Write to me if you want to know which country this is.
"Remember those in prison..."
This is a newsletter from Don and Muriel Stilwell...
Dear friends,
Muriel and I were having our prayer time this morning when the phone rang. It was Askale. In a voice full of emotion she reminded us that it was 10 years ago today that she came to live with us. So today is not only the birthday of our country. It is the 10th birthday of Askale becoming our daughter! She thanked us over and over again for opening our hearts and our home to her when she was a woman without a country.
She thought she was leaving her country, where she had lived most of her life, for a short vacation. She expected to return to her husband and two teen-age daughters in a few weeks. She expected to return to manage the private kindergarten she had operated for several years and to her growing church where she and her husband, Gebre, were so active.
But a terrible war had just broken out between her country of residence and her country of birth. Now she and thousands of others suddenly found themselves considered to be enemies of the country that had been her home for 40 years. As she checked through formalities to board her vacation flight to the USA she was told that she could go but that her name was recorded in THE BOOK and she could never come back.
She cried across Africa, Europe and the ocean and arrived here to visit an old friend for a week. But she now had no country to return to. We told her that if she needed a place to stay, she could stay with us. On July 4th, 1998, we drove across Charlotte and picked up Askale. She lived with us while we helped her get asylum and while she worked on getting immigration papers to bring her family more than a year later. Practically speaking, Askale became our daughter while she waited for her family to come.
This morning, when Askale's outpouring of love and appreciation was over, we told her that we have been studying the life of Joseph in Genesis in our devotions. We reminded her of how Joseph was separated from his family and sent to Egypt as a slave. There, "the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph". Again, in the prison, there was blessing in the prison because the Lord was with Joseph. Finally, when he was promoted to a high position, the Lord made him a blessing to the whole country. In that way, the Lord blessed us because of Askale because "the Lord was with her".
This year marks another anniversary for us. It was in 1958 that we first arrived in Africa, in the land of Askale's birth. Our three sons were born there. It still has a big place in our hearts. Soon after we arrived we witnessed the first baptismal service that marked the beginning of the SIM-related church in that land. That church has grown a lot in recent years. Now the government is seeking to stamp out our churches and other evangelical churches there. Some 2,000 believers are in prison for their faith. One of them is one of our most senior pastors. His wife is Askale's cousin. Their son is likewise in prison for his stand for the Lord. So they are in our daily prayers. Would you pray for them, too?
We are getting into our upper 70s. We don't know if we will ever get back to Africa. But hardly a day passes that we are not involved in some way with the people and churches we know in Askale's birth country and also in Sudan. This morning we were on the phone with one of our leading church women from there who is temporarily out of her home country. This enabled us to discuss freely the situation of God's people there. We dare not have conversations like this with people while they are in their country because phone calls are tapped and we don't want to reveal who the Christians are and risk more going to prison.
Tomorrow, when the post office opens, I plan to mail a CD with an encouraging sermon to another "pillar" from our church in that country. He fled to another country when he was released from prison and is now doing Bible teaching with his countrymen in a foreign land. We would not dare send such material to anyone living in his home country. It could bring real danger. Thank God for the freedom we have in our country!
Thank you for staying with us with your support and prayers. Some of you have been with us now for over 50 years! God bless you all!
For the glory of God and for the sake of His people in a country we dare not name!
Don and Muriel
09 July 2008
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