Hello. How are you?

It is Ramadan, a month when Muslims all over the world are fasting and seeking God. It starts when people see the new moon in the sky (this year it fell on November 5) and it finishes when they see the next new moon. The fasting is pretty arduous - no food or water between 4 in the morning and 6 in the evening. Because of this, the Fulani here joke that their eyesight tends to be poor at the start of Ramadan ("New moon? Where?") and gets miraculously better at the end ("Yes, yes, there's the new moon, I see it. End of fast!"). This is a key month, though, when the Fulani are perhaps more God-conscious than at any other time. Many are genuinely seeking God; please pray that as they draw near to him, he would draw near to them. You've heard the testimonies (often from the Middle East) of Jesus revealing himself to Muslims in dreams and visions. Ask him to do it here too. Pray also for Keith and I as we try to present a gospel of grace in a culture of religious works.

Did I tell you about Iisaa, the lad who's teaching me to play the one-string guitar? He plays at the various weddings and naming ceremonies in town. Iisaa lives with Aladdin his cousin. Conversations with Aladdin always used to discourage me because he never seemed to understand my fulfulde. After three weeks of frustration I confided this to Iisaa and he said, "Aladdin is deaf." Well he might have told me earlier!

Iisaa and I were in the middle of a lesson last week - sitting cross-legged on a mat opposite each other, plucking away - when he suddenly leaned over and said, "Your problem is there's no blood in your guitar." Turns out he sacrifices a chicken every six months, and pours the blood into his guitar, to make it play well. He showed me a small bottle of bright green perfume which he mixes with the blood; he says it attracts ginnaaji (genies) which make people get up and dance. (I should have known that where there is an Aladdin there is often a genie not far off). Iisaa said Let's do your guitar tomorrow. I said Let's not. I tried to explain that I'd already asked Jesus to help me learn the guitar and that he wouldn't get on with the ginnaaji.

A funny thing is that shortly after the chicken blood controversy my guitar had a nasty accident. It was in the back of a truck on a bumpy road and a spare tyre fell on top of it. My guitar, like that rat I mentioned, is now two-dimensional. Iisaa is going to make me a new one.

As you know, Islam comes in different flavours. There's 'orthodox Islam' which is what you'll find in an Islamic university say. Then there's 'folk Islam', accounting world-wide for about 70% of Muslims; that's mostly what you'll find in the villages of Indonesia and Africa. It's recognisably Islam but it's mixed with all kinds of other beliefs and practices. Iisaa is a good example - he calls himself Muslim, but his actual practice verges on animism, with sacrifices and charms and genies and so on. It's all to do with the acquisition of 'baraka' (power and blessing). That's also how most Fulani interpret Ramadan - as a month of self-denial to earn some extra 'baraka'.

Please pray for Iisaa and Aladdin and their friends - although we don't see eye to eye on the subject of chicken sacrifice, I still spend time with them and would like to be a blessing to them. I have been trying to tell them the story of the man who Iisaa is named after, the sacrifice who ended the need for sacrifice. But my speaking is poor and Aladdin's hearing is poor and Iisaa's understanding is poor. Frankly we need all the prayer you can give us!

Before I go I must tell you about our trip to Djibo on Monday. We went with Hamadou (the tailor), Jeneba (orphanage project), Hama (dune) and Musa (thanks for your prayers, he turned up again). We visited the Fulani church in Djibo and joined in with a service of baptism which was going on: two Fulani men and one woman were baptised. That night the wives of two of the Christian men in Djibo decided to follow Jesus - so there are now two Christian Fulani couples in the north of Burkina Faso where previously there were none. God is at work amongst the Fulani. Praise him.

As ever, my love to you and your families.

Alla beydu jam,

Steve