The other day I was sitting with a group of men in town with whom I visit on a semi-regular basis. One of the men was showing me his new phone. Then he showed me an app on the phone that depicted hands holding a crystal ball. The men asked me if I knew what the ball was. I told them it was the sort of thing used by people to try to tell the future. They said that’s what the app did—it told the future. “Do you think it works?” they asked me.

“It might give the right answer some of the time,” I said, “but it isn’t good. Something that claims to tell the future doesn’t come from God, but from Satan.”

The owner of the phone told me that the fortune-telling app had worked twice for him. He wondered how something that worked so well could be from Satan. I told him it was the same as going to a local witchdoctor who claims to tell the future by throwing bones or cowry shells on the ground and looking at how they land. But the connection between witchdoctors and modern phone apps seemed far-fetched to the men. A little while later the phone owner left the group, but one of the other guys stayed and talked more with me. I was able to explain more of the differences between how God works and Satan works.

Please continue to keep the Malinke people in your prayers. In their world of shell-throwing witchdoctors and fortune-telling phone apps, may they see and know that God wants them to put their trust in Him for their future.

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