By Ev Barkman, October 2007

Fellowship: Ev Barkman enjoys a traditional Malian meal

We were playing outside when we stumbled across the fine, green powder. A curious nine year old, I tasted the substance as my cousin watched. “That stuff can kill you,” she said. “Now you’re going to die.”

I was terrified at her words. Was it possible a little bit of pesticide on my tongue was enough to kill me? Her taunts caused the fear of death and the afterlife I’d been repressing to rise. This encounter was to be the first of many in my life between human anxiety and divine assurance.

Frightened, I sought comfort from my mother. Instead of dismissing my fear as irrational, she clearly explained the gospel to me. Christ’s sacrifice would guarantee my eternal salvation, making me bold in the face of death, and all I had to do was accept. Accept, I did.

Several years later, the battle between fear and my faith would go a second round. As a seventeen-year-old woman I wanted to commend my life to the Lord, but I wasn’t sure how to do so. Sensing a life of sacrifice ahead, I again faced fears that had been brewing below the surface.

How could I be sure my desire to serve the Lord was genuine? I must be ready to serve Him regardless of the cost. If I could accept the three most terrifying conditions that my commitment to the Lord might require, I knew I could serve him forever in any capacity. Each condition built on the one before, each requiring a greater measure of trust. He might ask me to be a missionary, a missionary to Africa, a missionary to Africa who never marries.

For a month I struggled with those concepts. Daily I prayed God might relieve my anxiety and allow me to embrace what seemed to me to be the ultimate sacrifice. After a month’s time I knew I had reached an internal point of reconciliation. “Yes, Lord,” I said in my prayer. “I would do these things for you.

”I never expected Him to take me up on my offer.

It was imperative to me that I learn how to properly share my faith, so I attended a year of Bible school. One year turned into three, and before long I was assigned to lead a group dedicated to praying for Muslims. Again, I felt the tension between my apprehension and God’s plan.

Throughout my time at Bible school, the idea of Muslim ministry frustrated me. Speakers in our chapels communicated that fruit was slow, without a great harvest. Now, it was my responsibility to pray for the Muslim world. I had a decision: I could either be stubborn and refuse the assignment, or I could let the Lord work in my heart, softening it for the Muslim people. I chose the second, and faithfully led the prayer group. By the end of the year I had decided I would go to a Muslim country with Avant.

I spent my entire career as a single missionary to Mali, teaching those who are culturally Muslim about Christ at the Mana Girl’s School and the Mana Bible Institute. Have I ever regretted making that commitment to Christ when I was 17? Never. There have been difficult times, but I have never been sorry that I followed Christ’s leading. Had I allowed my fear to consume my faith at any juncture, I would not have been able to help the young men and women of Mali find the same assurance in Christ that had always buoyed me in my times of anxiety.