Fulani Nomads - Faith Under Fire

In this episode Matt interviews Peter who spent years working in the Sahara desert amongst one of the most populous unreached Muslim people groups in the world, the Fulani. 

It's an amazing story of dreams & discipleship, baptisms & betrayal, polygamy, malaria, imprisonment and death threats. But in spite of all the troubles, the church is born and begins to grow in remarkable ways.

Some of the books that Peter recommends are: 

Glenn Schwartz, When Charity Destroys Dignity; Jean Johnson, We Are Not the Hero; Jonathan Bonk, The Realities of Money and Missions; and from a non faith-based perspective: Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts 

Transcript

Ben: 0:03

As each one of them was arrested they were taken first to an interrogation room by themselves before they were allowed to go and see the other believers And the first question each of them was asked was Muslim or are you Christian felt a sudden surge of joy filling And every one of them was able to respond I'm a follower of Jesus the judge who was questioning them would say do you understand what you're being charged with you persist in this we will take your life And again every one of them was able to just respond with joyfulness You can take my life but you can't take Jesus from me

0:37

Hi guys. Welcome back to Raw Mission, where we hear from men and women courageously taking the good news of Jesus to the ends of the earth. They have chosen a life filled with risk, instability, discomfort, and sometimes danger, but they are very aware of who has called them, who has sent them, and who goes with them. And today I am joined by Peter who served with his family in West Africa for 20 years. There in the Sahara Desert, they worked alongside Ani Tribesmen and women introducing them to Jesus and seeing remarkable fruit. This is an amazing story of dreams, baptisms, arrests, interrogations, and the remarkable establishment and growth of the church amongst a nomadic Muslim people group.

Matt: 1:20

Well, good morning, Peter. It's great to have you with us on the show.

Ben: 1:23

Thank you for having me

Matt: 1:24

Yeah. And you are not too far away from where we are. You're in the UK these days.

Ben: 1:29

That's right Yeah We moved back to the UK just this year

Matt: 1:32

Yeah. And tell us a bit about your background. You are from Britain, is that right?

Ben: 1:37

That's right I grew up around the Birmingham area grew up in a Catholic family We were very much practicing Catholics went to mass every Sunday I had an awareness of God and believed in God but if you'd ever asked me what's the gospel not sure I would've known what you were talking about was really following that sort of Catholic lifestyle of regular confession and receiving sacraments and going to mass And I was going to a Catholic school church-based school so very much aware of God and very much believed in God but didn't really have much idea of how that should be applied to myself

Matt: 2:12

were both your parents practicing Catholics

Ben: 2:14

Yeah very much so I was an altar boy so again if you'd asked me what's the gospel I probably would've thought it's that big book with the golden edges that I hold up for the

Matt: 2:22

Yeah.

Ben: 2:23

from that's about as much as I would've understood then later I was invited to a youth group at a local evangelical Anglican church was really the first time that I was involved in any kind of Bible study and the first time I really heard the gospel about Jesus coming and dying for forgiveness and for the need for repentance and following him

Matt: 2:45

How old were you then?

Ben: 2:46

oh in

Matt: 2:47

I.

Ben: 2:47

mid-teens but even there I certainly was not living as though I was following the Lord very much getting involved in heavy drinking and experimenting with drugs and all that sort of thing that goes on in teenage years but just aware of God in the back of my mind

Matt: 3:02

Interesting. So when did all that begin to change and become more serious for you?

Ben: 3:05

people It's really when I was a student at university I moved to Oxford for university and the first couple of years were really spent again just partying being out with my friends I had some Christian friends in my college who would keep inviting me to come to church and come to Christian Union meetings for example But I Try and avoid it at all costs but would still describe myself as a Christian and would still argue for the existence of God with people usually over several pints and it got to one day when some of my friends my non-believing friends just challenged me and said hang on You describe yourself as a Christian but you're not living like one You just live like the rest of us What's that all about And I was really just struck over those next few days I really just came to a point of realizing that I was a hypocrite if I really did believe the things that I said I believed about Jesus and about God salvation that really required some sort of a response from me And I'd never made that sort of a response I wasn't living as though Jesus was Lord and so God really used my non-Christian friends to bring me to a point of repentance and surrender And then really over the course of that year my third year at university I turned right around and began to live as a disciple

Matt: 4:16

And so you found a, church at that point during your final year at uni?

Ben: 4:20

Yeah I found the church that I'm still part of now some 25 years later so yeah it is a really great church that focused on discipleship with everyone who wants it And that was just transformative to me It took a good while to break the power of addictions and other things that I was wrapped up in But yeah the Lord was really kind to me in bringing me into that community

Matt: 4:40

And when did Africa come into the picture?

Ben: 4:43

So again with my background I'd never really much at all about missions growing up I remember one mass as a child where can't even remember which order it was but a monastic order came and took the mass and were telling us about their mission work somewhere And so I thought that's what mission is you have to be a monk or a priest or something to be involved in missions there was a guy in our church at that time you actually did an episode of your podcast with him recently Len so he was part of our church and any opportunity he got to get alongside students and talk about the unreached he would do so And so I started to hear from him about unreached people groups and I was just blown away You know I was learning about the great commission that Jesus gave us before he went back to heaven I was just gobsmacked that Jesus had given us this great commission 2000 years ago and we still haven't finished it I couldn't understand it I was just thinking goodness what are we all doing here Then If this job is left unfinished and if there are whole groups and places around the world that haven't yet had the opportunity to really hear and respond to the gospel so yeah the Lord really just put that burden in my heart but again I wasn't aware of any means or any way that you could go and play a part in that until this guy Len said to me one Sunday Hey have you ever heard of our organization Frontiers before and I said no you know tell me about that And so he just started to describe this organization in which you can be a professional in whatever field you work in You can go and join a team that's working in some professional sphere or running an NGO or whatever it might be and seeking to share the gospel and plant churches among unreached Muslim people groups at the same time And again I was just blown away what can do that I never knew that was an option I'd never heard of anything like that growing up and so I remember one Sunday he asked me you know would you be interested in me just putting your name around a few teams and seeing if anyone would be interested in having you apply so I said sure And the next Sunday he came back with a piece of paper with five email addresses and five very vague locations around the world and said here you know these teams are interested Why don't you get in touch and see what they say

Matt: 6:47

bypassing our whole mobilization department straight to the field.

Ben: 6:51

It's a mobilization department in himself

Matt: 6:53

Exactly. That is true. Yes, I know. Learn very well. No, that's, wonderful. So yeah, what happened next?

