What is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive,
able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?

Prayer!

 

This is Pastor John.
He’s a Christian pastor among the Fulani in northern Ghana.  He is soft spoken and seems very kind and patient.  I visited his village and ministered to the women and children while I was there a few months ago..

Pastor John and his flock keep coming to mind lately.
They are very far away and right now it’s not possible to email him.
But that’s not a problem.
It’s not him, or any of them I need to talk to—really.

Talking to them satisfies my curiosity.
Talking to God about them satisfies their need because God is the One who can meet their needs, not me.

 

These are some of the women who came that day.
The other half of the room is full of smiling faces too.  We had a good time together and even though I don’t speak their language we bonded.
Don’t ask about the guy in the front row.  I don’t know what he was doing at a Woman’s Conference, but he stayed for all of it 😉

Thinking about these women makes me wish I had a Giant Non-Profit organization that could help them.  
They are married to farmers and rarely have enough to eat.  They live in harsh country and to help support the family these women load bags with sand to sell to a Chinese company for roadbuilding.  They carry about 65 pounds of water twice a day, but in between that they fill and carry bags of sand.

When I was there I taught from Proverbs 31.
That passage tells us that a virtuous woman helps her husband support their family by being hard-working and industrious.

I did not want to give that message to those women.
Their lives are difficult and every day is filled with hard work.  But, after the teaching they asked what they might be able to do to earn more money.  At first they discussed making soap.  But since then I’ve learned that they have found someone to teach them how to make Bolga Baskets.
At first they had someone from an NGO who had said they would come to the village from Bolgatanga, the nearest city.
They never did.

But, we’ve been praying and now Mavis, the pastor’s wife who took me there, has found a man and woman who both know how to weave the Bolga Baskets.
They’re going to the village for a week to teach the women how to gather the materials and make the baskets.
I only had a $20.00 bill with me the last day I was with Mavis so I gave her that to start.  It might pay for the public transport for the two ‘teachers’ to travel to the village and back.

I’ve found Bolga Baskets in Nugget and Whole Foods markets here in the US.  
So, it’s possible they could be sold here, but I don’t know how to make it happen.

Will you pray for Pastor John and for these women and their families?
It’s the best thing we can do to help them.
I don’t have a list of requests, but God knows exactly what they need.

 

In Ghana, and much of Africa, school isn’t free.  There are fees for books and uniforms.  It almost always falls on the mother to provide these fees herself.  This is the village school that we met in that day.   Pray for these children too.

The effective and fervent prayer of righteous people avails much James tells us.
You and I have access to God.
We have his ear and His heart.
A standing invitation to bring anything and everything to Him.
That’s an incredible superpower in my book!

This is a Bolga basket.  Click on the photos to enlarge.