Sfax is the second largest city and second largest port, and the heart of industry in the south. With nearly 1,000,000 inhabitants, many of whom enjoy spacious homes and properties, it sprawls from the coast over to the sandy edge of the desert. Well-known as the city where people place a high value on their industrious (collective) nature, it is economically robust. Even on the biggest feast days of the year, you will find businesses open around town–someone hoping to make some money if they can meet a need.

Sfaxians are also known for their loyalty to their community. If people move elsewhere for work, they will often return to Sfax to buy goods–hopefully at a better price, but also with the insistence that if it comes from Sfax it is higher in quality. There is pride also taken in the fact that the city doesn’t depend on tourism (foreign money) for its well-being. Because Sfax is easily accessible to Libyans, Sfax services both commercial as well as medical needs for many Libyans.

There are a couple of established communities of faith in the city, one with a full-time pastor and congregation of sub-Saharan African students. A small indigenous Sfaxian church also exists. In addition, there is a community of Catholic clergy who have lived and prayed in this city for a long time, and have gained a favourable reputation as upright and trustworthy people.

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them (Isaiah: 42:16).

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor (Isaiah 9:2-4). This passage from Isaiah are some verses that the people in Sfax have asked that others would pray over their city.

Pray for courage and strength for those who walk out their faith in this city, both national and international believers. Pray for the ongoing discipleship and teaching for the new believers. Pray that all the believers will experience the presence of God in their lives and the desire to care for others in the body. Pray against the spirit of criticism and complaining, two common practices among both believers and nonbelievers. Pray against pride and haughtiness that causes everyone to want to be the leader. Pray that instead there would be a spirit of humility and elevating others above themselves, causing everyone to want to practice servanthood. Pray also that the power of the living God is unleashed in the faith of those who believe–overcoming strongholds and ushering in a bold faith that would be a sharp contrast to the half-hearted allegiance to Islam and the deliberate devotion to materialism.