A church-planting story from Chad

Eliki and Lavenia Drodrolagi became the first WEC missionaries sent from Fiji, when they went to Chad in 1993. Eliki shares their early experiences:

Our first year in Chad was very difficult, physically and spiritually. We arrived on a plane at noon; it was so hot! They say there is a tourist stage in cultural adaptation, but we went straight into culture shock at the food, the dry, brown countryside, the soldiers with guns stopping you as you travel around, the primitive toilets and the poverty. And this was the capital city!

Stones and rotten food were thrown into our yard

When we went out east to Abéché it was no better. We moved into a simple house but we were not welcome in the neighbourhood. Stones were thrown, faeces were smeared on the wall and rotten food thrown into our yard. Lavenia was even threatened with a knife in the market one day. The atmosphere was full of aggression, so foreign to us.

I crossed town each morning to do maintenance on the mission property. While Lavenia was home alone, kids would throw rocks on the tin roof.

One day when this had happened, I went out again in the afternoon to teach English in the student centre. Just after leaving I heard the sound of rocks on our roof and crept back by another road. I surprised the kids in the act and they fled. In the house I found Lavenia curled up in the corner, crying. 'Enough!' I thought. 'Why should we stick it out here when people don't want us?'

Why should we stay when people don't want us?

I told our local team leader that we were leaving. She tried to help me see things differently but I insisted. Back at home I said to Lavenia, Let's get packing, we're going back to Fiji'.

But she said, 'Eliki, let me think and pray about this tonight, I'll give you an answer tomorrow.'

My faith was worth nothing if I could not love

Next morning at breakfast Lavenia said to me: 'Eliki, if we can't love these people then who else can? We are not going home.'

First Corinthians came alive to me then! In chapter 13 God says that if we don't have love, we have nothing. The sacrifice of our favourite seafood, of Fijian greenery, even my faith was worth nothing if I could not love the people where God sent me.

This was the beginning of our hearts being open to the local people. We made friends around us. Lavenia began a children's club and attitudes changed. Soon lots of young men were coming to our house. But though I longed to share God's word with them, I was still timid, fearful of losing these relationships.

Then I felt God was challenging me to start a Bible study. What sort of response would this get? God spoke to me through the story of Peter who put down his nets in obedience to Jesus, even though he had caught nothing after a night's fishing.

Nervously I invited a few of my young friends and, to my surprise, they were keen on the idea! Some of them came to the Lord. After a while eight young men were baptised. A small group began to meet together and this became the church that now meets and has its own leadership.

Taken from article in May-June 2008 issue of Worldwide magazine  

More info on Chad

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