The Dogon

This little boy was cracking me up with the way he was wearing his sunglasses on top of his cap.  When I asked him to smile for me to take his picture, this is what he did.

The Dogon are people who live in a rocky region of Mali, and the desert region of Northern Burkina.  If I understand their history correctly, as they came into this region of Mali, they displaced another people group called the Tellam who now live in northern Burkina. 

The Tellam lived high in the cliffs in the areas where you see wholes and openings which are natural caves in the rock face.  It is amazing to see this, because no one really understands how the Tellam climbed up the cliff face.  They are also pygmys (my ancient ancestors).  Most people think that they used rope ladders to accend and descend, but the Dogon say that they flew.  In fact, the Dogon say that the Tellam still come to visit them in their villages although no one has ever seen them.  They come as the wind whenever they make their sacrifices, but they leave just as quickly as they come.

Today, the Dogon use these cave entrances to bury their dead.  They told me that when you enter one of these caves there are many rooms inside so many people can be buried in each cave.  The ones that are closed, are the ones that they use for burials.

In these 2 pictures, you can see the "modern" Dogon houses built on the face of the rock.  In the second picture, you see the Dogon houses below and the Tellam houses above.

The Dogon are also famous for the onions that they grow.  It is about the only thing that they can get to grow on the rocks.

They still use traditional practices as well.  This is a place for divining the future.  When someone has a question, they meet the village elders here and ask for their wisdom and direction about future things.  That night, they believe the fox comes and leaves the answer in the sand with his footprints.

The men of the village meet to discuss many matters under the toganaw (I know that I didn't spell that right).  They stack their millet on top of the roof of the toganaw to show how traditional their village is.  The taller the stack, the more traditional the village.

They live on the edge of the Sahara Desert.  I was reminded many times as we drove of the song I sang as a child, "Don't build your house on the sand land....you better build your house upon the rock..."  I thought that song seemed to be pretty fitting under the circumstances.

Start of the Sahara Desert

I have put together an album of pictures concerning the Dogon if you'd like to see more.  It was altogether an amazing trip and I learned a lot about the people.

Dogon

The Pana People

The Pana people live along the northern border between Mali and Burkina Faso.  They are farmers and fishermen.  There are approximately 5,000 Pana who live in Burkina and another 2,800 who live in Mali. 

Research had been done in 2006 in Burkina on this group, but recently, a friend and I went there to see what work still needs to be done among them.  We found that much had changed since the last researchers were there. 

Amazingly, there are now 3 evangelical churches in 3 of the main villages where the Pana live and we found a Pana pastor working to see his own people reached.  In fact on the day that we arrived, we interrupted the 2nd day of 3 days of fasting and prayer that the pastors in that region were observing.  They were fasting and praying so that God would bless an evangelism effort that they were planning among the Pana people.  They have chosen 5 villages to target for their evangelism effort.  Several in Mali, and the rest in Burkina. 

Please pray with these diligent national workers that the Lord would open the hearts of the Pana and all others who hear the gospel as they proclaim it to them in the weeks, months, and years to come.  When we return there again, may we find numerous churches in these villages, not just the 3 we found this time.

Pana

Women's Conference

One of the ladies who helped cook
during the weekend and her daughter.

In November, I was asked to be a part of a training in Ouagadougou to teach women different ways to share their faith.  One of the other missionaries who works with our organization and a Brazilian missionary here worked hard to plan the event.  It was a long but very productive weekend.  The idea was that each association would send 2 women to attend the event, then these ladies would go back to their associations and plan an event to train the women from each of the churches in their own associations.  Events like these are known as Training for Trainers because the nationals actually become the trainers after they have been trained.  The point of this type of training is to multiply the work by having numerous trained people, and to train nationals to do the work so that it can continue without us being here.

During the first two days, the ladies learned two different ways to share their faith.  The first was a presentation by the Brazilian missionary that used a blank piece of paper.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of this presentation.  While sharing the good news, she folded the paper in different ways, then began tearing the paper so that as she finished sharing, the paper had become a cross.  It was quite effective. 

The second way of sharing that they learned was a color method that uses a beaded bracelet like ones we use in the states. The ladies memorized 5 verses of scripture to share this way.  They were also taught that colors can be used in everyday conversation to bridge to the good news.  For example, most people here use charcoal to cook their meals.  Black on the bracelet signifies sin, so charcoal, because it's black, could be used to start a gospel presentation in the marketplace.  The main points of this presentation were to get the ladies to start memorizing scripture to use in sharing, and to share with everyone you come into contact with.

Ladies working on their bracelets.

I finished the weekend with a teaching on how to continue to share with a person who is not yet a Christian but who wants to know more about the Bible and Christ.  I taught the ladies to use the Bible chronologically, sharing stories and then asking questions after each story.  I also taught them that they could use any story in the Bible to share the gospel and point to Christ.  This is also a great way to disciple people so you actually are able to do 2 things at one time.  At first, when I presented, the ladies said that the method I was teaching was too difficult for them to do, but when we had practiced it together, they agreed that it was simple enough that anyone could do it. 

One of the ladies who gave her testimony.

