“I want to eat some giraffe!”

Let me explain today’s title. We travel (Bro. Terry and son Wesley, you’ll be excited to know) in a Toyota Land Cruiser. Becca and I have been riding in the back with two other members of the team…and with windows open and wind blowing, we don’t always hear the conversations in the front part of the vehicle.

Yesterday as missionary Jason Lee outlined our activities for Sunday, he said, “We’ll go to the beach and have our worship service there. After we do that, there’s a wildlife preserve that we can go to…and they have giraffes and alligators and all kinds of exotic animals. We might get to see them. And there’s a restaurant there where we can eat lunch.”

All Becca heard was something about eating giraffe for lunch. She got all excited and said, “Oooh, I want to go there! I want to eat some giraffe!” And we all cracked up! I’m laughing about it right now as I type…“Oooh, I want to go there! I want to eat some giraffe!” Oh, that’s funny. (LOL)

Actually, we did eat lunch at the restaurant but only got to see some alligators, exotic birds, and turtles. Evidently the three rains we’ve gotten lately (including this morning) have enabled the other animals to stay out in the reserve without having to come to the river for water. Otherwise, Jason told us, there would have been exotic animals all over the place. So, it appears that we won’t be able to show Addie Lewis any pictures of giraffes. :-(

On the way out to worship, we stopped in and visited with our translator’s village. While he is a Muslim, he has been a lifesaver for us linguistically and culturally! I’m praying that the Word of God and the testimonies that he translates (not only for our group but for others too) will grip his heart and he’ll be saved. His story is not unusual here, though.

Family honor is so important here that, in the Senegalese Muslim’s mind, to convert to faith in Christ is to bring shame and dishonor upon one’s father and family. They “can’t” say that their ancestors were wrong and are in hell. And for them, conversion is not just about believing and accepting something to be true…it’s about knowing that when you become a follower of Jesus Christ, you will bring dishonor upon every member of your family, be disowned by your family, and lose everything you have (perhaps even your wife).

Puts things in a different light, huh? Conversion here seems so much more consistent with what Jesus talked about when he described following Him in Luke 9:23-24: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”

Pray for the Sereer people here in Senegal…pray that God, who is the only One who can truly reach them, will show them the path of truth. Pray that they will surrender their hearts and lives to Him through Jesus Christ and come to know the peace of eternal life. The evangelism process from a human perspective is slow, but God is the One saves. And as our missionary said in his message this morning in worship, our job is to sow the Word of God just as the sower went out to sow (Matthew 13). Only God can bring about new birth. Join me in praying toward that end…