Saving Souls

NC: They built our first building—

DC: c

LR: I went to Nigeria by myself.  It was not even quite two weeks after Richard Oral had died.  And Richard was already scheduled to go, so a week earlier he went on ahead and he went to Swaziland.  And he had been there over a week, and then I flew to the Ivory Coast and to Senegal and to Lagos.

And when I got there, I hated the world.  I hated my life.  My son had just died.  He was my third pregnancy.  I’d had surgery after surgery.  I was in surgery for a hysterectomy, and God miraculously, sovereignly healed me. 

And so I’m thinking, Next baby’s going to live.  Next baby died, full term, died in my arms.  And my life was pretty much, “Let’s go to Nigeria and die.”  Yeah.  If I don’t die physically, let’s just at least go over there and die emotionally.  Because I’m already here in the United States, and everybody already read it in the papers.  Let’s go somewhere where no one knows me and just die there.” 

And that was my thought.  As ridiculous as it was, it was reality to me.  And I ran into your mom and dad and Margaret and Benson Idahosa.  And they poured life into me in Nigeria.  We didn’t have a lot of food, and some of the places we went to, we were hungry.  We were physically very hungry.

I was spiritually hungry.  I was emotionally hungry.  And they just kept pouring life into me.  And when I came back, I had told Richard, you know, basically I didn’t want to come home.  I wanted to run away.  And I told him, “Don’t you ever ask me to get pregnant.”

And I’d been fighting the physical aspect of being very, very sick since I was 18 years old of one disease and one thing after another, which finally led to the diagnosis that they had given me.

And so I was coming back home, and I said, “You know, I never want to breathe another breath.”  And here I am flying alone.  I don’t even go to the grocery store alone.  And I’m flying alone to Africa, and I’m stopping in Senegal and I’m stopping in Niger, and I’m stopping in the Ivory Coast.

And I meet your mom and dad, and I meet the Idahosas and I meet Jesus all over again.  And now I tell the story, you know, people say, you know, I’m Lebanese and my husband is Cherokee Indian.  My mom’s Danish.  So we’ve got a lot of stuff going on. You know, my dad’s family was very Lebanese-looking.  My mom’s very Danish, little blue-eyed blond.  And obviously Richard is Cherokee Indian.

 And so when people ask me, you know, because Jordan’s got a little aspect of everything, and they say, “Well, what’s her nationality?”

And I say, “Well, basically she’s Nigerian,” because that’s where the hope for Jordan was born.  I came back home.  I had faith to believe I could have a child.  And within about ten months, this is the product of your family and Benson and Margaret putting life into me. 

So where else would her heart be but Africa?  Where else would it be?  And God puts those seeds in for a reason.  And when He puts those seeds in and people are willing to answer a call like that, what do you do?

If God’s telling you something right now, I just really want to tell you this, don’t overlook it.  When they said about building a school, when Amber put that thought in Jordan’s mind, when the Holy Spirit put it in her mind to go to Niger, she could have just passed it over and said, “Well, maybe in ten years I’ll do that.  Maybe in twenty years we’ll build the school.”

But she said, “No, let’s do it now.  We can do it now.”

If God is telling you that, if He’s telling you to hook up with their ministry, if He’s telling you to pay for their ministry, do it.  Do it right now.  Don’t let the opportunity for obedience pass you by.

And the easiest way you can do it is pick up your telephone right now, area code 918-495-7777, Abundant Life Prayer Group.  They will pray for you, and they will ask God to anoint this and bless it, 918-495-7777.  Or you can write Richard Roberts and Lindsay Roberts, Tulsa, OK 74102.

The second thing I encourage you to do is go to makeyourdaycount.com.  That’s our website, makeyourdaycount.com, easy to do.  We will link you over to that.  We’ll link you over to Revolution.  Revolution is the album that the kids have done, and it is one magnificent spiritual worship album, again, proceeds going to Hunger Needs a Voice.  And that is the whole program that these kids have developed for this purpose.

And I want to encourage you to it.  Don’t sit back and say, “Maybe it’s for somebody else,” because if God’s tugging on your heart, it’s for you.”  So I encourage you to do that, and please stay tuned because we’re going to be right back.

LR: Well, I don’t know about you, but I tell you, every time I hear about what happened in Niger, what’s been happening in Africa, what’s been happening with ORU students who actually can’t wait to go to places like Niger and bring the gospel of Jesus Christ, feeding teams, dental teams, medical teams, nursing teams, evangelistic teams, and now the possibility—in fact, it’s not even a possibility, it’s already been started—opening a school in Niger.

I thank God for kids in ORU that feel the call to take God’s healing power to many, many nations, including the nation of Niger.

And I want to encourage you, if you’d like to be a part of it, go to makeyourdaycount.com.  That’s all you have to do is go to makeyourdaycount.com, and we’ll tell you all about it.  Make it count today.

LR: Is there air-conditioning?

DC: No.

