“I grew up in Brikama, West Gambia, in a Christian family surrounded by Muslims,” said Sang Gomez, one of the students in the first M.A. (Biblical Studies) cohort in Banjul, The Gambia. “All my friends were Muslims.” Indeed, over 95 percent of the Gambia is Muslim. It is currently Ramadan here, and the restaurants are empty as most citizens are fasting.
It was only when Sang went to the Gambian College School of Education that his faith took on a more intentional development. He became a member, and then student leader in the Gambia Fellowship of Evangelical Students (GAMFEST). He was inspired, he said, “knowing I am saved and sent to my fellow students who need to know the truth that I know.” As he was getting ready to graduate the GAMFEST staff asked him to join the staff full-time in the national ministry. He considered the opportunity, knowing that the wages would be low. His dalasi (the local currency) would be meagre.
“Then I thought about what Paul says in Romans 10:14,” he said and then quoted: “How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” He was convicted. “It made a strong impression on my heart.”
Sang worked with about 25 student leaders on 4 of the total of 11 campuses on which GAMFEST has ministries. It was his job to coach these students, helping them both grow in their faith and “become better handlers of the Bible so they can become responsible citizens who bring light and truth to their future workplaces and also become full participants in their home churches.” Then he added, “Not bench warmers.”
While the financial compensation has been negligible, the emotional rewards have been great. In the fifteen years of his work, he has seen students become “responsible citizens with deep Christian conviction” as lawyers, nurses, teachers, and more. “They also lead well in their home churches,” he explained. “This gives me great joy.”
He then told the story of one of his students who grew up a nominal Christian but did not fully understand the good news of the gospel. After growing up in university with GAMFEST he has become a leader in his church and a manager in a large organization. “He was just sent to the other side of the planet to assess a huge investment in new machinery,” he said. “Usually that means staying in a nice hotel and enjoying the trip. But not for this man.” He actually went to inspect the machinery in the factory and conscientiously scrutinize the purchase.
How has fifteen years of campus ministry transformed his faith? “It is like a progressive revelation,” he explained. “At first my sight was like clouded by a thick shroud. Each year a section of the shroud was cut away, and I understand more clearly.”
What has he learned? “Islam is very difficult to change. Conversions only come with much time, relationship, prayer, conversation, and patience,” he said. “If a Muslim becomes a Christian, they are persecuted—they could be killed,” he explained. Then he spoke of someone who was poisoned by his family for converting to Christianity but that his life was miraculously spared. “In the midst of all this,” he said, “God is faithful.”
Just after my interview with Sang Gomez. He had just finished a three hour class in Hebrew with our Global Scholar Glen Taylor, which he weathered well.
Sang became a significant leader in the national movement as the years rolled on. He ended his leadership role with GAMFEST this last December and enrolled in our M.A. (Biblical Studies) at The University of the Gambia “in order to be a better teacher of the Scriptures,” he said. “Becoming wiser does not come with dreams, but with training and discipleship. I don’t want to just teach emotions,” he continued. “I want to be someone who ‘presents himself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth’” (2 Timothy 3:15). He wants to challenge heresies like the prosperity gospel, where faith is all about personal gain without a cross. “We need true, faithful Bible teachers. I hope to help train a new generation of Christians for ministry in this country.”
Sang hopes to become a Bible teacher at one of the small Bible colleges that are slowly opening across the region. By teaching students to read the Bible properly, he hopes the students will help the church be healthier, and a healthy church becomes a winsome witness to Muslim neighbours.
“Already I saw a student in this program come to realize that the King James Version is not perfect,” he said. “We are learning to think beyond the traditions we have been given.”
As I write, the call to prayer from the minaret 100 feet away goes out. The airport in Sierra Leone has a prayer room for Muslims, and so I suppose they thought a Christian room was also necessary. This is what it looks like, with a chair, and a prayer rug, too. I returned to The Gambia after visiting our scholar Dr. Stephen Ney in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
This is the goal of the program Global Scholars Canada is sponsoring: to teach Christian students to become Christian teachers in their homeland, and so equip people to carry the faith to the next generation and their neighbours. We want to see Africans teach Africans.
“I want to thank you for the scholarship,” he said at the end of our interview, as he put his hand on his heart. “I could not do this without you, and I am most deeply grateful.”
I was grateful to have met him and to be a small but significant part of his faith and ministry journey. In a way, this relationship is an exchange, a form of reciprocity: we support his calling, and he supports ours. Both come from the same spiritual source, as an act of obedience.
Sensus Divinitatis 