Jins returned from the Ivory Coast on October 8th with new insight and perspective, heartbroken by witnessing firsthand a people who live in devastating poverty and who live without hope. At the same time, he came back with the firm sense that God is greater than any circumstance.
Jins was met by his longtime friend, Jerome Tea, who is from the Ivory Coast. Jerome has immigrated to Norway and lived there for many years, but still returns to the Ivory Coast to visit his family and home village, as well as for ministry.
They spent the first 5 days in Abidjan doing ministry. After that, they traveled 12 hours to Jerome’s home village in the western part of the Ivory Coast. This area is very poor and there is not enough food. In past years, militants from a neighboring country, Burkina Faso had invaded this area, slaughtered villagers and taken their land. Jerome’s own mother at the age of 70 had run for her life on foot with the rest of their family to Liberia in the west for safety. Some of them have only returned this year to resettle on their land and begin their life again.
Jins was overwhelmed by the children and elderly who would come and watch and wait while they ate a meal. As soon as they finished their meal, the kids would run to take the plate and eat whatever was leftover, even chewing on the bones left on the plate. He said this was not just a few occasions, but he saw that in different places they went and there were so many.
Jerome asked Jins to share his testimony wherever they went, because people were so encouraged and found so much hope in hearing about what God had done in his life. Jerome told him that people needed to hear this message. When he shared about his hopeless childhood and the alcoholic abuse of his father and how God had changed everything, they were encouraged and felt like there was hope for them. For the people there, when someone gets cancer, they are done. It is a known, hopeless situation. But when they heard Jins’ story, they said, “so there is hope that God can do a miracle!”
There was a woman whose husband had left her and wants to start a hair salon, so we are helping her to buy what she needs to start her business. We are looking at ways that we can help people in that way, where they can generate an income. Eventually we would like to start building houses for those that we can. Some of their homes are just a small hut – you will see pictures of that below.
We need to be so thankful for all that we have here. When Jins was there, he told himself that “we have no right to complain about anything in the US, because we are so blessed beyond what people there can imagine.”
Please join with us in keeping these people in your prayers. If you have any questions you are welcome to reach out.
Christ For All Tribes 