Hello {{alias | first_name | friend}},

A lot happened since the last issue and we’ll be exploring some in this one 🤞🏽.

Prepare to learn about slowing down 🚦, intentional conversations 💬, content updates 📝, collaboration opportunities 🤝🏽, motivations 🧠, and even white Jesus 😦.

Let’s get into it! 👇🏽

A major issue I wrestled with recently was unreliable power supply ⚡. It was so serious that I was forced to eventually defer to offline means of working where possible 🔌. However, as is the case with many other hardships the Lord permits to come our way, there was some good that resulted from it ✨.

The season forced me to slow down 🚦, and more intentionally look around 👀.

I had always wanted to spend time interacting with my neighbours 💬. Here was a perfect opportunity for that! I had a lot of good conversations with people, both in-person and online (on my phone), and I did a lot of reading too ✨.

Thankfully, the power issue has been resolved 🥳! However, I am grateful to God for all the means through which He reminded me to look around and be more intentional about using all He's given me for His glory 🙌🏽.

Whatchu Believe checks to see if users have doubts or questions regarding what they learn about God's Word 🤞🏽. In light of that, we need believing volunteers who will be happy to discuss with such users 💬, Lord-willing, nudging them more and more towards the gospel ✨.

Besides that, we stumbled on a bug within the web version of the project recently 🐞. It's a device-specific one, and would not have been caught if it wasn't tested on that device or a similar one 🕵🏽‍♂️. I'm glad it was caught early though - I'll work on it alongside other feedback I received 🤞🏽.

I have also been able to draft wireframes for the church finder feature of the web app 📝. A system for discovering and vetting nearby churches is crucial to the success of this feature, and we've designed one, and are currently building it out 🛠️. That's actually the harder part 🤠.

One of the conversations I was privileged to have this past month was with a guy I'll refer to as Joma¹. He had been convinced that Christianity is a scam 😭. Like a significant number of African brothers I've interacted with, he thought "the Whites" made up the religion to enslave "the Blacks" 🥲.

Joma attended “church” regularly as a child 👶🏽. Most “churches” here in Nigeria are, sadly, prosperity-gospel and motivational talk centres. At some point in his youth, he became an “assistant pastor”. However, he began to have questions about things in the Bible, and about Christianity in general 🤔. Apparently, he had asked a number of “pastors” around him, and they were unable to answer him 🥲. Consequently, he began to doubt the Bible and drift, to the point where he began to openly refute and ridicule what he believed to be "Christianity" 🤡. I came across one of such posts where he was insulting "white" Jesus in favour of his esteemed "black" ancestors 🤔.

I slid into his DM and we chatted back an forth for a while - I was surprised he was engaging with, and thoughtfully responding to my long messages 🤠. He even expressed pity for me at some point 😦, claiming he was once like me 🥲. I was caught off-guard when he requested a WhatsApp call to properly discuss what we were chatting about 😯.

We immediately got on a call and he thought it helpful to warn me that I may lose my faith on the call 😅. I chuckled, assuring him that it wasn't going to happen. However, I told him that if his points turned out to be true and more compelling than the gospel, I'll definitely reconsider (as if there was a chance! 😅).

We spoke for hours, sharing beliefs and asking questions 💬. It became quickly clear that this former assistant pastor never really knew the gospel 😭. I was actually not surprised, but I felt pain 🥲. Just HOW? How did he become an assistant pastor?! 🫨

Wait! What even is an assistant pastor, biblically 🤔?

Well, at the end of the conversation, he admitted that he got satisfactory answers to his questions, and he could see the distinction between what many churches teach and what the Bible teaches ✨. However, he still had a lot of attachment to his newly found belief system 🥲.

Joma still posts publicly ridiculing prosperity preachers and humorously exposing the inconsistencies in their teachings 🤠. However, I believe he now knows better than to insult the real Jesus Christ 😅.

Please pray that he sees through the vanity of his newly found religion and submits to the Lordship of Christ 🙇🏽‍♂️, the only saviour of man 🙌🏽.

Here are a few specific ways you can pray with me 🙏🏽:

I pray intentionally for my partners regularly, and I'd love to know how I could be specifically praying for us. If you are interested, use the button below to share prayer requests, and I'd be happy to join you in praying for them.

I don't remember what triggered it 🤔, but what I'm about to share crossed my mind as I was wrapping up the last issue 📝. It's a simple question really, but I hope we'll deeply consider it 🤞🏽.

Do I invite God simply to power the desires of my heart 'cause I know that He's infinite in power ⚡? Or are my thoughts and actions primarily directed at knowing, loving and serving God better 💖?

Do I come to God for Him (and perhaps things that will draw me closer to Him), or for other things 🎁 ? Do I live unto myself, with God as a power-up 🔋, or unto God as my true desire ?

I think this calls for some soul searching 🔦.
A probing of the hidden motives of the heart 🫀.

Please take some time to think about it. Pray about it too, 'cause the heart is deceitful 🥲 - we need God to shine His light in our hearts so we can see their true states ❤️‍🩹.

May we become more and more submissive to God 🙇🏽‍♂️, doing all things as unto Him, and not unto anything or anyone else - not even ourselves 🙏🏽.

Here’s where we draw the curtains for now, {{alias | first_name | friend}}! ✨

I pray we enjoy knowing, loving and glorifying our Maker in the next 30-ish days and beyond 😁.

See you next month, Lord willing. 🤞🏽

I invite you to explore the gospel for yourself by clicking this link.
Feel free to reply to this email if you have any questions.
I’d love to help out in any way possible.