Ben: 6:59

in the weeks leading up to that piece of paper with five places written on it I'd been praying and just open to the Lord saying Lord if you want me to go overseas and do something I'm open to that but where would you like me to go And really had a very vague impression prayer of the Lord saying West Africa And I knew nothing about West Africa I had some friends from South Africa some friends from Zimbabwe but I probably couldn't name a single country in West Africa at that point And I remember looking at maps of West Africa and saying Lord can you be a bit more specific This is a big place but then when I got that piece of paper with those five names and email addresses one of them just said west Africa I got in touch with them and was asking a bit more and saying well can you tell me more specifically where you are for security reasons they wouldn't share with me where they were until further down the process of applying to join the team but carried on through candidate school with Frontiers preparing to go to the field somewhere And the idea was that during that time of preparation I was gonna go on a vision trip to this country in West Africa was all arranged There was a trip heading out there that I was gonna join in with within the day before we were due to fly I found that I'd lost my passport and in the end I wasn't able to go on that vision trip plan as we'd set it out was that I'd go on this vision trip and then assuming everything was okay six months later I would go out for a longer term placement So within those next six months I managed to get a new passport and in the end just went out for what was due to be a long-term placement having never seen the place before but agreed to stay for five months as a kind of probationary it and try it and see how it goes and so that's how I first got out there

Matt: 8:33

What was it like landing there? Having never seen the country before? I guess you'd never even been to Africa before then, had you

Ben: 8:39

been to South Africa on a family visit it but no I'd certainly never been anywhere like the country that we ended up in in the middle of the Sahara Desert I remember stepping off the plane and being hit by this wall of heat and just seeing dirt everywhere and people in turbines and robes and thinking oh my goodness where am I doing here And how did I end up here

Matt: 9:00

Yeah, these days it would be like walking onto a film set of dune or something like that.

Ben: 9:04

It really was like that and this was 21 years ago So you know very much less developed than it is now Yeah the Lord just took me through a period of really intense jumping in at the deep end the team that I came to join was located in a very isolated place a rural location in the interior took about a whole day's tr travel overland from the capital city where we had landed to get to where the team was located the final half of that journey there was no paved road It was just driving off road on gravel tracks and a lot of the time the gravel road was worse than just driving across the bush so the car would often just be driving the bush it just kept going and going and going And you know coming from England you can't drive more than two hours really in any direction before in an ocean somewhere for 6 7 8 10 hours and years just going and going it was just unbelievable

Matt: 9:53

And with the team you were joining for that period, were they doing NGO work development work?

Ben: 9:59

Yes So they were running an NGO in agricultural sector largely through microcredit so bringing in rudimentary farming equipment and then selling it to local communities on credit but you know for very low rates and then using the proceeds from the repayments to fund further projects I trained as a civil engineer and so my part in joining the team was to start up a well driven program which was very much needed in the region there So that's what I got busy with alongside language learning really the ground and language learning from the beginning

Matt: 10:32

What were some of the hardest? Parts of the living situation that you had there.

Ben: 10:36

Oh it was just everything was really intense my team leaders very wisely threw me in at the deep end from the outset found a local family for me to live with I just rented a room with them was a little mud brick hut with a thatched roof No electricity no running water the family didn't really speak anything but the PAH language the language of the ani people that we were with I would eat my meals with them and with others around town the weather is Sahara Desert so most days would be in the forties Celsius A couple of months each year We'd getting up into the fifties each day didn't have electricity for a fan or anything certainly no air conditioning I learned how to shower with a one liter couple of water each day just You know to preserve water as it was quite difficult to come by lots of sickness I had basically two and a half years living there as a single guy with a host family before getting married which we'll come to later I guess But during those two and a half years I think I cooked for myself maybe five or six times than that every single meal I would be just visiting a local family somewhere just turn up at meal times and eat with whoever happened to be there and so that was incredible for language and for context and social interactions and sharing the message But for my health it wasn't that great

Matt: 11:51

And I presume there weren't big hospitals anywhere nearby.

Ben: 11:54

No there were really no options for healthcare praise the Lord I never got so badly sick that I needed to be hospitalized but just very rapidly lost a lot of weight and Had to come up with some coping strategies for getting extra calories and taking a bit more care of myself

Matt: 12:09

What about the sort of loneliness aspect?

Ben: 12:11

Yeah I would say the loneliness was probably the most difficult part of all I was the only single guy on my team I had a small team of north Americans and Europeans but I was actually the only single male Christian in the whole country for the first couple of years so yeah that singleness was a big struggle Loneliness was a big struggle but something that I had to learn to just submit to the Lord

Matt: 12:33

These days, I, think our listeners will be thinking, wow, did you not even have wifi? No internet access, no connection to the outside world.

Ben: 12:41

Absolutely not to begin with there weren't really mobile phones or anything like that in the area we did have a dialup modem in our office if anyone can remember what those were which would sometimes connect so I could maybe download my emails once a week And that was about as far as it got I'd make a phone call to my parents maybe once a month through a payphone that was about as much connection as we had with the outside world

Matt: 13:03

Yeah. And how often would you go down to the Capitol for a visit? For a break

Ben: 13:07

every three or four months I would try and go for a long weekend maybe even a week it was just such a difficult journey to get there that I think the longest it ever took me was 52 hours to just get to the capital city over land it was Difficult and risky just in public transport It would be very uncomfortable but also quite dangerous to make that journey So we tried not to take it more than we needed to

Matt: 13:28

Dangerous. How?

Ben: 13:30

Just in terms of road conditions road safety there were frequent accidents vehicles we usually hanging on by a thread certainly no seat belts or anything like that you'd be driving along and seeing all the car wrecks either side of you as you go

Matt: 13:41

Yeah, that's, fairly similar to some of the roads in Northern Pakistan for sure. What about when we think about Sahara Desert, I don't know, I imagine scorpions, or did you have mosquitoes out there? What were some of the difficulties with bugs.

Ben: 13:55

Yeah I mean there'd be a rainy season for three months or so each year during which the insects would all surge lots of mosquitoes I had malaria quite often Also had these things we called burn bugs dunno if you've ever encountered them Bombardier beetles I think is the real name but beetles that spray acid at you if you get too close and so especially during the rainy season any kind of light anywhere they would be attracted to the lights But then if you happen to touch them or if they got onto your bed or anything like that they'd spray you with acid and you break out in these big blisters And scorpions were another thing hyenas is we would travel around the region often I never actually came nose to nose with a hyena but would often hear them at night when I was sleeping outside

Matt: 14:35

All right. So that's some of the tough stuff, but how on earth did you sort of manage, what were some of the joys? What, lifted you when you were feeling so down?'cause I remember times of being sick and you're far from home. You sometimes doubt yourself and you doubt why you're there. How did you get through that?

