09/04/2009
BMS workers Simon and Solange Wood have been in Guinea since September 2008, working alongside Guinea Evangelical Baptist Church. Simon works with a small team of Guinean pastors training Guinean missionaries to be church planters. They have two children, Rafael and Beatrice.
Here they ask for your prayers after some amazing results to their team's prayers in one village:
I came back from a five-day evangelistic campaign on Sunday. It was held in a village that is home to the Catholic administrative and training centre for the east of Guinea.
Catholicism here isn't evangelical and generally results in people hearing about Jesus but continuing in animism with Catholicism as a feature of that. Therefore the people are reached with Jesus but not with the gospel.
It was brave of the evangelistic team to go there, and the response by the local people during the first few days was almost negligible… because they already considered themselves to be 'Christian'.
God working through prayer
One of the team's activities is to pray for those who want prayer and on the Saturday the team experienced amazing things as a result of this.
A 12 year-old girl appeared to have learning difficulties and frequently had convulsions. The team met her in this state, prayed for her and she stopped straight away - she hasn't had any further convulsions, although it is still early days.
A breakthrough after 20 years
They also went to a household where a man had been in bed for 20 years after having some form of breakdown. He has literally done nothing over that time. The team prayed for him and he can now sit and even stand. He has started to give some emotional responses, like smiling, as well.
The team cleaned him up and cut his hair. His parents care for him and are delighted with the improvements in his abilities. His brother came to the Sunday service as a result.
Both events have been major news in the region and the 'altar-call' on Saturday night had a better response.
Please pray for the two individuals who have now become local celebrities, their families, and the small group of new believers. It is a fragile start to a church.