Wednesday April 3
Today is our last full day at Darkar. Siang and Marsha were to return to Duhok last night, but the heavy rains made travel hazardous, and Kaizak opened his home to have them stay the night so we get the pleasure of their company for a second day. After we sang John 14:6, Kenny told them the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. We started to prepare the story to tell the women after lunch, which we had decided was the same Samaritan women story. Siang and Marsha found the young girl who had sleeping problems and spent some time following up with her. Sherzad, a believer, joined us as another translator today and he translated. Praise God, she was able to sleep last night. Sharon, Mei and Marshall with Araz visited two different families and had opportunity to pray for them. Our pharmacist, a Yazidi who comes from Khanke (a camp in Duhok) is addicted to smoking (like the majority of males here) and Marshall had an opportunity to pray for breakage of this bondage for him. After lunch, Siang and Marsha left in a taxi to return to Duhok.
In the afternoon, the sun came out, the third partial day it was pleasant and warm. Meanwhile, Kenny, the pool shark, had found 3 pool tables located in the village just a few hundred feet from the entrance of the Darkar camp yesterday and after lunch today, he headed off to fellowship with all the young men hanging out there. This time, even though the young men welcomed him, the owner asked him to pay to play, unlike last week or yesterday. At camp, just a few women showed up for story telling, but many children came and packed the room, so much so that there was no room to exercise after the story telling. What ensued was quite chaotic. We tried to thin down numbers by separating younger children from teenagers but more kept coming and they would pound on the door trying to join the others inside the room while those outside tried to organize them. Later in the afternoon, Dawoo came. Unfortunately, he was again wearing the amulet around his neck. He said his father would not allow him to get rid of the amulet, even though he knows it is creating his problems. Araz gave him a New Testament and Aram said it will take time but promised to follow up with Dawoo, including giving him an audio Bible in Kumanji on a microchip. Still later, Marshall caught our pharmacist friend sneaking a smoke, and jokingly confronted him. These spiritual strongholds are difficult to break and need much prayer (and maybe fasting too). Johnny and Lily with translator Hogar, on the other hand, had a wonderful home visit, very open and candid, but the family did not want prayer at the end even though they asked us to stay for dinner three times. So we had a harder day spiritually with both triumphs and seeming failures and that just shows how much we need God's power when we are on the spiritual front lines. We also discussed how to handle our thank you notes which we will be passing out tomorrow to all our local coworkers.
Sharon with translator Araz telling children a story
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