The Little Berber Boy Ait Yusi Tribe Meets a Nazarene


The following is an excerpt from the February 2014 prayer letter of Peter Z. and Wilma Friesen. — Editor


In our walks around Sefrou, (Morocco) we saw the parable of the sower illustrated. With his wooden plow and an unequally yoked team, the farmer plowed his field, then scattered his seed. Some seed fell by the wayside, some upon a rock, some among thorns, and some on good ground.


In 1954, Ramadan came in early summer. I was


still in Sefrou in the big mission house with John and Alice Barcus. Few people came to the house during Ra- madan, so I was surprised when someone rang the bell on the garden door. I opened it and saw a tall old Berber man standing there. “Is this the place where they have medicine for the head that hurts?” he asked. “No,” I said, “this is the place where we have God’s Word that tells how a sin dirtied heart can be made clean!”


“That’s what I want!” he exclaimed. I thought he


had not understood me, so I repeated my words, louder this time. A great joy filled his face as he said, “But that is what I want! All these years, when I’ve come to Sefrou, I’ve asked for the People of the Book, and always I’ve been told that they were gone!”


I invited him into the garden, then hurried into the


house to consult Alice. We decided this was once, when the house rule that no men were invited in unless John was present, had to be broken, so we asked him to come in. After greeting Madame Barcus, he told his story.


He was from the Ait Yusi Tribe that lived between Fez and Sefrou. They boasted that no one from their


tribe would become a Christian and live! When he was a boy, a Nusranee, (a Nazarene, a Christian, a Foreigner) had come to live with the tribe. Every evening, when the men came in from the harvest fields, they gathered in one of the tents to eat, drink tea and talk. They liked to listen to the man when he read to them from the Book. But a few days later, fighting broke out within the tribe, and the Nusranee was gone, and never came back. When the boy grew up, he looked for him in vain, but now at last he had found the People of the Book!


He did have a headache, and he accepted an aspi-


rin and a glass of water. After that, he came often, and his love and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ increased.


But who was this Nazarene who had lived in the


Ait Yusi tribe? Sixteen years later, I found the answer in Evelyn Stenbock’s book,Miss Terri! It was George Reed whose promised security came to a sudden end when war broke out within the tribe, and he was sent back to Fez at 4 a.m., alone and on foot. Three villagers had been killed. There would be more murders to avenge those deaths.


But the missionaries could not forget that the Ait


Yusi tribe was unreached by the gospel. They did not know that 50 years later the little Berber boy, now an old man, trusted Jesus. The first fruit of their labor! God has promised that when we sow, there is a harvest! And since then, we have heard of others from the Ait Yusi tribe who are trusting Jesus So, never give up! We never know when the seed that’s been planted will grow!


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