Amina was raised in a Muslim family in Burkina Faso and she later married a Muslim man who died after they had three children together. Amina supported herself and her children by working in her family’s fields, until one day she cut her leg badly in a bicycle accident.
The wound became severely infected and spread to other parts of her body, eventually leaving her unable to walk well or do daily chores. When medicine failed to help, Amina contacted a traditional spirit medium. That didn’t help either.
“I couldn’t even move,” she said. “It was too painful, as if I had coals in my body.” Amina expected and prepared to die.
The voice
Then one night she heard a voice. “I was sleeping,” Amina recalled, “and I heard a voice telling me, ‘Go to the Christians so they can pray for you.'” But she didn’t understand the message. “I know about praying,” she explained, “but I don’t know about praying for you.”
Amina was familiar only with the Islamic tradition of kneeling and praying toward Mecca five times a day. “I stood up and said, ‘I am praying every day! In the morning, I pray. In the afternoon, I pray. In the evening, I pray.'”
‘Go to the Christians so they can pray for you.’
Amina went back to sleep. But early the next morning, she heard the voice again, telling her to stand up and find people to pray for her. This time, she obeyed.
Limping into the street, she started asking people and eventually someone pointed her in the direction of a church. The church’s pastor then asked her if she just wanted prayer, or if she wanted to know Jesus Christ.
Believing that the true God had spoken to her, she told the pastor that she wanted to know Jesus Christ. Upon hearing his explanation of the Gospel, she placed her faith in Christ that day.
Opposition
While Amina’s health had improved dramatically, her leg muscle was destroyed, leaving her disabled and barely able to walk. And when she told her Muslim family about her new faith in Christ, they tried to force her to return to Islam and eventually withdrew their financial support and expelled her from her home.
“It was really difficult for me when they rejected me,” she said.
Leaning on God
Separated from her community, Amina moved to Ouagadougou’s outskirts, where she struggled to survive. She had no toilet nearby, and her limited ability to walk made life burdensome. “One day I stayed in the house, and I cried the whole day, the whole night,” she said.
As her finances dwindled, she sensed God speaking to her again.
“It was God talking to me and telling me, ‘Trust Me; I will help you,'” she said. A local pastor connected her with Front-Line Workers who helped her with proper accommodation and a special motorised tricycle.
The shade beneath the small sheet-metal shelter provides a place where women can meet regularly to hear God’s Word through an audio player.
God’s Word changes lives
“They stay here and listen to the Word of God,” she said of the gathering. “That really changes lives. It is making my life better, and it gives me the feeling of the Lord being near.”
Though she has been persecuted by Muslims, she still shares the Gospel with them. “I don’t have any fear to tell people that Jesus is the Savior and is the solution of everything,” she said. “He is the way, the truth and life. He is the only way to go to God.”
“May the Holy Ghost guide me all the time so I can stay firm in what I am doing,” she said. “We have to work without ceasing. If we sleep this time, it will not be good. It is time to work for God.”
Source: VOM SA
