24 Pastors
The ragged Bible and meticulous notes belong to Moussa. I can’t post a picture of his face because of threats from his government.
Let me back up.
Twenty years ago, Samba was the first in his people group in Mauritania to become a Christian. The first man he spoke to about it was Moussa, who also became a follower of Jesus after that conversation. Moussa vigorously studied the Scriptures to learn everything about Jesus that he could. He and Samba both started a church gathering in their homes and people began responding to the Gospel.
Then, in 2018, the government of Mauritania closed all of the few churches that existed in the country…burning or demolishing them. Christianity was declared illegal and akin to atheism, which was punishable by death. Existing Christians went underground or fled the country. Samba and Moussa kept doing what they were doing, pastoring their own house churches, staying underground.
About a year ago in one of Moussa’s church services, a young man was baptized and a family member recorded it on their phone. It was posted on social media and the video went viral.
The next day, the police were at Moussa’s door and they arrested him. In the days that followed, 15 other leaders of house churches were imprisoned.
Remember, it all started with Samba, who brought Moussa to Christ as well as the other 15 who were arrested. Samba decided to visit those men in prison, whom he considered his sons in the faith, fully expecting to also be imprisoned. For some reason, he wasn’t.
On the day of these pastors’ hearing, the judge presented them with two documents. They could either sign a document that declared their repentance and re-acceptance of Islam, or they could sign another document that accepted death as the penalty of their “unbelief.” When the judge gave them the choice, they all chose the latter. The judge reminded them in their Pulaar language, “You understand that if you sign this document, you are signing for your own death?”
All sixteen nodded in agreement, and signed that second document…essentially signing their own death certificates.
The judge was stunned. He just stared at them for a solid minute, before ordering them back into their cells.
But then, inexplicably, they were all released the next day. They were ordered to tell no one what happened and to stop speaking about Jesus.
That group has grown now to 24 pastors, all of whom I met and taught for four sessions last week. The number of believers in their churches has grown to over 900.
It was a humbling experience, teaching these 24 pastors. They were very appreciative and honoring to me…and I thought, "I’ll be serving you guys coffee in heaven, if I’m lucky.”
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