Jon, Amie, Providence, Rosemary, William, Daniel & Eleanor Cross serve in Africa with SIM.
Hello Alderwood Community Church,
Thanks for being a constant encouragement to us as we serve in South Sudan and Kenya. I wanted to highlight work we are doing in South Sudan with the nomadic Falata (Arabic version of Fulani) who come down from Sudan to live in our area during the dry season. Three years ago we found out that this people group shared the same dialect as Fulani in Niger and we began to send greetings from nomadic believers in Niger to the Falata in South Sudan. Their first response was, “How did you get our language?!” Fast forward almost 2½ years and we brought out a Fulani pastor with the missionary that has been working with him and we engaged with the Falata that one of our missionaries has been discipling. This Fulani, the Niger missionary, myself, and our regional director went out and were able to clearly share about Jesus to 35 young and old men. The response was so positive that the Fulani man was invited to live with the Falata. Two months later, we brought two more Fulani pastors and a Kenyan missionary from Niger to spend three weeks ministering to the Falata. More than 167 Falata were able to clearly hear the gospel. Many more continue to listen to the audio Bibles we gave them and we are encouraged to be also working with local Mabaan pastors as we coordinate our efforts to reach this unreached people group. A few days before Easter, I was in Addis Ababa to have a regional meeting with SIM Ethiopia, the East Africa Sending Office and the regional director to strategize as there are 100,000 Falata in Ethiopia. We are excited to see how the Lord will use us for his glory in making himself known to the Falata.
Please pray for more workers in the harvest!
The Cross Family
Jon, Amie, Providence, Rosemary, William, Daniel & Eleanor
