Dear friends and partners,

Our newsletters usually bring you good news and praise reports! Today our hearts are broken, because we lost one of our children.  Little Lambasi Jarju was 6 years old; he proudly graduated from Nursery 3 in July and was getting ready to go into First Grade. On August 10th, during the summer school break, he drowned in the Gambia River.  We can only find comfort in knowing that he had the opportunity to learn that Jesus loves him! His teacher, Mr. Alex Mendy, is very passionate about sharing the Gospel with his students and we know that little Lambasi heard the good news that God sent us a Savior.

It brings us to the reality that life is short, we don’t know how long we will have our children and what we teach them while we have them matters very much!

In September of 2005, we had the amazing privilege of opening a Nursery Christian School in Gambia, a nation that is predominantly Muslim (95%-98%) who desperately needs to know the Lord!  It was scary to have 90 children to educate, feed and care for!  But we knew we had to keep going in order to build a strong foundation based on the truth of the Bible.  The school grew by 30 students each year as they graduated into the next grade.  By 2011, our oldest children graduated from grade 6 and had to move on to go to middle school in a different setting. The next year we again “lost” one more group of students and by then it became very clear to us that we needed to invest more time in their lives while we had them, in order to have a lasting impact in their future.

In January of this year, a team from Grace Church came to Gambia and within 10 days built the three classrooms necessary for middle school, allowing us to have our kids for three more years. This September, we are excited to start Grade 7, and continue to educate and teach the truth of the Gospel to our students. Beginning in 7th grade, the students take religion as a credit subject; our students will be studying the book of John with the help of a Bible Study Guide that will be provided for each child.  They will learn truths like Jesus, the Lamb of God; Jesus, the Light of the world; Jesus, the Word of God, and so much more. The study guide contains 21 lessons about who Jesus is.

We’ve been teaching these children for many years, they’ve heard THE Gospel story, they’ve watched the Christmas story, they’ve heard the Easter story…it’s time! It’s time for our prayers to be lifted up to the throne of Grace and Mercy, for the Holy Spirit to do only what He can do and reveal to them who Christ is! It’s time for us to be united in prayer and agree for a breakthrough in this nation starting with these students. The seeds have been planted and watered; it’s time to see them grow. Amen!

As you can imagine, running a middle school involves a lot more than a nursery and primary school. We will need to build a Science Laboratory and have it furnished and available by September of 2014. This is something we didn’t really anticipate, and so we humbly ask that you would consider what the Lord would put on your heart to give towards this project.

Over the years, we’ve asked you to pray with us for the nation of Gambia and for the Muslim people around the world. We ask again that you partner with us in prayer for these dear people that so desperately want to please God, but have been misinformed for generations! The harvest is truly plentiful, but the workers are few. Pray for God to send workers into the harvest field! Pray for the next generation of workers to have a passion for Muslim people so they can come to know our Savior. Pray for Muslims to see visions and have dreams of Jesus! Pray that their hearts will be open to hear the good news!

Thank you for your faithful giving, praying and partnering with us! We cannot do what we do without your support and partnership!

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts,

Sol and Manuela Bah