Alice Statler served in Senegal with her husband, Ed. She is a WorldVenture Alumnus and living in Sierra Vista, Arizona. She shares the incredible testimony of Adama Diouf.
Related Links:
- Building a Church Legacy in Senegal
- A Pentacostal Celebration in Senegal
- Sierra Vista Baptist Church: A Family Legacy
- Foundations: A Church Building
- A Beacon of Hope: The Inspiring History of a Beach Camp in Senegal
- Senegal Global Workers
Transcription:
I’d like to tell you about a good friend of ours, Adama Diouf. He was born into a Muslim family and among the Serer tribe, and in the Serer tribe there are families that half of the family could be Muslim, the other half could be Catholic. But his side of the family were Muslim. And one time when he was a young man, like 13 or 14 years old, he got to see a Christian film in in a town nearby his village.
And he thought it was amazing.
He thought Jesus was amazing and he couldn’t understand why Jesus would die on a cross. If he truly was the Son of God, why would he die? And why would God allow that?
So one night he and his friends in the village were having a dance party and they had a boom box and they were dancing. And it was like 2:00 in the morning. And all of a sudden, he saw a vision on the wall of Jesus on the cross. And Jesus turned to him and looked at him and said, “I did this for you.”
And he was stunned, and they said to him, “Why aren’t you dancing Adama? Why, what happened to you?”
And he said, “I just saw Jesus on the wall.”
And they said, “Oh, no, …you’re dreaming or something.”
Anyway, he went on home and a few weeks later he was sent to the City of Thiès to go to high school or Lise. And as he was getting used to his new surroundings, he thought, “You know what, nobody knows me here. I’m going to go in that Christian bookstore.”
He went down to the Christian bookstore that was run by our WorldVenture missionaries, the Bretons.
And he thought, “I’m going to go in there and see if they’ll give me a Bible or if I can buy a Bible or something.” And he went in and the first person that came out was his cousin; his cousin who had been a Catholic but had become an evangelical. And he did not know that.
And so, his cousin said, “I have a Bible for you, I’ll give it to you.” And it was this really old falling apart Bible. It was missing the first six chapters of Genesis.
And so, he said, “Most people, they start with God creating the world, but I started with Noah!” He would read through that Bible and he kept reading through that Bible for the next two or three years. And then he started coming to some of the services at our center, and he was becoming more and more convinced that Jesus was who he said he was.
And he was trying. He was tormented as well. He was trying to decide if he could be a Christian and a Muslim at the same time. And one night he was in his room alone and he got down on his knees and he was praying, asking God to show him the truth.
And he heard in his mind, “You have to be willing to get rid of those fetishes, those charms that are over in your suitcase.”
So, the family had confided all of their special fetishes to him. And if he got rid of them, it would be like he was threatening the health and wealth of the whole family. But he felt like he had to do it.
He went outside. He burned them. He said when he did that, he felt like a bird let out of a cage. And he knew that Jesus had saved him. And then it became evident to his family that he had turned from Islam and that he had turned to Christ. And they disowned him. They were very upset with him, and they said, don’t expect any help from us. And then he went on to college. He was doing very well. He was in in chemistry and was doing well in school and he got involved with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship of Africa and soon became the leader of it on the campus and just kept growing in his faith.
Well, our mission at that time really felt like he needed further training and so we were able to help him get to Bongi, Central African Republic through the that is called best Bongi Evangelical Seminary, Theological Seminary. And he did, he got his master’s degree, Master of Divinity degree.
And then he came back and that was when he was very really had it on his heart to start the Bible school, to start the Evangelical Institute of Theology in Senegal. And he was very instrumental in that. But his testimony was amazing.
Well, several years later, he found out that his family, about two years after he had become a Christian, they went to see a, what we would call a witch doctor. They wanted to put some kind of curse or charm on him so that he would come back to Islam. And so, they went in to see this man who was sitting down on a mat in a darkened hut.
And he was had his little fetishes, and he was throwing them on the ground. And then he looked up at them and he said, “What do you want me to do for this young man?” They hadn’t said anything. “What do you want me to do with for this young man?”
They said, “Well, he has left Islam, and we want to see him come back. We want him to leave Christianity and come back.”
And he threw his fetishes down on the ground again and he looked.
He said, “There’s a circle of light around him. I can do nothing to him. And I suggest you don’t either.”