One morning recently, knocking interrupted my devotions. Opening the door, I saw a Gogodala man standing at the bottom of our steps. I went down and greeted him. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place where I had seen him. He introduced himself. “I am Allen. Do you remember the meeting we had in the village a couple of years ago?”

Then it all came back to me. This is the man who wrote the letter to me when we were leveling the ground for our house, demanding that we stop work because he and his brothers claimed to be the rightful landowners, and they had not been consulted about our building. They said we needed to have a hearing. We arranged a hearing for the next week in the village. At the hearing, I showed them our documents signed by the true landowner and sealed by the government agency showing that we were working legally. This seemed to pacify them, so I started work again on the house. A week later, another letter came from Allen again demanding we stop work.

I prayed about it, and the story of Nehemiah came to my mind. God called him to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and, despite the threats of Sanballat and Tobiah, he kept building. I decided to keep building. I hadn’t heard any more from Allen until now.

“I am the magistrate for this village,” he said, “and I would like to give you more land.” I was floored! I believe God is working on Allen’s heart.

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