Yesterday Marie came to visit from Kekem. She brought with her cooked rice, with tomato sauce and fish (maquero). It was very delicious. I had cooked some rice w/ sauce as well. It was not as tasty as hers. Work was in progress yesterday. I had to talk to the chief contractor to speed things up. The chief of the village visited the work site and gave some pointers as well. Mama Cecile visited the site and gave me cooked peanuts and ripened bananas. I shared with the workers. Cement bricks fabrication is progressing well. Jean-Robert and Boko are in charge of making the bricks. Boko hired two other helpers and it is speeding things up. I have been keeping close eyes on materials. I told the workers that if I am busy moving dirt inside the foundation or talking with the contractor or doing other work, they must make sure I see and count the cement and iron bars before they use it, or else I will consider it as not used and they will have to pay for it in return. This plan is working so far. I try to do my best to always be there when they are grabbing the materials so they don’t have to track me down.
Yesterday was another blessed day. I was able to share the gospel to everyone on the site. I did not stop the work of course, but the four children that were there asked questions after one of the workers had just returned from performing a sacrifice. He told me that he went to perform the sacrifice for all of the us that were working. I told him I do not believe in that type of sacrifice. That is when the children began asking questions. Parfait, one of the kids, stated that it is an obligation to perform sacrifice. He also stated that if I live in the village longer, I will end up performing sacrifice. I asked him if he believes in Jesus, he said he believes in Jesus 50 percent and 50 percent in sacrifice, then he changed and said he believes 60% in Jesus and 40% in sacrifice. He said that the two of them goes together. That before they can perform any sacrifice, they have to ask and pray to God first. They tried to justify this by saying that God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, then he gave Abraham a goat to sacrifice, therefore, God loves and accepts sacrifices. Out of four of the kids, only one did not believe in sacrifice any longer. He said he was baptized in 2012, and his pastor told them that now that they are baptized, they should no longer believe in sacrifices. He said that ever since he has stopped performing sacrifices. One of his friend said that he has not stopped, and stated that he does eat meat sacrificed to the human skulls. The young boy replied by saying that he only eats it if it is given to him. He said that just because he eats it does not mean he still believes in sacrifices, but that he considers it as meat and meat only. His friends didn’t want to believe that his friend is a changed boy. He still has his bible we gave him in January. I asked if he can bring it to the house on Sunday so that we can go through some passages of the bible together with the other children.
Many of the workers were listening as we talked about Jesus being the only sacrifice for human kind and why the cross, why did Jesus have to die. We had about 18 people at the site listening that day. I realized that the children here only know what they have been thought from birth by their parents, who in turn learned from their ancestors. But I know that God is a mighty God, and He will move and is already moving mountains here in Bano. “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” 2Corinthians 5:21
Jesus is asking us to not worry about anything, instead, to pray about everything. He is asking us to fix our thoughts on what is true, honorable, right and pure, and lovely and admirable. He is asking us to think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
Valerie
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