LR: Is it the hottest place in the country, in the world?  Yes.  Is it a mission field?  Yes.  Is it the poorest country in the world?  Yes.  Are people starving?  Yes.

NC: But, you know, it doesn’t matter.  I mean, it doesn’t affect you if you’re hot.  When you’re leading somebody to Christ, you’re fulfilling the purpose that God had for you.  It doesn’t matter how sweaty you are, whatever it is.  You are telling somebody Jesus loves them for the first time.  It’s awesome!

DC: I developed, I guess I would call it maybe a coping mechanism when we first got there.  It is a difficult place to live.  It’s harsh.  It’s a harsh climate.  It’s harsh on your physical body.  It’s harsh on your electronics.  It’s harsh on everything for people there.

And there was a time I felt discouraged, “What am I doing here?  You mean God really called me to this place?”  And it was just a momentary, it wasn’t a long-term.  But, I mean, it was just one of those—and I was hot, you know.

NC: So then we had to say, “Well, you’ve got to get out and go do some ministry.”

DC: I had already committed that day to go out to a village.  I wouldn’t have gone, had I not already made the commitment.  And I went out there, and I was with those people.  I was in a village service.  And it was just like, “This is what it’s all about.”  And I came back so renewed and refreshed after being in ministry.

And Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of my Father.”  And that’s what I realized, so now I know whenever I start felling like that, I need to get out and do some ministry.  And it’s my fix every time.

LR: The kids came back, and they came back with a passion and a zeal.  And I want to say insight.  They began to think of ideas with the Revolution album.  They began to think of a school, they began, they began, they began.

I think sometimes God just has to let us kick-start in the place we’re going to go, and then suddenly when we ourselves kick-started, all of the sudden ideas and concepts and thoughts and provision starts literally—it’s just like Amber and Jordan said, Amber threw out the idea.  And like Jordan said, “Yeah, that’s an idea.”  But instantly the spirit of faith hit her, “Wait a minute.  That’s not an idea.  We can do this.”

And these are kids in their early twenties.  These girls are gradating this year from ORU.  They finished their coursework early, typical of Amber and Jordan and Haley and these babies.  And they got done early and they didn’t get to walk across the platform.  She’ll get to walk in May.  And they were finished, Amber I think almost a year early, Jordan a semester early.

And these are kids.  These are kids, barely in the beginning of their twenties.  And yet they’re building schools and visions and things.  And they believe it’s doable.  It’s not like, “Okay, in 20 years, we’re going—-well, if God.”  No, God is now.  God’s sending them.  The need is now.

And so I want to encourage you of that, you know, if God lays it on your heart—I don’t even think Jordan thought about it.  I don’t think you even thought—a negative thought never crossed your mind.  First is the idea, and then, “We can do this thing.”

And I think God’s looking for that.  If people will just hear the idea and say, “Yes, Lord, we can do this thing,” that’s faith.  And then I believe as God dropped that and you have faith for it, what He orders He pays for.  And we’ve seen the provisions just start rolling in.

DC: We’ve had a desire for years since arriving in Niger to do a school and just didn’t know how that was going to happen, but it was, again, one of those seeds that was in there.  And God connected us with another organization that was looking to build schools in Niger.

Lindsay: One thing we’ve learned is that there are no perfect families!  But I believe that with God’s help, we all can strengthen our families, no matter what situation we’re in.

Richard: It seems that families today are always so busy.  In many cases, people have gone from being families to simply being “households.”  But to have a strong family, I believe you have to spend time together.

 

Have Fun as a Family

RR:  Some of the best times we have as a family are at dinnertime.  It’s not so much the food as it is the fellowship, sitting around the table and sharing with one another.

LR: I know how hard it can be for families to do that each day, but I think it’s important to set priorities and make choices in your life.  Family meals have been a priority with us.  It gives all of us a time to talk and laugh together.

RR: Another one of our family rituals—especially when our girls were younger—has been  that before bedtime, everyone piles on our bed so we all can talk.  It is time away from the noise and confusion of life, where we just have time together as a family.

It’s important to be someone your children can talk to.  Don’t act embarrassed when they ask hard questions.  No subject or problem should be off limits between parents and children—talk with them about it, pray with them, and show them from the Scriptures what God says about it.

 

Provide Loving Discipline

LR: I believe children want boundaries.  When parents give their children structure in their lives, it can promote a nurturing and loving atmosphere to help guide them into making right choices.  To have peace in your family, I believe you need loving discipline and guidance.

RR: I’ve found that when we discipline our kids with love, there’s often a wonderful moment later when they want to hug us.  They know that even though we’ve disciplined them, we love them.  It takes both love and discipline to raise a child.

LR: Statistics show that one of the main reasons kids join a gang is to be part of a “family” unit.  They are seeking the structure and guidance that comes from being part of a family.

I believe children want their parents’ attention so they have some form of accountability.  And if we, as parents, don’t want our children to cry out for attention in destructive ways, we should be the ones to give them the attention they desire.