Dear friends, family and partners,

Many of you know that when we opened Emmanuel Mission Center School in Gambia in 2005, we had only 90 students and three classrooms. Today we have 350 children attending from preschool to 8th grade! With this, comes an amazing opportunity for us to be able to share the Gospel with children from Muslim families and to tell them the truth from the word of God.

After all these years of planting the seeds of love and truth in the hearts of the children, we are so excited to have had the opportunity to baptize the first two students from our school! Isatou is in grade 10 already and attending a senior school, but she came to us to talk about her desire to follow Jesus and be baptized. Ousman is in grade 7 and moved to Gambia from Sierra Leone two years ago to live with his grandmother and he attends school here. However, grandma is Muslim and she was putting pressure on him to go to the mosque and learn the Muslim prayers. When Mr. Tamba, the school headmaster, found out about the situation, he had Ousman move in with his family and started to minster to him. He is such a gentle young man and he wants to study to become a doctor!

After the baptism, we had a great time swimming in the ocean and we celebrated their commitment to follow the Lord with a pizza meal in a hotel restaurant- something that these kids have never done in their life! The smiles on their faces were better than any reward you can get – and for such a small thing.

We believe with all out heart that this is just the beginning of the fruit we will see coming from the seeds being planted through the school. A seed planted and watered will eventually sprout, and we fervently pray for growth and maturity to take place. It is so encouraging to see that even after the students move on to other schools, they come back to visit and to be ministered to when they need something.

We are scheduled to return to the states at the end of May for a time of building and developing relations with our partners and for the opportunity to share with others what God is doing in Gambia.

God is good and he is doing exceedingly, abundantly more than we can ask or even imagine! We are just the tools in His mighty hands and He does all the work! Praise God!

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your love, support, prayers and partnership. We cannot do what we do without you!

In His service,

Sol and Manuela Bah