Well, it looks like we are in the final weeks of our time here. The weather has begun to change from summer into the rainy season, and I have missed being able to see all of the autumn colors from back home. A few of the trees are changing here, but there is really no comparison. Mostly what we see here is the red dirt of the mountains that surround us. Not that I haven’t enjoyed the mountains, though; they have a beauty of their own that has been amazing to have been able to admire for these past five months. I do miss being able to see all of the colors, though. The grass is starting to grow, which I didn’t even think existed here, and that has been a nice change as well.
Since it is becoming the winter season that means it is time for the Ishelhayn to start harvesting olives and planting barley. Sadly enough, I don’t think we’ll get to help knock the olives out of the trees. They won’t start until right after we’re gone. I was hoping to be able to watch them use the olive press, but oh well. We might be able to help out with the barley though. I’m not sure exactly when that begins. Last week the three of us, with our supervisor, took a trip through the south of Morocco. It was a really good trip, and it was very eye opening to us. As we went along he showed us all of the area that had no Chr. influence living in it presently, and had had no exposure to the good news at all. It is unbelievable to imagine that so wide an area has never heard about what we are exposed to constantly. There are miles and miles, all throughout the mountains and the valleys, in the south that have never heard the good news.
Also, there are very few native Chrs. here, and even fewer “groups” of them. Many of the people living here who have accepted the good news are very spread out, and rarely around any others, so please pr. for them and the strength and encouragement that they need. I can only think of how much the encouragement and presence of other brothers and sisters is helpful and very much needed in my own life, and I can just imagine that it would be hard to be in a place like this all alone, where one’s identity with the country, for the majority of the population, is tied in with being a cousin. Pr. for a movement among the people.
There are very deeply ingrained strongholds here that our enemy has among the people. This has been sad to see. He has taken the truth and skewed it to the point that our Father is only seen as a big, powerful being, a merciless dictator that could change his mind about us at any point in time and destroy us with the blink of his eye if we don’t meet his every demand. In fact, just last week Andy had an instance where he was trying to tell someone about the love of Father and how He wants us to be close to Him. The guy immediately started yelling that that’s exactly what they didn’t want! They wanted him as far away as possible, because something bad might end up happening to them! This is the mindset of the people towards Father. Why would anybody want someone like that to be close to them? They don’t understand the concept of One that loves. That is what we must show them first, that Father has love for us, and mercy.
I remember one time when the three of us were walking back to the house at night with Hamid’s son Mohammed, who is about nine or ten years old. It was really dark and he was telling us that he wanted to go back home because he was afraid of the dark. We asked him why he was afraid of the dark and he said it was because, if Father wanted to, he could chop him up into little pieces. We assured him that that wasn’t going to happen, because Father didn’t want to do that to him. He kept insisting, “but if he wanted to he could, and that’s why I’m afraid.” We asked him why He would want to do that and he said he didn’t know, but it could happen. We asked him, “would your father do that to you?” “No,” he said. “Because he loves you, right?”“Yeah.” “Well, Father is like that too, He wants what is good for you. He loves you like your father does.” His response to that was an exclamatory, “YEAH?!” It was as if he had never heard of that, or even thought about Father in that way before. This is the kind of mindset that is instilled in these people from a young age. If only they could see the Love that is there for them and not the iron fist of wrath that the enemy has shown them a picture of. It is hard to believe that we only have such a little time left here. As much as I am looking forward to coming home and seeing all of you, I will be sad to leave this place. It has become like a second home, and this family has become a part of my own family. I’m not sure what it is going to be like coming back to America, but I can already imagine that it is going to be strange for a while. I thank you all for keeping us in your prs. all this time, and ask that you would continue to pr. for the people here, and for the local workers. Also pr. that as we spend our last weeks here we would still use every day as if it were our last.
Joel