My trip to Burkina Faso remains a wonder and a puzzle. I left with great anticipation for the joy I knew would be coming. The new vicars, Joseph and Espoir, had been installed in Burkina Faso last June and had been actively planting the seeds of the Gospel. Because the Good News is stronger than any other message, any teaching in this world, a Muslim elder was saved by faith and the Lord brought his household into God's family. It is hard to explain how significant the conversion of a Muslim elder is in a Muslim dominant country.

So often, when a younger person is converted by the Holy Spirit in a predominantly Muslim country, the devil has a strong grip on him and won't let him go easily. His family might turn on him, kick him out, and threaten never to have a relationship with him again. If the family is not that antagonistic, the local imam will put that pressure on the family and make them social lepers in the community. BUT when a Muslim male elder converts and his heart is really convicted, it opens up the possibility for many others to hear the Gospel and be saved. In this case, Antoine and 30 others from the same village were washed clean by the waters of Holy Baptism.

It is custom that a meal is shared before news is passed along, so I ate with the elders of the church, my stomach churning over how to explain what had happened. But even my plan, my prediction, for the outcome of that meal was not as I foresaw. They were concerned about the well-being of the missionary God had sent them. They were overjoyed at the work God had done in those 30 baptisms. They were content to continue to worship beneath a tree until God saw fit to supply their needs differently. God used the meeting I so dreaded to encourage me to see that these new brothers and sisters in the faith "got it." As Antoine, the former Muslim, put it so aptly: “Don't be discouraged; the baptisms you delivered were of much more value than any sum of money. Riches can be replaced; life cannot be bought at any price. As God's servant, you brought us eternal life in Jesus Christ."

It is not that money is not vital to the work that Lutherans in Africa is doing. It is not that money is not necessary to purchase land and build a house of worship in Burkina Faso. But the Good News for me this trip was the blessed reminder that God works both with and without money, in His perfect timing, for plans that will come to fruition when and where and how God wills them to be.

Since the genocides of the 1990s that ravaged Africa, Australia has been a welcome refuge for those fleeing persecution. It is said that there are 12,000 Sudanese in Melbourne alone. Many Sudanese arrived not knowing how to read or what the laws were, but one thing they had in common was Luther's Small Catechism and the liturgy. On Sundays, they looked for churches that held to the same faith and liturgy. Many of those African refugees came from Lutheran Churches and were happy to find "something" resembling home. Yet one obstacle remained: the language barrier. Most of these refugees spoke French, Swahili, Nuer, and Dinka. In time they have learned conversational English, but it remains a second or even third language to them.

Anticipating meeting the refugees I knew were there, I took with me three cartons of catechisms, Bibles, and Good News magazines in their languages. Then I began speaking in French in one congregation and Swahili in another. It was as if I had brought manna from heaven…or perhaps the tastiest dishes from home they had missed so dearly. My supplies were not nearly enough, but they served as a solid beginning. We hope to be able to send more copies soon, to give them the means to share the Good News clearly and free from the confusion that can stem from language barriers.

I would be lying to you if I did not admit I still feel keenly the loss and struggle with guilt that it came while the funds were stolen while in my keeping. I am a sinner and I will always struggle with my flesh. But by God's grace in Christ I am also a saint who has learned to also rejoice in the far greater riches of thirty baptisms. Considering the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life God freely gives through the Gospel, that missing $3,000, important though it was, pales in comparison to the gifts we receive in the means of grace.

Yours in Christ,
Rev. James E May, Jr.

When we are baptized, when we eat the Lord's body, when we are absolved, our heart must be firmly assured that God truly forgives us for Christ's sake. At the same time, by the Word and by the rite, God moves hearts to believe and conceive faith, just as Paul says, "Faith comes by hearing" (Rom. 10:17). But just as the Word enters the ear in order to strike our heart, so the rite itself strikes the eye, in order to move the heart. The effect of the Word and the rite are the same. It has been well said by Agustine that a Sacrament is a visible Word, because the rite is received by the eyes and is, as it were, a picture of the Word, illustrating the same thing as the Word. The result of both is the same.
~BOC, AP, XII (VII), 4-6