Letter One

To: The International Trustees, Herman, Chris, and Collin, styling themselves saviours and warriors of the recently disbanded Village of Hope.

Firstly, I would thank you for the tremendous effort and time you have put into this cause. But I reprimand you at the same time: not once in your correspondence, when you lay out battle plans and strategies, have I seen any mention of the One who plans all. I have seen no credit to His power over our lives, and no letters stating that we will trust him and not our own understanding.

We have been persecuted, as such, for Him, and yet, in our everyday lives, we do not appear to serve him. I am deeply struck and pained by this. As my fellow heirs, I implore you to seek Him out, and once more place Him in the centre of all our plans.

I have read the most recent proposal, which you have sent to my parents. I am disappointed, to say the least, that you have not placed yourselves in the opposing government’s shoes, and thought about what their response might have been. Many of you have lived in, or visited the country—yet you ask my parents for ‘input’ on the culture. Do you know nothing of the people with whom you dwelt? If this is true, I have sorely underestimated you, and perhaps been naive in my thinking.

You slight the Moroccans when you tell them what we could do to help them save face. Do you realize that by simply leaving us where we are, they are, in fact, saving face? They do not need our help to do so.

We were deported for proselytizing. We were not deported because of who was leader at the time, nor because the parents had one too many duties. We were not deported because our housing units were too big and expensive and did not fit in with the surroundings.

We were deported for Christ, and for bringing others to believe in Him—deliberately, or inadvertently. If you place your value in the material things, holding them above all else, I pity you.  For even the Moroccans, who do not serve our God, can see that souls are more important in this fight. While the premises we have worked on for ten years might seem like the spoils of war to them, they should not be a loss to us. This entire ordeal has been of gain.

You have not been looking at the larger picture.

Moroccan Christians—is this not what we have always prayed for? Yet now, when our prayers are being answered, in an astounding way, we are not giving thanks, but rather, trusting in ourselves, thinking we have a better alternative.

We must all get our priorities straight. The growth of the church is what we as Christians are called to. We have been given an extraordinary ability, and what are we doing with it?

I do not discount the thought that has gone into this, but I do not think it will sway the government—and we will only have one chance. If we fail the first time, it would have been better that we never even tried.

So I implore you to rethink your proposal. While I would like nothing more than to be reunited with my family—all thirty three of my siblings, and you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, I think we should rather focus on keeping all the children on the premises, and keeping the teachers or domestic workers there, so the children will have a known entity raising them.

The government has made it so abundantly clear that they do not want us raising the children, so why not keep a support there? The government will not change their mind. I do not discount miracles, but to what end, except our own gain, would a miracle like that avail? So I suggest, if I may, that we pay the current carers to remain there, and even if we have no word from them for the next ten years, we can pray and hope for the day the children turn eighteen and are allowed to travel.

Perhaps we will see them again, if not in this world, then the next. It is all in God’s will.

May God guide you all and richly bless you. You remain in my prayers.