Little Time to Hear the Gospel

A college student who served with us recently in Ghana, wrote: "Throughout the week the Lord revealed to me the true importance that women in the family hold. At the beginning of the trip I knew the basic daily activities that West African women do: caring for the children, attending to the house, and meeting each family member’s needs. But as we went from village to village, I saw that they do much more. It seemed as if the daily life for a mom and wife never ended. As their current day ended, they were already thinking about the next. A woman seemed to be the pillar of each household, even though the man was the head. The Lord used the women in the villages to show me that the life of a Ghanaian woman is difficult, but so important in His own eyes."

Ask the Lord to turn the hearts of Wala women from their fetish worship to Himself. Pray that through their influence, their families will come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Phillip and Teresa Lyons - WALA Team

I spent the morning in my host's courtyard while the women of S-village worked around me - pounding millet, chopping firewood, and carrying buckets of water. Then it was time to wash dishes and pound and sift more millet for lunch. The peanuts had to be ground for the sauce. And it was shea butter day. Mounds of cracked shea nuts lay around, and all day long the women pounded, washed, and kneaded the shea paste. Well after the sun had set, they finally skimmed their reward off the top of the barrel -- pure shea oil that could be used for cooking, in soap and skin cream, and even as fuel. During the day these women stopped work only to eat or to nurse a child. They didn't have time to talk to me, and when I tried to help them, they wouldn't let me. After dinner had been cooked, the children had been washed, the men's bath water had been heated up and the dishes had been done, the women came to sit around my fire and listen to me teach them about God. But what I had to say didn't seem to sink into their hearts - they were just too tired.

Pray that Bambara women will realize that God cares about their daily lives - their aching backs, their crying children, and their power struggles with their mother-in-laws and co-wives. Pray that they will understand that He who made the shea nut knows their hearts.

Susan Roach - BAMBARA Team