The ladies seemed to have a wonderful time fellowshipping together, learning, practicing, and worshipping.  We will be following up to make sure that they do their trainings all over the country and pray that their faithfulness to train others will result in many decisions to follow Christ.  Below, I have included a video of the ladies practicing a song that they performed for the church we attended that Sunday morning.

Senufo Senara

The Senufo Senara is a people group of 40,000 with approximately 50 Christians.  They are located primarily in Southwestern Burkina Faso.  Their religion is African traditional religion mixed with Islam.  There are some churches located in several of the Senufo villages, however, these churches do not appear to be reaching out to the Senufo people and there are many villages still without a gospel witness.  Work needs to be done in evangelism, but also in training and discipling those who are already believers.

Challenges in reaching the Senufo Senara:

• Remote villages.
• Lack of accessibility during rainy season (May-October) because of unpaved roads.
• Lack of resources in their language, although many speak Jula too.

Opportunities in reaching the Senufo Senara:

• Discipling and training new believers to reach out to other Senara people.
• Evangelizing in areas where many have never heard the gospel before.

Senufo Senara

Click picture to view album

Western Karaboro

The Western Karaboro is a people group of 16,000 with no known Christians.  They live in 16 villages throughout southwestern Burkina Faso.  Five of those villages have populations exceeding 1,000.  Their language has two dialects, Syer and Tenyer, but most also speak Jula.  Their primary religions are Islam and African traditional religion. 

Challenges in reaching the Western Karaboro:

• The roads are not paved so during rainy season travel is difficult and in some areas impossible.
• There are no known gospel resources in their language dialects.
• Animism controls the lives of the W. Karaboro so spiritual oppression will be encountered.

Opportunities in reaching the Western Karaboro:

• There are Christians among a nearby people group the Eastern Karaboro, however, the dialect differences pose difficulties in communication among the 2 groups.  If the Christians among the Eastern Karaboro could be mobilized to reach the Western Karaboro, there is great potential to make a significant evangelistic impact.

Western Karaboro

Click picture to view album

The Crocodiles at Sabou

                         

In Burkina, there are several places where you can go to visit, pet, set on crocodiles. To me, this doesn't really sound very entertaining, but it does draw tourists. So, we took one of the groups who came recently to visit the crocodiles at Sabou.

In animistic religions, the people believe that spirits inhabit animals, trees, rocks, and many other things, thus those objects become sacred. The lake at Sabou houses around 100 crocodiles of varying sizes and the men who tend to the crocodiles can call them up out of the lake so that the tourists can see them and touch them. Every so often, the villages make sacrifices to the crocodiles (and the spirits) to keep them happy.  This keeps the spirits close enough to protect the village, but also far enough away that the villagers haven't brought the wrath of the spirit on their village. 

There is always a balance in animism on having a relationship with a god to provide protection, but not having an intimate relationship with a god.  Their gods are always distant (in relationship), not close, and always wrathful, never loving or gentle.  They live in constant fear of their god, never at peace.

   

These practices are common throughout West Africa.  In Benin, there are villages where pythons are considered holy.  They have temples where the pythons live and men who serve the pythons.  They let them out at night to feed and they return to the temple to be taken care of.  They are considered the protectors of the village, just as the crocodiles are in Burkina.  When you visit the python temples in Benin, they place the pythons around your neck to have your pictures taken with them.  No thank you!  I am glad that we just have crocodiles to deal with here.

Because animisim has such a powerful traditional hold here, these practices often get mixed with other religions.  It can be difficult to get people to understand how those traditions are not fruitful and that there is a way that is better.  Please pray for strongholds to be broken and for animists to move from the bondage of fear into the peace that comes from trusting in Christ alone.

Engagement Team

Many of you know that I joined a team called the Engagement Team and often I am asked, "So, what is your job?" I thought it might be good today to explain a bit about what I do now.

A simplified explanation is this--Our job as the Engagement Team is to research the people groups in our 9 country cluster in West Africa (Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Niger, Nigeria, N. Cameroon, and S. Chad). We have to know where each of the groups are located, whether they have any missionaries working with them, what their religion is, population, demographics, etc. Basically, we collect as much info about them as possible. In this way, we know which groups of people have yet to hear the gospel and what those groups are like.

The second part of our job is to publicize this information and begin working with churches in America to get them to come and bring the gospel to the people here who have never heard. We also work with national churches here who want to develop and send out their own missionaries.

Our goal in all of this is not just to get churches to come one time, or even churches here to make one trip to a village, but instead, it is to see a church planting movement started among the people groups. This requires years of work and much, much dedication. I always say, "Everything takes longer in Africa."

So, the question is.....are you and your church up for the challenge? Does your church want to make an impact on a people group that has never heard the gospel? Do want to see folks from every people group, nation, family, and tongue surrounding the throne of God? If so, contact me and I'll be happy to help you get started working in our area of the world.

In the next few weeks, I will begin to show different people groups that we have visited recently that have little to no gospel influence. Hopefully, this will put faces with names of groups for you. Even if you can't come, you can pray for these peoples to have the gospel reach them and even from your home, you can make an impact on eternity.