Ben: 14:52

There was a real kind of landmark time for me that the Lord brought me to five months or so I think into my time there my team leaders very wisely again could see that I was struggling and could probably do with a little bit of space to process and just be with the Lord So they sent me to a neighboring country again about a day's travel away they sent me to a hotel on the beach and it was off peak season So I arrived at this hotel in the middle of the night and found out I was the only guest there they gave me the nicest little cabin right on the beach facing Westwood So the sunsets over the ocean from there And you know the whole staff of the hotel were there basically at my beck and call because I was the only guest I remember in the mornings I'd go and have breakfast and the chef would come out and say so you know what would you like to eat today You know just tell me and I'll go to the market and find whatever you want remember one evening sitting out in front of my hut on the beach watching the sunset with this delicious meal that I just finished And I was reading in Philippians four and it said rejoice in the Lord Always And again I say rejoice remember just thinking yes Lord I'm rejoicing This is awesome This is great and then I heard the Lord's voice You know there's a few key times in my life where I've heard the Lord's voice audibly I heard the Lord's voice just saying to me yes but will you still be rejoicing this time next week when you go back home and it was like a sucker punch just brought me to silence and stillness and thinking oh goodness I don't think I will be because it's really hard and I'm really struggling I just came to a point that evening of saying Lord I don't think I can do it and that was a really hard thing for me to admit I'd never really failed at anything before And here I was saying Lord I think I'm gonna fail I don't think I can do this again the Lord spoke and just said of course you can't he said but I can And then he told me to keep reading Philippians four

Matt: 16:33

Four.

Ben: 16:33

13 and Paul says I'm not saying this because I'm in need learned to be content Whatever the circumstances what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation welfare fed or hungry whether living in plenty or in want I can do all this through him who gives me strength So I read those verses and again just felt like the Lord was saying to me it's not a question of what you can or can't do I know you can't do this but I can And he said the only question I have for you is are you willing to do this with me Are you willing to share this with me Are you willing to be a living sacrifice for me for the people that I've sent you to And then it was just silence again And I was there for a few more days and had lots of walks on the beach and lots of very quiet still time of wrestling with that question Now that I had a bit of a taster of what it was actually gonna be like what it was actually gonna cost to follow the Lord in this And really just being left with that question of am I willing and got to the end of those few days there at the beach with a response of yes I'll do it Lord I'm willing as long as I'm with you it'll be all right that's what the Lord taught me that I have to find my joy and my contentment in him but then of course that was a continual process through the rest of our time there

Matt: 17:55

Yeah, I think that's important actually.'cause it's very easy to think. The big sacrifice we make is getting on the plane, leaving it all behind here. But actually, like you're saying, it's the regular sacrifice dying to self you mentioned you had two years or so on your own as a single in that part of the country. At that stage, were there any believers or were you guys just kind of sowing seeds looking for openness?

Ben: 18:20

There were some people who identified as believers but they were very far away from us They were about six to eight hours drive across the bush no roads no trails no nothing to get to where they lived So we had very minimal contact with them but there were some But in the town where we were there was no one it was really starting from scratch

Matt: 18:40

just for context, this is a country of well over 95% Muslim population.

Ben: 18:46

Oh yeah way over that in 1980 it was listed as the least evangelized country in the world basically no believers at that point

Matt: 18:54

And tell us something about the Ani.

Ben: 18:56

So the Ani are fascinating people they're the biggest unreached people group in Africa There's probably 40 to 50 million of them also the largest nomadic people group in the world their lifestyle is built around cattle and livestock often the women will be staying in village locations while the men are moving around with cattle They live across the whole of the Sahel zone in Africa so we really believe that they are key to the advance of the kingdom of God in Africa because the gospel has spread so successfully in Sub-Saharan Africa but in North Africa we really see very little of the growth of the church as of yet but I really believe the Kalani are becoming key and will be key to the spread of the gospel from Sub-Saharan Africa to the north because they really occupy that whole zone that has until now been a sort of a barrier to the spread of the gospel

Matt: 20:34

What are some of their cultural markers and sort of typical reactions to Jesus, followers or Christianity.

Ben: 20:41

The Ani because of their lifestyle based around cattle shepherds the animal herds they are the cream of the cream They're the nobles in Ani society and everything else is built around them built around serving them and allowing them to maintain their herds so wherever you find parables and stories in the Bible of anything to do with shepherding anything to do with animals it just speaks so directly to the ani they taught me so much about shepherding and how to be a good shepherd to really appreciate Jesus as the good Shepherd because it's just such a deeply held part of their culture hospitality is extremely important to them So welcoming strangers welcoming people to stay and live in their homes with them for as long as they want to they taught us a lot about that as well

Matt: 21:28

And are they quite used to conflict because they're moving around a lot and there are the sort of fights over land and territory.

Ben: 21:33

Yeah absolutely you hear a lot these days Christians in Nigeria being persecuted for example and a lot of the persecution of Christians in Nigeria is at the hands of Ani it's often presented as a religious conflict but really I believe it usually boils down to land conflict Because these cattle herds obviously they don't have fields but where they keep their cattle with grass that's growing all the time they're just grazing openly and will be then in conflict with people who are trying to plant crops on their grazing land so that conflict often just spills over into bloodshed

Matt: 22:05

And what kind of Islam are they practicing and how long have they had Islam in their sort of people group?

Ben: 22:11

It's varied mostly Sunni Islam but also very much with an animistic worldview behind it so you see a lot of folk Islamic practices lots of particularly again related to cattle lots of things and talismans and they've have a tradition of greeting the sun each morning when the sun rises as a way of trying to bring the blessing of good weather on the cattle all sorts of things happening All sorts of magical practices that come from other Sufi Islamic SEC in the region But again they're so spread out so they come under different influences in different areas

Matt: 22:43

And do they have witchcraft or witch doctors or is that not in your part of Africa?

Ben: 22:47

Oh yeah absolutely often it would be the imam of a mosque would be the witch doctor and would perform all the same ceremonies every time there was a birth in the community or a marriage in the community you know I would go along with all the other men to be part of it And we would often be invited to sit with the s they call them in French or the you know the witch doctor in English just to be there pronouncing blessing over the child And would often then go through prayers together and I'd be there and if my teammates were with me I'd just be saying right need to just be praying in tongues this whole time praying in tongues to break the power of whatever they're praying over this child and I would often watch as they would be drawing things on pieces of paper and Folding them up and burning them or all sorts of magical practices that would be going on at the same time

Matt: 23:30

Yeah. and presumably they used them for not just blessing, but for cursing others as well. did you guys ever come across that in terms of people trying to curse you I suppose we can come to this more as we get onto the story of the emerging church, but Was that something you came across a lot?

Ben: 23:44

Absolutely we never were aware of people having cursed us but all sorts of things would happen and children would be sick and all sorts of things we really just operated under the principle that we don't need to know the specifics of it We believe that we're protected by the blood of Jesus We just had to remember to pray that but then in encountering other people working with believers as people started coming to faith yeah that was very much something we needed to tackle openly

Matt: 24:07

Yes, we'll come onto those discipleship questions and of course it's never easy to know is this sickness, just natural sickness'cause of some kind of virus, or is it something more sinister? Okay, so take us forward. What happened after that first two and a half years or so there?

