Morning hours start early with the sound of the Muslim call to prayer at 4:30. After a while, chanting prayers continue over loud speakers that can be heard in every corner of the village. This will be repeated several times during the day. Typically here, it is the men that come together for prayer in the mosque. Before the rest of the family stirs, the next morning greetings are roosters, braying donkeys, the baaa of the sheep tethered outside my window. Eventually that sheep will become my midday meal. Now that I’m awake, I ponder how normal it feels to me. My first times in Africa , my responses were at high alert at these intrusions; now they feel more normal. The threads of “It is Well with my Soul,” waft through my thinking.
Let this blessed assurance control…That Christ has regarded my helpless estate… He has shed his own blood for my soul. It is well, in my soul. It is well….
I pray that there will be a day when it is well with the soul of Abduhl Rackmani. He is the head of our household, Saidou BA’s father. Sitting together last night, after long greetings and inquiries about family, he slipped into a conversation with our friend Madeline in their Wolof tongue. Madeline has been our gracious hostess in Dakar in recent days since I arrived in Senegal . She accompanied Jan Randall and I to the village of the BA’s in Keur Madiabel. Madeline caught my eye as the words of Isa slipped in and out of the conversation, the only word I recognized. Isa is the name that Muslims use for Jesus. I began to pray quietly in the Spirit.
In the end, I understood that he learned last night for the first time about the blood of Christ and the depth of it’s meaning for the Christian faith. As a Koranic teacher who has established many schools of the Koran in this region, he knew of Isa as a respected prophet. He knows that Saidou follows Isa and is watching his life closely. Somehow, Abduhl has found it in his heart to maintain a relationship with his son, instead of sending him away as many Muslim families would do. The efficacy of the blood of Christ to cover our sins and open the way into a relationship with the living God is something I pray he will ponder much in days to come. Perhaps God will even choose to reveal more in a dream or vision as we hear this is happening more and more in the Muslim world.
It is well with my soul. Pray with me that it will eventually be well with the souls of this entire family, all of whom I will share everyday life over the next three weeks.
