Stories from the Field

May - June 2005

Snatched from the Burning Fires

By a worker on the field

He was only about 17 years old when his legs stopped working. His family laid him on a woven mat on the dirt floor of their hut, letting the flies buzz around his bed sores. They left him every day to go work in the fields. He laid there for hour after sweltering hour, staring at the mud walls and listening to the sheep bleating outside. Into this prison walked a few Bambara believers who told him how he could have new life in Christ. He rejected the world religion he had followed all his life and embraced Christianity.

A missionary began taking him to clinics in town. Even so, after three months, this young man stepped out of his mud hut into heaven. The missionary went to greet his family after the boy died. "It's not your fault he died," they told him. "God just chose not to heal him." The missionary replied, "Not true! This young man had a greater illness than paralyzation. He was sick with sin. And God healed his soul. What would you think of a mother who ran into a burning hut and snatched her baby's clothes but left the infant to die? You'd hate her. But it would fine if she saved the baby but left the clothes behind. This is what God did. He healed and saved the real boy, the soul of the boy, and left his clothes--his body--behind. This same healing waits for you."

As he turned to go, the boy's mother ran to the missionary. "I'm ready to walk on Jesus' road!" she said. Please pray that the same Bambara believers who led the boy to Christ would be willing to go to this courtyard and tell his family about the Savior through Chronological Bible Storying.