Price Family Update -- 15 August 2006

I just returned from an amazing visit in Cape Verde. I want to write all about that visit, but it will have to wait.

Reality strikes again. It requires your prayer in action for the young and growing church in Benin.

Here is an E-mail from a young leader in Benin. He has been in our home many times. We attended his wedding last summer. He is a dynamic preacher who can communicate in nine languages. And, we have been watching carefully the new work he has undertaken in one of the most difficult places in Benin.

I was copied in on the E-mail he just sent to Moise, our district superintendent, and translated it from French:

“Several weeks ago I met a Muslim named [name withheld] to whom I spoke about Jesus and through the Holy Spirit he came to believe in Him. This man invited me back to his home after many conversations.

“This past Friday I went to his village accompanied by two pastors. We evangelized all day Friday and Saturday. We were to spend the night in the village on Saturday to lead a worship service on Sunday morning. It was around 1:00 a.m. that we heard loud shouting and arguing outside. We looked out the window and saw around thirty individuals armed with machetes and sharp tools for digging. They were threatening our host to put us outside. If not they would destroy our host’s house. Having understood that this was a declaration of war, God helped us escape by a side window while abandoning our two motorcycles.

“We had walked quite a while before reaching the main road, where we alerted the local police. Unfortunately, it was too late, the house [belonging to our friend and new believer] was ravaged, our host and his family were in the hospital, and our motorcycles were gone. For the moment police are investigating, but they have no leads.”

Please pray for this young leader, his pastors, and his new friend in Christ. Not to mention, the men who created this havoc. I do not feel as if I can write his name, but volunteer teams to Benin have met this young leader and spent time with him. They know him personally.

For me, these are not headlines or stories about faraway places. It was difficult to see the screen through tears as I typed the translation. We do not live in a world where everyone agrees with us and who believe it is their obligation to silence the message we have of hope and new life. They spread fear through intimidation, we believe something else: “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). That’s my hope and my message. I hope I can be as courageous in living and proclaiming this message as these young heroes from Benin. They are my courage and my champions in the faith as they live at risk to their lives as Christ would. I only hope I can live up to their example.