Note: Names, exact locations, and identifying details in this story have been changed or generalized to protect the safety of new believers in a region where conversion can carry real risk.
For fifteen years, an elderly farmer in West Africa lived in darkness. Once a respected elder at his local mosque, he had gone blind and spent everything he had chasing a cure that never came. Nothing worked, until a Mission Partners for Christ medical outreach came to his region in February 2025.
That’s when our field partner, Pastor Wilmot, who has spent years bringing the Gospel (and audio Bibles) to some of the least-reached corners of West Africa, met him.
“Do You Believe Jesus Has Power to Heal?”
At the outreach, Pastor Wilmot asked the man a simple question: There were many blind people in Jesus’ day, and those who met Him received their sight. Do you believe Jesus has power to heal?
“Yes,” the man answered.
Our partner prayed with him right there, and sent him to our team’s eyeglasses station at the clinic. He went home with his family, and for months, no one on our team knew what had happened next.
Then, in December of that year, an interpreter who’d been at the outreach invited our partner to a nearby village. Someone there, he said, had heard the Gospel and decided to follow Jesus. It turned out to be the same man. He had actually been baptized as a boy at a mission school, but his Muslim family had led him to backslide. That day, he gave his life to Christ and went home to share Jesus.
Not long after, while traveling near the border into Sierra Leone, Pastor Wilmot crossed paths with him again, and heard the rest of the story. The healing had been real. The man who had been nearly blind could now see completely.
“You All Know How I Have Suffered”
The following Sunday, the man stood before the first church gathering ever held in his village — in front of former Muslim friends and relatives who had known him for decades as a respected elder in their community. He said:
“You all know how I have suffered for many years in this blindness. I will now follow this Jesus who healed me.”
He was baptized that day alongside seven others. Our partner describes it simply: “From blindness to sight, from Islam to Christ, glory be to God.”
Pastor Wilmot With the Formerly Blind Man
Today, that man and his wife listen to their audio Bible together every morning and evening. He can’t read (most people in his community can’t), but that has never been a barrier to knowing Scripture. He now visits friends and neighbors, sharing what he’s learned, one listening session at a time.
What Happens When Someone Hears God’s Word for the First Time
Our field partner describes three things he sees, every time they listen to an audio Bible:
- Surprise: eyebrows lift, eyes widen. The unspoken question on their face: does God speak my language?
- Focus: an intensity of listening so complete that even children stop playing nearby.
- Emotion: a wide smile, a nod, the device held close to the ear like something precious.
Afterward, people often say things like:
- “Is this real? Is this really for me? I thought the Bible was only for people who are already Christians — and especially for pastors.”
- “I didn’t know God spoke my language.”
- “With this, even someone like me can understand the Bible.”
The Formerly Blind Man Who Got Baptized With Seven Other Believers, With Pastor Wilmot In Front
A Door That Nothing Else Could Open
Pastor Wilmot has seen this same pattern repeat across multiple unreached communities: a woman who used her audio Bible to disciple her own children, two of whom were later baptized. A man who now studies Scripture at night, quietly, out of fear of how his family might react if they knew.
A family who together listens, retells the stories back to the team, and asks what it means for how they should live.
A New Believer Who Only Meets To Listen To The Audio Bible At Night to Avoid Persecution
None of these individuals could read a printed Bible. Illiteracy, isolation, and, for some, the real risk of being ostracized for leaving Islam have kept them out of reach of the Gospel through almost every other means. But a small device that simply speaks Scripture aloud, in the language they grew up with, has opened doors nothing else could.
As our Pastor Wilmot puts it, quoting the Apostle Paul: “I plant, Apollos watered, and God gave the increase.” Every audio Bible placed in someone’s hands is a seed. Some take root within days. Others take years. But our partner says he has never placed one that didn’t matter.
How You Can Help
This summer, Mission Partners for Christ is raising funds to send solar audio Bibles to the communities we serve — including our upcoming trip this fall.
$35 places one audio Bible in the hands of a local believer or pastor. We are seeking to raise $6000 to place as many solar audio Bibles into the hands of Africans as possible.
Every cent of every gift goes directly to the cause.
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