Ben: 24:22

the two and a half year mark marked the time when I left for a little while to get married so that was what happened there

Matt: 24:28

Tell us about that.

Ben: 24:29

Right So I as I said loneliness was probably the biggest struggle for me not really having anyone that I could share deep things with had lots of local friends and spent lots of time with people had time praying with my team but really on a deep level and a spiritual level with anyone that was around talking with my team leader about that and he recommended at one point well why don't you just go back to England and perhaps try and find a wife who would be willing to come back here with you And that really just didn't sit well with me I felt this is such a hard place to live I don't think I could invite anyone to come and live here with me on the basis of my calling And so the Lord put it in my heart to just pray for a woman who had already received that call and had already responded to it under her own steam and there wasn't anyone fit that description at that point when I started praying that But eventually a young lady arrived in the country and joined another Frontiers team working in the capital city shortly after she arrived we had a regional conference where all of the teams from that region got together So I got to talk with her a bit there and got to know her a little bit we had set off pretty well and so a little while after that during my next trip that I had planned to go to the capital city for some r and r I asked her for a date and she surprisingly said yes so we had a date chaperoned by some friends of ours They invited us over to their house and then after the dinner they set out tea and cakes on their roof and just said oh we've just got some things to do you know why don't you two just go up there and you know have some time to talk and then I pretty much told her that I wanted to marry her that night and she didn't run

Matt: 26:01

Wow.

Ben: 26:02

And

Matt: 26:02

on your first date.

Ben: 26:03

Yeah on our first date I said look I need you to understand it takes me you know sometimes 50 odd hours to get here So if I'm gonna keep on coming and visiting you I just want you to understand that you know this is my intention and this is what I'm hoping for and if you're okay with that let's carry on

Matt: 26:18

Wow.

Ben: 26:19

Yeah Within a few months of that we were engaged then spent a year back in our home countries She's from the us so we spent a year after we got married Learning to be married and getting used to each other as we didn't actually know each other all that when we got married

Matt: 26:33

Yeah. Sounds very familiar to my story.

Ben: 26:36

Yeah But really you know we just found that the Lord had given us similar callings similar faith that we were committed to following it together That we were just looking for someone who was similarly obedient so thought this is good We can learn to love each other and we can together and trust the Lord for fruitfulness

Matt: 26:52

And now, several years later you've got five kids.

Ben: 26:55

That's right Yeah They just kept coming yeah the Lord's blessed us richly of course in Africa people criticized us for only having five

Matt: 27:03

Yeah.

Ben: 27:03

people criticized us for having five so you know we can't please anyone really But no we are very grateful for our kids and they formed an essential part of ministry as a family

Matt: 27:14

And so when you returned to West Africa presumably it was just the two of you at that point.

Ben: 27:19

Yeah She had our first child pretty much straight away So we returned with a I think she was three months old and moved back to the town where I had been in the interior

Matt: 27:28

Wow. And was that like?

Ben: 27:30

It was really special just starting to build this life together that we had been dreaming of moved into a house so again we went back to join the team that I had been part of before the team leaders actually with schedule planning you often find this on teams that people are coming and going all the time So I think a week after we arrived our team leaders left for a six month break so we were really again at the deep end as a family just figure things out for ourselves of course I had been there for a couple of years already I had lots of friends but now as a married man and introducing people to my wife and my daughter and figuring out how to live as a family there together

Matt: 28:03

I mean, that's a huge kudos to your wife because to go into your world where you've already got a headstart on culture and language and living scenarios. Yeah. It's amazing that she was able to head up there to your world, I suppose she'd been there as a single herself and learned some language.

Ben: 28:20

She had also had a year and a half in language learning as a single person there as well before we got married So that was a real kindness of the Lord to give us both that intense time to step into that calling to learn language to learn how to relate to local people and then to be able to proceed together

Matt: 28:37

So tell us about the emergence of the church in that part of the world.

Ben: 28:42

It's just an amazing story in which we played a small part I think it was about two weeks after we got back there as a family we just found a house and moved into the house and unpacked our few belongings and found some mattresses to sleep on and all that kind of thing So we basically felt like we just arrived and then one evening a man turned up at my doorstep I'd never met him before but he'd actually met some of my teammates before But none of my teammates at that point none of the men on our team spoke our language They were working with the different people group so they hadn't really been able to communicate with him very well but they'd realized that he wanted to talk about Jesus So they just said look this guy's coming back soon he'll be here in a few weeks Go visit him So anyway this guy turns up at my door and he says I've had a dream about Issa The prophet Jesus can I talk with you about that and I thought I need to be a bit cautious here because this has never happened before He could be a police informant I'm not really sure But nevertheless just invited him in to our home my wife started making tea and all the hospitality stuff I sat down with him and you know a bit of small talk and get to know you and where do you live and who you're related to and all that kind of thing and then I just invited him you said you had a dream do you want to tell me about that And so he described this dream to me he said I was dreaming in the night And I saw ambi Issa I saw he was far away from me but he was all dressed in white He was gleaming white And I just knew that this was Issa and Issa was beckoning to me with his hands He was beckoning for me to come And he said as I was dreaming I was trying and trying to get close to Issa to Jesus But there were so many obstacles in between us that no matter how hard I tried or for how long I tried I couldn't get one bit closer to him And he said he woke up the following morning just weeping and filled with this sadness that he hadn't been able to get closer to Jesus And he just said to me you please tell me How can I get close to Jesus I have to get close to Jesus and I thought I've only been here two weeks I was expecting this to take a bit longer once we got back But my wife was there and was overhearing bits of the conversation So she was sending text messages to our teammates saying this is happening You know pray and so over the course of that evening I just really took him from Genesis to Revelation creation to Christ telling him the story and of course focusing on Jesus and Jesus death and resurrection and repentance and faith and he just said to me this is amazing This is what I've been waiting for I believe everything you've said What do I do and so I was able that night to just lead him in a prayer of just surrendering his life to the Lord And he said this is amazing This is great But he said I've got three brothers who are gonna want to hear this as well it okay if I bring them back tomorrow night Would you share the same thing with them And I said alright of course so the next night he brings his brothers along and he said just tell them everything you told me last night and so I just went through the same thing again and by the way this is you know in hindsight so grateful to the Lord for that period of two and a half years Complete emotion in language and lots of practice of sharing the gospel without really seeing anybody come to face when that opportunity unexpectedly came I was just in a place of readiness to be able to share the story and not to have to think about it too hard So really grateful to the Lord for that But that night again I just shared the same thing with these three brothers and they had the same response Just yeah we believe that we've been waiting our whole lives for this What do we do and leading them again and just giving their lives to the Lord And it was shortly after that a few weeks later that they were all baptized together

Matt: 32:00

Praise God. How does baptism work in the Sahara Desert?

