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Friendship with Purpose
By Daniel Jenkins
One of the greatest joys in ministry is being able to help people understand Who
Jesus is and to open the Bible and share with them God’s plan of salvation. It is also a
joy to see God orchestrate human relationships in ministry that are intended to point
people to Christ.

When we arrived on the mission field in Gambia in May 2019, we only knew a
handful of people. Since that time, God has allowed us to develop friendships with
hundreds of people, some who are believers and others who have yet to place their
faith and trust in Christ.

One man in particular whom I have developed a
friendship with is a man we will call Lamin. My
friendship with Lamin began a few years ago as I was
needing a small masonry repair on our rental house,
and our friendship has grown since then. As we began
the construction of our church building, Lamin and
his team have been the local builders we have hired
throughout this process.

Lamin Lamin is a very humble, honest, hardworking, and devout Muslim man. Over the
past year or so, I have had several good conversations with him about the Bible and
Jesus. Our conversations about life and death recently became very personal to him
as his father passed away. Since his father’s death, I have tried to encourage Lamin
but also challenge him to consider his own life and whether he knows Christ or not.

It is extremely sad to see how Muslims deal with death and how they place their
faith for eternity in their works and prayers.

Lamin recently told me that as a child he attended a Christian school in Senegal
and heard about Jesus there. His Muslim parents only sent him to that Christian
school because of the quality education he would get, not knowing that the seeds of
the Gospel would be planted in his heart to be cultivated later in life.

Daniel & Sarah Jenkins
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