CALLED NORTH: PASTOR JOE
BY TABITHA CROWLEY
CALLED NORTH
The move of believers from meeting secretly in homes to meeting openly began with a call from the police. The voice on the phone said: “This is the police.” Pastor Joe paused, dumbfounded. The voice continued: “We know you are getting ready to baptise Ahmed this weekend.” Joe’s mind raced. How could the police know this – the person’s name, the event, the time? Unable to deny it, he replied, “Yes.” Joe will never forget what the voice said next: “Then why don’t you do it in the empty church? We know you are meeting in homes weekly.”
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FROM NORTH AFRICA TO SEMINARY AND BACK Joe’s journey to North Africa began many years ago when he arrived there as a university student from sub-Saharan Africa. When he wasn’t studying accounting, he was active in a local church. Immersed in this context, he soon felt the Lord’s call to missions and told his pastor, “I feel I may leave to study theology and return long-term.” The pastor said he had known, but had wanted Joe to come to that conclusion through the Holy Spirit. He added, “Because I know this is from God, I will give you all the support I can. You find a school; I will try to find a scholarship.” One Sunday, Joe told his pastor the name and the cost of an African
seminary he had found. The next day, the pastor emailed someone he knew. On Wednesday, the reply came: “We are glad to offer Joe a full scholarship for four years!” The Lord had prepared his future wife, Esther, with a missionary call. Near the end of Joe’s fourth year, the church in North Africa offered him a staff position. Together, the couple made this place their home. In time, the church invited the couple to consider ministry in another North African city, where an empty church building had stood with no pastor for more than 40 years. Joe and Esther went to look and to pray. When they saw the church, Esther recognised it from a dream she’d had several years earlier. Confirming through prayer, the couple and their family relocated
to this city and began ministry to local believers meeting secretly in houses and to sub-Saharan Africans studying there on scholarship. That is, until the unexpected call from the local police. Taking courage, the believers began to meet publicly in the church, despite the insults that it drew. In the beginning, Joe sensed the presence of police in plain clothes in the street whenever the church held activities. Today, however, the police provide open protection, arriving in police vehicles and full uniform. The police have instructed him: “You authorise everyone entering the church. You take care of security inside; we will take care of security outside.”
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