Ben: 32:04

Thankfully we lived close to a border on a river It was about two hours drive away So at that point we would often just take people to the river as it turned out on the day of their baptism we had invited an elder of a church elsewhere in the region to come and join us for that day when I woke up that morning when we had planned for everybody to come to our house and then make the trip to the river for the baptisms I woke up felt deathly ill I wasn't able to stand up I had a very high fever whole body was aching Everything just felt really bad there was a Chinese doctor that worked in the town who came over and me and said oh you've got malaria Oh and you've also got pneumonia you're really ill You probably need to evacuate and so as all of these guests are turning up at our house to prepare for these baptisms I've got my wife and telling her all the passwords for our computer making sure she knows where our wills are I'm thinking I'm not sure if I'm gonna make it to the end of this day thought you know what this has got to be spiritual attack because this is the day of these first baptisms so I'm not gonna let this stop us and I wasn't able to go to take these guys to be baptized But with this visiting elder from the other church I asked him would you please just take them baptize them and come back And so he took them off And a couple of hours later in the day they called me from the river and said it's done We've been baptized we're coming and right as they were finishing up that phone call with me my fever broke and I suddenly started to feel better They arrived back at our house A little while later all gathered around me I was still lying on my back I still didn't have the strength to sit up So these guys who were new believers first generation believers just been baptized They all gathered around me placed their hands on me and just said Jesus please heal him And the rest of the fever just left me at that point

Matt: 33:41

Amazing. And in hindsight, it makes you wonder, was it better that. Somehow that local pastor was there that they could see this as Africans bringing Africans to the Lord, even if it's a different tribe. That's just a beautiful thing, isn't it?

Ben: 33:54

Yeah absolutely and again you know we spent 20 years there altogether and over 20 years of course I shared the gospel with hundreds if not thousands of people actually those four were the only ones I led to the Lord And that was just cause they turned upon my doorstep ready to hear and I only ever actually baptized two or three people The Lord graciously allowed us to just stay in the background and just be there just at the right moment to get something started but then to be in the background and in the shadows just encouraging them as local leaders

Matt: 34:23

Yeah. Now my. Colleague. Mike likes to say church planting is easy until you have your first few believers. So what happened next? How on earth did you disciple folks who are so new to everything? What were some of the challenges? How did you do this?

Ben: 34:41

Yeah it was full on that's for sure really just being with each other a lot looking to Jesus's model of discipleship which was alongside people having them in your life and you being in their life and doing things together and ministry together and being in each other's homes a lot and being in the word a lot breaking bread together a lot Praying together a lot so we really went through a period of about seven or eight years from when those first guys came to Faith We didn't see hardly anyone else come to faith over the next seven or eight years There were one or two men that joined but really we were focused on with these guys walking with them through Difficult situations through difficult marriages through parenting challenges with work through destroying a lot of folk Islamic practices destroying their amulets destroying their spell books destroying potions breaking off the power of demonic things in that way complete life transformation and through that period I think I felt a lot of frustration thinking well why aren't more people coming to faith You know we had such a great start You know I thought this was gonna be the start of multitudes but again in hindsight knowing what was gonna come later the Lord was so gracious in giving us those years to really build solid foundations in these men so that they would be ready to lead something much bigger later but he really had to transform those men which was a grueling process at times but very rewarding in the end

Matt: 36:04

Was there any use of media in all of this, or were these guys able to read and write?

Ben: 36:10

Some of everything at a very basic level of literacy when they became believers but we spent so much time in the word and reading that they've become very much better over the years we would use some audio scriptures as well but those are a bit more unwieldy It's very difficult to just go to the passage that you want to get to when using audio bibles yeah just lots of time reading the word They don't have an awful lot that's printed in their language but they had the New Testament that's what we went on then over the years where there was some really key Old Testament passages again to be able to take people through creation to Christ taking some key Old Testament passages and I would just translate them myself as best I could and do that sort of together with them to make sure that the understanding was good Really paraphrasing important passages

Matt: 36:54

So was church and fellowship to them coming to you guys or meeting in their homes and just eating together, reading the scriptures, praying together? Or was there any other formalized church at that point?

Ben: 37:06

It was all in homes absolutely really when we started out with this group we still were in that sort of old school mentality of we gather them to our homes and we give teaching and they were very happy for that because that fits in quite well with the way things happen in their traditional religious practices as well But then we started to learn more about sort of movement methodologies and how we want this thing to be replicable it mustn't be built around us and our homes and our teaching It needs to be in their homes It needs to be about facilitating them to gather around the word by themselves and to be able to replicate that So we had to make a bit of a switch shutter a year or so of working with them to really make it more centered on the Lord and on the word of course but centered in their context in their homes and with their facilitation And that was a bit of a difficult change to make at first but we were insistent on it and it Bo Fruit in the end

Matt: 37:54

what was the reaction to the community? Were these guys pretty public about their new faith initially or was it a slow revelation?

Ben: 38:02

They were very open with their immediate family and their close friends so that led to some trouble for them Various of them lost their jobs because people that they had been working with wouldn't work with them anymore So a large part of discipleship in that context was then walking through with them starting their own businesses and how do you run a business as a Christian How do you run a kingdom minded business How do you run a business with integrity and honesty and your taxes and all of that kind of thing so that was a big deal with their marriages my wife and other women on the team were just very faithfully visiting the wives of these men who'd come to faith and sharing the message with them And these wives of the believers really within a fairly short timeframe we're seeing wow we can really see the change in our husbands we can see that this is true because we can see difference it's made to our husbands They're not cheating on us anymore They're not lying and stealing anymore they've been changed They're living the way we're supposed to live but none of us have actually been able to do it But now because of Jesus they've changed But they would say we can't follow them into this because we would be dishonoring our fathers if we did the women really took lot longer to come to a point of faith as well

Matt: 39:11

So sort of mild persecution in a sense, and struggles early on but nothing too crazy, no violence, no arrests by government, anything in the early days. So how did everything develop? I.

Ben: 39:23

Toward the end of that time seven years or so a security situation where we were was getting gradually worse and within a fairly short space of time the Lord made it very clear to us that we had to leave we were under imminent threat We had to leave the area where we were living there with the believers which we did we got our team together and said alright We've got 36 hours we're leaving in 36 hours pack a few bags don't tell anybody we're leaving it was a very abrupt leaving and it felt at the time a disaster We thought they're not ready for us to leave the church is too weak this is probably just gonna fall apart if we're not here to support them so it felt gut wrenching but it was a step of obedience that the Lord had said we had to leave So we left

Matt: 40:03

What was the security threat?

Ben: 40:05

The Al-Qaeda was spreading across the region so we knew in general terms that things were getting more dangerous we were thinking we'll just keep going and we'll just stay until you know if we get a specific threat then we might consider leaving at that point but then over the course of a week we had 10 messages from supporters all around the world all saying you know I was praying for you the other day and I suddenly felt the Lord me this verse for you three of those people gave us the verse from Matthew's Gospel at the Nativity where it says you know the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and he said take the child and his mother and go to Egypt So three people gave us that verse two people gave us a verse from Genesis related to Noah where it says Noah carefully obeyed everything the Lord had told him People were saying I'm not really sure what the significance of this is but I need to get this to you And then again within

Matt: 40:51

Memory.

