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Evy* spent 29 years serving with Resonate Global Mission among the Fulani, a people group in West Africa who come mostly from a Muslim background. Now, she’s back in the suburbs of Chicago. 

City life is drastically different from her rural ministry, but she said sharing the gospel with her suburban neighbors won’t be so different. There’s a lot that North Americans can learn from ministry among the Fulani. Resonate asked Evy to share some tips:

Earlier this year, when churches went virtual, there was great excitement about the number of views our worship services were getting online. But then, after Easter, those numbers started to dwindle. Some churches decided to begin meeting in person again but still found that their average attendance hovered around 50% of what they usually could expect in the summer. Surely, things would bounce back in the fall when the school year starts, and people are home from vacation, right?  

Probably not. 

“God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God.” —Revelation 21:3, The Message

"See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
And streams in the wasteland." Isaiah 43:19 (NIV)

How do you respond to suffering when you see both the immensity of the pain and you already have a glimpse of how God is using it for good? For Christians, the answer is simple and yet stretches our faith to its limits: We have to look both suffering and hope full in the face. We have to both sit and move. We have to lament and rejoice. There are real dangers to neglecting one or the other.