcjohnson for GR Gambia