Ben: 40:52

2-year-old child who was our third child had a series of three dreams in which she said bad men came in the night and they took you and mommy away and killed you at the end of this week I remember talking with our overseers and saying you know we've been getting all these strange messages and we're thinking it might be time to start thinking about leaving you know in the next few months And they just looked at us and said Lord has spoken clearly Why are you still there Get out so we gathered our team together that afternoon and explained and all agreed yeah it's time to leave

Matt: 41:20

How did the local believers react? were they understanding of that?

Ben: 41:24

They understood that the Lord had spoken and that we had to obey They were very disappointed but there was also a ani believer who had come in from further away around about that same time and was trying to take over the group of the believers and trying to bring it under his own influence And we saw him very much as a wolf He was very deceptive very greedy but they were deceived by him at that point And so at the same time as we were leaving they were being brought under the influence of this other guy And we were thinking this is terrible It's all gonna fall apart but again in hindsight the Lords really did that to test them that they were ready for that period of testing it was about a year or so later after we had relocated to another place in the country to basically start again that they contacted us and said you know you are so right about this other guy he proved himself to be a deceiver We put him out a fellowship and we really want to reestablish contact with you We want you to disciple us again and that was also about the time when things really started to multiply So Lord brought them through a period of testing followed by a period of growth

Matt: 42:23

It's really interesting and it's worth just reminding the listeners, I suppose, because we've mentioned it before on the podcast, but people forget that Jesus did, said if they persecute you in one city, flee to the next. There is biblical precedent to flee sometimes, and of course sometimes we're called to stay and endure and persevere as well. So it's interesting that you had quite a clear sense that this is the Lord's command to us right now. Not necessarily to all the believers there, but to you guys as a team.

Ben: 42:53

interesting actually We didn't discover until two years later that on the day that we fled from that city there had actually been a very specific Threatening thing posted about us on the internet on a blog of an American missionary website that was completely unrelated to us but they had basically completely blown our cover and named us and pinpointed our location two years later we found that article that had been published the day that we left but we didn't need to know what the specific problem was The Lord was in control

Matt: 43:21

Well, Yeah. But very tough, I'm sure for your kids as well to leave their friends And all of that.

Ben: 43:26

Yeah

Matt: 43:26

Yeah. Big upheaval. Big sort of traumatic moment. Okay. Yeah. So what happened after that? You relocate to a new place. You begin again. It takes a while for you to reconnect with those first believers.

Ben: 43:39

So we had recruited a new team starting ministry again in a new area again with Fulani but thinking start from scratch again and pray for the previous ones And then you know they got back in touch as I said So I mentioned the wives of these first believers and how had been resistant to faith so the country that we worked in actually has the highest divorce rate in the whole world You often don't think about that maybe in thinking about Muslims you think they value marriage surely but actually divorce rates can be extremely high polygamy was very common where we were with the Lanni It's a very common practice And so you tend to find when a woman gets married she maintains her primary allegiance to her father because she's gonna be thinking if and when my husband divorces me I need a backup plan I need to be able to go back to my father's household stay there until I find another husband and so the wives of these believers That was their received culture and their received assumption that if we follow our husbands into this faith we'll be burning our bridges back to our father's households And then if and when our husbands divorce us we'll have nothing be on our own So that was really the hurdle that was preventing these women from coming to faith It was really after as I said about seven years or so of lots of just sharing and witnessing and sharing and witnessing And these believers were urging their wives to accept Jesus And finally that first man that had come to my house that first night he had two wives when he came to faith he took one of these wives to a neighboring country where there was a small community of other lanni believers who had been there for quite a long time he took her there just to show them Ani believing families exist This is what they look like during that trip she was moved by what she saw and she finally gave into Jesus And she said I give up me now before I changed my mind And so they baptized her there and then they got back to the compound where they all lived together as a big extended family and she told the other wives what had happened that she'd given her life to Jesus that she'd been baptized And so all the other wives together on mass said We want to follow this too within a day or two of them arriving back all of those women had come to faith to and so really at that point the church in that area went from being a small group of men which was a bit like a sort of a club or an interest group And now all of a sudden it's a family it's a new tribe you know the Jesus tribe if you like among the Ani started to notice and see these radically transformed marriages husbands and wives committed to each other faithful to each other one another fathers loving their children investing in them teaching them about the Lord All of this is just absolutely radical in their society and people were noticing And from that point on we started to see rapid multiplication we started to see whole families coming to faith together young Older people all worshiping together gathering together rapid growth

Matt: 46:32

Beautiful. What did worship look like for them? Did they have their own songs and their own languages?

Ben: 46:38

It was awkward at first there would be spoken worship in Ani culture Among the Ani people is something that is done only by a certain cast of slaves and it's basically a form of begging musicians would turn up at weddings baptism that kind of thing and sing music to praise the family that Were hosting the event As long as they keep giving money if they feel like they're not getting enough money and gifts from the family they'll start cursing them and ridiculing them in song so that's really how music exists in their culture That's what it's for and anyone who's not part of that group of musicians would consider it very shameful to sing or to play an instrument So that's something that the Lord really started to redeem and putting songs in people's hearts And at the beginning you'd hear people singing and it would be a cacophony of people who'd never sung before and had no idea how to do it Over the years certain ones of them particularly the spirit has given them a gift to be able to make music and to sing and to produce their own worship music A lot of it just really coming straight from scripture lot of it call and response where someone will sing something out and the congregation just reflects it back to them it's just absolutely beautiful to hear completely indigenous worship

Matt: 47:49

That's Great I love that. Really interesting insight. so you're starting to see now family after family come to Christ. Did the opposition and persecution go alongside that?

Ben: 48:02

because this growth was all happening in a very isolated area far away from the cities the authorities didn't seem to notice it for quite a long time It's just something happening out in this backwater with a tribe that really isn't involved in government or doesn't really have a lot influence in the country So it was ignored and you know the church grew to several hundred probably 5 6 700 people baptized believers before things really started to come into public attention in a big way this was a couple of years ago now where there had been a baptism and somebody attending this baptism had decided to record it as a video on their phone then to send it within WhatsApp groups that was shared between the believers And somehow that out to somebody else got to the media and it turned into this big scandal with this video being circulated through the nation through media reported on local news sites of this baptism happening And that caused a lot of problems within a couple of weeks of that video leaking 26 of the leaders and elders of the church were arrested and imprisoned and charged with apostasy and blasphemy which carry mandatory death penalties where we are I'll carry on with that But a fun God story Just a few months before this had happened we'd been gathered with some of the leaders of the church and they told us the Lord has given us this vision that within a year from now the gospel will be preaching throughout this nation Will you pray with us for this goal And we thought gosh that's sounds a bit like pie in the sky but We'll pray with you for that that leaked Basically the senior leader of the believers among the ani there is pronouncing the gospel over this man and then pouring water over his head so this thing just went viral throughout the whole country within a few short months after they had asked us to pray that with him

Matt: 49:47

Praise God.

