Scary Animals: Adult Mission Story for April 25, 2026

By Gina Wahlen

Dieudonne was on fire for God in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

His job was to preach on university campuses and bring students to his church. He was good at his work, and he excelled at it for many years.

Then, when he was 68, Bible workers unexpectedly showed up at his door and invited him to Seventh-day Adventist evangelistic meetings.

Dieudonne and his wife went to the opening night and were astonished to see a giant banner with pictures of ugly beasts.

“Wow!” Dieudonne exclaimed. “What is this?”

His wife said she was frightened and didn’t want to stay.

“These animals are scary,” she said. “Is this a church, or is it something else? We have never seen such things in our church, so I doubt that these people are preaching the gospel. We might be misled by them.”

As she prepared to leave, Dieudonne told her that he wasn’t scared by the animals and that he planned to stay.

She shook her head and left.

Then the meeting began.

As Dieudonne listened, he learned that the pictures were taken from the biblical books of Daniel and Revelation. He had preached for many years, but he had never understood the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation in the way that he heard that night.

He came back the next night and the next. He learned many things that he had never heard.

But his whole understanding of God changed when the preacher read Luke 24:1. The verse describes women going to Jesus’ tomb, and it begins with the words, “Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning” (NKJV).

Dieudonne had always thought that the first day of the week was Monday. So, he had thought that he was keeping the fourth commandment when he read in Exodus 20:8–10, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work.”

Now he realized for the first time that the Bible taught that the first day of the week was Sunday, not Monday. He resolved to keep Saturday as the Sabbath from that day on.

When the preacher made a call for baptism, Dieudonne didn’t need to think twice. He had been baptized before, but he thought, “This is my opportunity to be baptized into the truth.” He went forward right away.

Every night after the meetings, Dieudonne shared what he was learning with his wife. She accepted that the seventh day was Saturday and also was baptized. Dieudonne told other family members about his new convictions, and a number of his grandchildren also were baptized.

Today, Dieudonne is on fire for God in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He no longer preaches on university campuses on behalf of his old church. Instead, his new church has helped him set up a tent beside a city sidewalk where he invites passersby to take Bible studies. He also invites them to his new church. In the first few months of his tent outreach, 20 people joined the church.

“My greatest joy is to go out into the community,” Dieudonne said. “Every day, I study the Bible with people.” ⎭

Dieudonne’s church is connected to the Adventist Clinic of Kinshasa, the recipient of a previous Thirteenth Sabbath Offering, also known as the Quarterly Mission Project Offering. Thank you for supporting the clinic and its church with your prayers. This quarter, you can support a new project in Kinshasa, a future media center that will house Hope Channel, Adventist World Radio, a social media evangelistic center, and a French-language call center in Kinshasa. Thank you for giving generously to this important project.