As the call to noon prayer lifted and resonated from the white-washed walls of the simple mud-walled mosque sitting virtually alone in the desert, Kathy Kitchens and Rebekah Duke could only stand outside in the merciless heat of the western Sahara and pray.
Kitchens, 22, and Duke, 20, both students at Samford University in Birmingham, were in North Africa as part of a group of 12 from six other states. The group, all under 24 years of age, volunteered their summer vacation to travel across the ocean to study at an Arabic university. More importantly, they came following the command to go to the nations sharing their faith.
Standing in the dry, dusty wind of the Sahara, with temperatures nearing 125 degrees, Duke said a sense of helplessness is unavoidable.“So many times we could have come right out and said what we believed,” she said, “but we had to learn when to be quiet and when to speak. “Sometimes the spiritual warfare is so thick, it’s hard to stay silent when you know they’re hurting.”
As part of their study requirements, Duke and her fellow students spent several hours a day in class, learning basic Arabic and studying the culture and society of their host country. Everything they heard was based on the pillars of Islam.
“I am continually struck by the works-based pillar of Islam,” said Kitchens. The cry of my heart is ‘If you only knew, it would be so much better.’ ”
Following classes, the group spent time in the open-air markets, among women — veiled from head to foot in black robes with only small slits showing dark eyes — and men, weather-beaten and rough, who cast curious looks at the American young people.
The group drew attention simply by the color of their skin and the smiles on their faces. Everywhere they went, they saw how God was overcoming the barriers of these unreached peoples, most of whom are tribal Berbers.
The Berbers of North Africa call themselves “Imazighen,” which means “The Free People.” A proud, independent people, they have lived in the mountainous desert region of north Africa for thousands of years, according to International Mission Board personnel working with the Berbers.
Steeped in tradition and bound by tight family structures, the Berbers of north Africa practice Islam interwoven with traditional animistic religions. A hard life greets the peoples of this region. Acrid land and dry conditions yield nominal crops. In the desert, ancient dirt and rock forts still stand guarding water sources, the most precious commodity in the desert regions.
While the Berbers have seen their freedom encroached by tightening borders and government control, it is their spiritual freedom that concerned the students from the United States.
In Islam, Duke explained, “there are 99 names for God, but not one means ‘love.’ That is so sad to me. They have no concept of a loving Father. Every day, wherever I go and enter into conversation, I always leave people with the Arabic phrase, ‘God is love.’ That is what they need to hear.”
In the markets, curbside coffee shops and even in the dark of night, Duke and Kitchens said, person after person approached members of the student team, eagerly seeking to know, “Who is Jesus?”
The need is great for people to share the gospel among the Berbers of north Africa, the students agreed. Desiring to share their faith and the truth of Jesus Christ takes sacrifice, they admitted, especially on foreign soil.
“As I stood in the doorway of the mosque, it was so dark — not only in the literal sense. A dark, heavy cloud seemed to hang over the place. Where is the hope in that?” Duke asked.
“How will they know unless we go?” he said.
“It is so important, not only as Christians but as Baptists,” she added, “that we do what our denomination was founded upon: Go to the ends of the earth.”
Other students who took part in the summer project were Kentucky natives Jon Nelson, Mike Cummins, Brandon Shields, Kristi Gerlach and Travis Kaiser; Missouri natives Jacob Pollard and Heather Moon; siblings Jane and Joe Schaffner of Arkansas and Georgia native Andrew Hall. (IMB)
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