Ben: 49:48

yeah so the Lord works in all sorts of ways but anyway these guys are now are all in jail we've got the youngest was a 15-year-old girl who was imprisoned There was a few other teenagers who were leaders among the youth in this group of churches to adults people that you know some of the original ones that we had led to faith three of them were in prison and then there were some elderly people also who had come to faith and men and women it was really a broad demonstration of the breadth of the church as it was they knew the arrests were likely to happen just after they were eventually released we'll get to that in a minute We were able to gather them all together at our home for a long weekend of debriefing and just telling their stories And they were telling us about the whole experience And they said for each and every one of them once they knew the arrests were happening and they knew that they were likely to be arrested that they were fearful and they didn't think that they would be able to hold to their testimony under pressure As each one of them was arrested they were taken first to an interrogation room by themselves before they were allowed to go and see the other believers And the first question each of them was asked was Muslim or are you Christian And every single one of them reported afterwards at the same time at that moment felt a sudden surge of joy filling And that every one of them was able to respond I'm a follower of Jesus Absolutely A follower of Jesus And the judge who was questioning them would say do you understand what you're being charged with you persist in this we will take your life And again every one of them was able to just respond with that joyfulness Not just forced but with joyfulness You can take my life but you can't take Jesus from me

Matt: 51:28

Wow,

Ben: 51:29

and then of course they were all the interrogation room Then they were sent to a big cell where they were all being held together and they would all say what did you say And they were able as the days went on to realize that they had all said the exact same thing They'd all had the same experience of that infilling of the spirit

Matt: 51:45

that's so amazing. Yeah. So carry on with the story. What happened during the interrogations and afterwards.

Ben: 51:52

So they were all in prison for almost four weeks 26 of them held in a single concrete cell about four meters by four meters nothing to lie on they weren't really facilities or anything like that They were interrogated pretty much 24 7 They were never actually physically harmed but there was a lot of other kinds of pressure put on them They had the top imams in the country come as a delegation to preach at them for hours on end telling them come back to Islam all will be forgiven Come back to Islam We'll give you prominent jobs We'll give you all the cattle you could want if you don't we will put you to death they had police interrogations they had politicians coming and interrogating them top politicians in the country there was really no let up but not one of them Crumb one of them crumbled They all stuck to their testimony And they were telling me afterwards during one of these interrogations with a group the top regional judge who had been questioning them just exasperated And he just said are these people What are they? don't seem to be afraid of death what are we supposed to do with them they realized they were gonna have to make some sort of a compromise The authorities realized that they couldn't possibly put all these people to death or they would lose all favor with the west and so they just couldn't do that and they were gonna have to come up with some sort of a compromise they prepared a statement asked the believers to sign it The statement saying we believe in Mohammed and we believe in all the prophets And we are peaceful people they refuse to sign it And so he came up with another statement saying we believe in God and angels and we believe in the holy scriptures Will you sign this And they said yeah we'll sign that we believe in God and angels and the scriptures Yes we can sign that And so they all signed this declaration of faith And then the judge said to them free to leave And not only did he tell them that they're free to leave he told them you can carry on with what you were doing but just it quiet try and keep it respectful Try not to upset people but you can carry on which is just The nation we're talking about I'm not gonna the nation but the church has never existed there It's illegal for the church to exist there and for the authorities to give this kind of tacit approval for the church to exist and to agree not to persecute them further just mind blowing

Matt: 54:08

Now, all this time, how much did you know? How worried were you that you might be named and taken in as well

Ben: 54:17

Yeah all of these folks that were in at the time we were in communication multiple times a day communicating with their teenage children and some of the other leaders who hadn't yet been in Prisoned and so the children of the believers were able to go to the prison each day to bring them food and other supplies that they needed And so through the children we were communicating with the people in prison were trying to arrange for lawyers to represent them which completely failed No one was willing to represent them but the children were doing an incredible job The children rose up as leaders really took a public stand defending their parents and they were really instrumental in providing for the rest of the family members of the believers who'd been imprisoned so that was just an incredible time we also were very much aware that under interrogation that they would be asked who told you about this Who led you into this faith and so we were living under the assumption that at some point the police would come for me as I was really the one that had led that first group to faith And even in that area we were publicly known as people who had been leading people to faith So we were really just waiting for the knock on the door we packed our bags assuming that I would probably be imprisoned for a few days and then escorted to the airport I've never had an experience quite like sitting down with my children and briefing them as to what's likely to happen they knew what was happening with the believers of course but having to explain to them it's quite likely that I would be arrested and imprisoned but Don't worry We've got plans in place We took them through contingency plans of what to do if both my wife and I were arrested which is a very difficult thing then to unpack later with our kids But goodness is that discipleship or what to be able to take our kids through that kind of an experience but we had the option to leave We had the option to flee but felt the Lord really gave us faith and grace to stay To be there to support and to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters And in the end I didn't get arrested In the end nobody came knocking on the door and afterwards I asked some of the believers you know what did you say Did they not ask you who had led you to faith And they said oh we just skirted around the question and avoided it anyway we were grateful for that but yeah it was very much facing up to the likelihood of arrest and taking our children through that process

Matt: 56:25

And of course people all over the world, including us here, I remember those days were praying for all those believers under arrest. And I hope that they knew that, and I'm sure they did. And hopefully that was a support to them, knowing that folks all over the world were caring for them and praying for them.

Ben: 56:40

there have been you know a few other situations since then where similarly persecution has come on These people and rare has just risen up all around the world Thousands upon thousands of people praying for these small number of people in this backwater little place in the middle of the Sahara Desert But the believers there they know that and they appreciate that they're so moved by the closeness that they feel with the global church They know they're part of something way bigger and most of em haven't really seen any of that but they just know it's there my family and others that are working with them have just had that privilege of linking them into that and telling them about people that are praying for them telling them how people love them and cheering for them and admire their faith and it's such an important thing for them

Matt: 57:22

That brings me to another thought. I suppose that sometimes an emerging church, whether Muslim or otherwise, a country like that, can get very polluted by contact with wealthy outsiders, whether they're western or eastern, it doesn't really matter, but they can find all sorts of problems. Oh, they go off to another country and they, become heroes and stand up and tell their testimonies on stage but do you think it was a benefit that these guys didn't get that kind of exposure to the global church in person and therefore some of the temptations and the corruptions and the pressure that others like us can have on them Unwittingly.

