As many of you know , for many years we have supported a missionary couple, Mike and and Ann Wade. Below is a letter from them detailing what has been going on in their lives. Enjoy!
The Wade Report
from Mike and Ann Wade
Working among the Dungan
people of Kyrgyzstan
via the TSMS and the LCMS
August, 2012
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
When Mike and I were farming, we enjoyed having lunch together and timing it so we could catch Paul Harvey's radio program, The Rest of the Story. There was always a break between the beginning and end of the story. We told you in a newsletter in May about Hussein, one of our soybean farmers, and his daughter Fatima. She had gotten married our first weekend back here in the early spring. Things seemed fine at first but with time, she stopped eating, talking and seemed to be at times nearly paralyzed , she was so immobile. Eventually the groom and his family brought her back to her father's house and left her. Everyone had concluded she was demon possessed. Since Hussein is one of our soybean farmers and a friend, he told Kip about her, and Kip offered for us to come pray for her.
Hussein said he wanted to first continue a treatment he had already begun of taking her for daily prayers at a mosque. The attending imam ( the Muslim equivalent of a pastor) was thought to be able to cast out evil spirits. After weeks of this at several mosques and different imams with no results, Hussein called Kip. On the fourth day of our praying for her, she fell asleep while we were praying. Hussein came into the room and read the Bible, which was laying on a chair open to the gospel of John. We left not knowing if we were doing any good but believing we were doing what God wanted us to do. Up to this point she had made improvements every day but was still far from normal.
When she woke from her nap after we left, her parents found she was her old self. She got up and ate and drank and talked and even laughed. Kip explained to Hussein that he and Fatima and their household needed to give Jesus the glory as God's Son for this miracle. He read him the passage in Matt. 12: 43-45 about how if a house is swept clean but left empty, a demon will return and bring more with them. Even though Hussein and his wife were thrilled at the healing of their daughter, they wanted to give Jesus the credit as the great prophet talked about in the Koran, not as the Son of God. Hussein could not imagine leaving Islam. He agreed to read the gospel of John but told Kip he could not talk any longer right then because he had a group of men and his imam coming for a special meal and reading of the Koran at his house in preparation for the fasting month. When Kip came back the next day, Hussein told him that during the special event at his house the night before, his daughter returned to the state she had been in before we had started praying for her. He asked Kip if we would come pray for her again. Kip said he wanted our team to pray about that and give him an answer in a few days. After several days of prayer, we all felt that there was no point in praying for her if they were unable to accept Christ as the divine Healer and Son of God. In the mean time, Hussein read the gospel of John but said that to him it just seemed like a biography. He still felt that Jesus was a great prophet as described in the Koran but not God's Son.
Weeks passed and his daughters' condition seemed to worsen. Her husband and his family came and got her and took her to a different imam who was suppose to be able to cast out demons. Again their efforts failed and they brought her back to her parents. Finally Hussein took her to a Russian woman known to use spells to undo any evil spell cast on her by someone else. These practitioners do not pray or use the name of Jesus or Satan either, though we have to think this is certainly a work that involves the aid of the devil since God is not called upon. Fatima began to improve and after a number of expensive treatments, she was back to able to function normally again.
What do we make of all this? Really, it seems like that would have been the worst thing that could have happened. Instead of God being given the glory, what we would call a witch doctor at worst or a charlatan at best was given the glory. We had all prayed for Hussein not to call Kip if it was not God's desire for us to be involved. On the day she was healed, her parents were immediately talking about other cases they knew of that needed help. We had often wondered if it would not take miracles for the Dungan to be open to Christ. For a few hours it seemed that God was going to use this as our means of reaching the Dungan and God being able to demonstrate the power of prayer in the name of Jesus. We thought we were seeing a miracle that came straight out of the New Testament. Did Satan win because Hussein rejected Jesus as the Son of God? Perhaps. Was there something going on different from what we could see or comprehend? Maybe. We just don't know. What we do know is how difficult it is for a devout Muslim to see Jesus as the Son of God, no matter how clearly the power of His name is demonstrated. Even though this all looks bad at the moment, we still realize God has the power to write a different "rest of the story". We ask for your prayers for Hussein and his family to all come to faith. We know God can take the words of the gospel that he read and bring him to faith.
This experience has convicted us anew of the urgency for prayer. We do not know when or how God will bring the Dungan to faith. We know that He called us here and that He is ever faithful. We really appreciated a visit last week from our area team leader, missionary Jon Muhly. God has blessed Jon with that characteristic precious gift in a pastor to be able to encourage His followers. Kip and Ivy have been encouraged by a book on prayer by a man who was a missionary in India. They have passed it on to us and we are also encouraged by his words and stories about how God moves through prayer.
We are convinced that it is only with lots of prayer that the hearts of the Dungan will become open to the truth of Jesus as the Son of God who can offer them salvation. Could you, your family, your Bible class, your church, commit to daily prayer for the Dungan? Pray that God will enable us to have the words He wants us to speak about Him and that He will create opportunities for us to respond to questions people ask us about our faith in a way that makes their hearts burn. Pray too for our witness, that we will all live lives that reflect the love of Christ in all we say and do.
Mike has our computer programed so that when he calls up the weather report here, it shows the weather in the midwest at home as well. So we have followed how you have suffered a terrible summer of drought and heat. We know for some of you, this means no crop or a poor crop. Even as we ask you to pray for us, we want you to know that we pray for you too. Our most frequent prayer is for God to bless you. Sometimes, His blessings we have learned from personal experience, do not come in the form we had expected. And sometimes they do not seem like blessings at all at the time. But over the years, He has given us so much evidence of His goodness and love, of His faithfulness and His personal interest in us that it has become easier to trust that He is blessing you just as He is blessing us. May we all be able to count our blessings every day.
22 Ovcharova Street, Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan
Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Psalms 51:9-10
Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. 1 Corinthians 16:13-14