Night In The Dark

Life takes on meaning when it is lived. The Apostle Paul the leader of the New Testament church knew how to live life! His experiences captured the true rawness and flavor of the pioneer. Living in strange lands among people with whom it was difficult to communicate and understand. Feeling isolated and often times troubled by the pathetic circumstances that life had dealt to the people in which he sought to reach. The question that is rehearsed over and over is how does, one man make a lasting difference.

In September of ‘89, the United Nations had declared Sierra Leone to be the most under-developed country in the modern world. One of the reasons for this was that the nation of Sierra Leone had no continual flowing electricity. It came in ebbs and flows. It was literally a nation in darkness. Here we were in the latter part of the 20th Century and my coming to Sierra Leone has overwhelmed me with darkness. I thought as a child that I had issues with darkness. But I realized as a 27 year-old it would be terribly difficult to function as effective as I once did with the source of light. Light is precious, invaluable – literally it is the source of life. And yes although the light in which I’m initially referring to is natural, I had no idea how true this would be in the spiritual. Many times what’s happening in the natural is a reflection of what is taking place in the spiritual. My first service was in the home of a young boy name Peter. As I stood in their sitting room, I preached with the aid of kerosene lanterns and candles. Little did I know the words in which I spoke were as light that pierced the darkness of witchcraft, rejection, brokenness and gave light to those who could not see.

I learned that the answer to the darkness would not be addressed through multiplied billions of pounds or dollars from the West or the International Monetary Fund. The only answer to the piercing of the darkness is the light of the glorious gospel. II COR 4:4, 6 “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ shine….For God, commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our  hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Little did I know that my life carried enough light to shine the love of God into the lives of the people of Sierra Leone. When I opened my mouth during that first impromptu service, I was literally speaking hope that gave them a vision of a brighter and more prosperous future. Little did I know the role that Into-Africa would play in the lives of so many Africans, giving them a glimpse of the things that lie ahead.