Ben: 57:58

Absolutely Yeah we are really grateful for those early years where we were really the only people they had contact with since then there've been a lot more Christian organizations coming getting in touch with them bringing sponsorship and all sorts of things that are intended to help but usually it leads to jealousy and division and know people coming in from outside saying we are gonna teach you how to reach your people without realizing hang on They're already reaching their people They were quite good at it They don't really need you to teach them how you would do it if you were in England or Switzerland or America or Canada or wherever it was They're doing quite well already Thank you very much of course coming along and saying oh we see that you're poor We're gonna just pay you so that you can be an evangelist or you can be a pastor you're not gonna have to worry about raising a living Introduces this whole sort of work market basically where people are competing for sponsorship competing for employment from overseas churches And of course then members of the churches look on and say our pastor is being supported from America We don't need to give anything And so it really destroys the privilege and the calling of giving within the churches as well and we just see that repeated over and over again especially across Africa And we're seeing some of that unfortunately now with the believers that we've been working with But momentum is still there Also we're still seeing growth we're still seeing young people leading despite a lot of the dampening effects of outside involvement

Matt: 59:20

How did you in the early days avoid that sort of temptation to give financially or step in too far too quickly?

Ben: 59:29

It was tricky I mean from the outset the believers were saying look we can go and share the message If you'll just pay us so that we don't have to work anymore then we can go and do all of this again the Lord really impressed it on our hearts that whatever we are laying here needs to be sustainable needs to be replicable laying foundations here and I think coming to understand that's really the apostolic task that's the missionary task is to lay down solid foundations that can be built upon later If you're laying down foundations of dependency foundations of teaching believers that they do not have the resources that they need to grow their own church that's gonna be the assumption and that's gonna be the culture that will pervade in the church as it grows And doesn't usually grow very much under those sorts of assumptions

Matt: 1:00:08

Yeah, in the show notes, I'll put a reference to a book called When Helping Hurts, and I think that's mostly about and community development outside influence that can actually damage. But many of those principles will be the same for the church, for the spiritual growth. I think that could be useful for anyone who wants to dig a bit deeper into some of that.

Ben: 1:00:26

Yeah there are lots of books on the subject related to missions as well but yeah

Matt: 1:00:31

Yeah. Well, this is amazing to hear this story. Thank you, Peter. what do you want to leave us with any latest updates or anecdotes? Stories from the field that you think will really encourage us, maybe just even a, couple of tips for those who are thinking, how could I ever do anything like that? I don't think I could cope.

Ben: 1:00:50

One thing I haven't really talked much about is team one of the big core values of Frontiers is that we do everything in teams We value that Through most of the time that we were in this country we were part of teams we were leading teams And I would say when people are exploring a call to the nation thinking well where shall I go Who shall I serve the more important question many situations is gonna be who shall I go with to find a team that you can connect with to find a team where you can just agree together in terms of vision and calling the places a bit more incidental honestly but find people that you can serve well with my experience of team over the years has been that it can be One of the most rewarding parts of this kind of ministry You can get really close to people in a team where you're pioneering and you're the only believers around so you're gonna get close it can also be one of the hardest things of all because you're getting so close to these people and there's no one else to go to if you're not getting on very well with them so team can also be very difficult and takes a lot of investment to make it work well but can just bear an awful lot of fruit as well So figuring out who are good people to work with is a really important thing And just overall we had 20 years living in the Sahara There was a lot you might say we had to give up And a lot of difficult things but looking back I think trade it for anything I've seen the Lord do such incredible things and I've seen the Lord grow me and change me in different ways in my family I wouldn't trade the life of discipleship that my children have had whatever else they might have missed out on walked a path of discipleship that lots of kids don't get to walk at their ages I wouldn't trade it for anything the Lord has been faithful he taught me at on that beach 20 odd years ago I'm not capable of doing what he sent me to do and I mustn't ever think I'm capable of it but he's capable of it and he's inviting me to walk hand in hand with him and to partner with him and to see what we can do together And that's been the biggest privilege of my life to do that along with my wife and my family and team at different times You'll never regret stepping out in obedience to the Lord

Matt: 1:02:50

Yeah. And maybe just to finish, what's the assignment the Lord has given you these days, and what's your vision going forward?

Ben: 1:02:56

So we continue to work with the local church where we were with the Ani church being on the phone with them visiting them from time to time we're also now with Frontiers we're part of the small team that's overseeing all of our work in most of Africa we're overseeing teams on the ground and strategizing for where to send new teams to new peoples and places that haven't been reached yet in Africa and we're also working with churches

Matt: 1:03:19

Would,

Ben: 1:03:20

To promote God's heart for the unreached and to work with young people who are exploring that call in missions yeah we're really just

Matt: 1:03:27

yeah.

Ben: 1:03:27

to be able to continue in this passion that he's given us and to give our all for glory among the nations

Matt: 1:03:33

Do you have a final word for the UK church or the church in the west when we might be tempted to sort of give up on global missions? There's so much need around us here, and while Koreans are doing a great job, the Latinos, the Chinese are now getting into global mission. Maybe we should leave it to them.

Ben: 1:03:50

Just look at Revelation seven and then tell me you don't need to do it We'll read Matthew 24 14 and then tell me it's got nothing to do with you our god's heart and passion ambition will commitment Promise is to gather in multitudes from all peoples and all languages and all nations he wants all the peoples and languages and nations to be involved in that process too So if we're not taking part in that we're missing out we're disobedient and we're missing out on the blessing of obedience I'm massively blessed at having played a part in this thus far if our father cares so deeply about this should we not care deeply about it too that's really where I come down to

Matt: 1:04:24

yeah, wonderful echoes of Jonah there and the words, the Lord spoke to Jonah about his compassionate heart. And the wonderful thing is, wherever you are in the world, whatever church you're part of, you can be involved in God's heart for the nation's giving, sending, praying, and going, and maybe praying for people in your church to go. To places where the gospel is not available'cause there's no one there. Yeah Peter, thank you so much for being with us today. We rejoice with you at The Fruit. You've been privileged to see you and your wife and your kids and we know the story is ongoing. Our God is good. We know the end of the story. But thanks for being with us today and bless you guys.

Ben: 1:05:02

Thanks for having me

1:05:04

Thanks so much for joining us today, guys. Do get in touch if you want to share how God's speaking to you through the podcast, or if you want to partner with us in raising up more workers for the harvest, you can email me personally, matt@frontiers.org uk. Let's finish with a quote from Dick Brogdon. God stood on the court of history and surveyed those who could play alongside him. He looked over the strong, capable, and obvious choices. Then his eyes went to the most insignificant people he could find, and that is who he picked. He wanted the weaklings for his team, and the reason is simple. All the glory would go to him. When God assembles a team of insignificant people and wins with them, it is pretty obvious who is responsible for the victory. Have a great week, and do join us next time to hear from more ordinary people serving our extraordinary God in some of the toughest parts of the world.