One day some years ago, at the very beginning of our project, Fred Coker told me about Mr. Fallah, a young man from a neighboring country who had fled to Guinea because of civil war. He was living alone in a cramped room with very little ventilation and no electricity.

When we arrived at his tiny home, he was outside working with sheet metal using homemade tools, forming perfectly shaped wash basins that looked as if they had come from industrial cutters and presses. The work was difficult and slow, and he wasn’t making much money.

As we talked with Mr. Fallah, we quickly realized he was no average laborer. He was a man of great experience, intelligence and native ability who had been a successful businessman in his home country. Yet here he was, hidden away in a shack earning peanuts, fighting discouragement. Slowly, the details of his story emerged—a broken marriage, business reversals, government service, civil war and how the convergence of these factors had driven him to seek a new life in a new country.

Soon Mr. Fallah was attending our church and finding renewed hope in the message of the Three Angels and the Everlasting Gospel. At that time, our little church group was composed of a Baptist Peace Corps worker who had become an atheist but was finding her way back to God, Dr. Andre (our first convert), my family, the Coker family and one or two other visitors.

Mr. Fallah was a stalwart of faith from the beginning. When he told the lady who had been employing him to make wash basins that he was going to join our church, she exploded in anger. Now he was unemployed again, but not without family or friends. Our small church was both to him, and he became part of its nucleus.

Why did God lead us to Mr. Fallah? He was not Susu, the people we were sent to reach. Time spent ministering to him could be seen as time taken away from our larger goal of reaching the Susu people of our area. But God, in His infinite wisdom, knows why He led us to this needy soul.

It took a couple of years, but Mr. Fallah became a faithful baptized member of our Adventist church group in Fria. The church helped him establish a locksmith business to capitalize on one of his many skills. He became known all over the region for two things: his shop was closed every Saturday, and he was honest. Often, workers from the large mine in town would come to him with impressions of keys in soft bars of soap, asking him to fabricate keys so they could steal from their employer. He always refused. Other times, he would be called to a job site only to be surrounded by menacing men who wanted him to break into places for them. Each time, God enabled him to escape his tormentors. One time I had to intervene after he was beaten with a pipe and almost killed for not collaborating with thieves.

Eventually, Mr. Fallah trained a trustworthy Muslim Susu young man into the trade and turned the daily operations of the shop over to him. This young man was training to be an Imam, but now he studies the Bible, attends our church regularly, and is finishing his education at our school. Mr. Fallah also taught him how to make exquisite furniture, which he does on the side.

Mr. Fallah has become a pillar of our little Adventist community in Fria. In fact, he was the general contractor for the church construction, though he received no payment. He repairs cars and keeps logistics going for the Susu team the Cokers are now leading. He is reconstructing his life—this time, building on Christ as his cornerstone, and he will soon be married to a wonderful Adventist young lady.

Mr. Fallah‘’s life witness has spread far and wide in Fria. On several occasions, when various people have falsely accused him of fabricating keys for robbers, the local military and police have refused to arrest him. “No,” they say, “we know Mr. Fallah, and he is not the culprit. He is too honest. Adventists don’t do that.”

What a wonderful testimony in a Muslim country! This is what wins hearts to the Gospel—lives imbued with the power of the Holy Spirit and transformed by the grace of Christ. May the Church in many places catch this fire and become a living witness to God’s majesty!

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