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

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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

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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.

A few of my favorite things....

So often the news broadcasts in America tell about the wars, famines, diseases and atrocities of Africa. Images on tv screens and newspapers show violence, death, hunger and starvation. People with AIDS and their imaciated bodies, orphans, machine guns, and more. Rarely, if ever, do you see the beauty of Africa displayed across the screen or in the paper. Headlines are generally not positive or encouraging, and travel companies almost never advertise to come and spend a week or two in Africa as a get away.

While these situations are true, I want to display some of the beauty of Africa to you. I hope that you see a small glimpse of what is here to be loved and cherished, and why my heart has fallen in love with this continent. Many people say that once you have come here, Africa gets in your blood. Let me show you why....

Vacation 2010

The Mara

Trip to Bobo-Dioulasso...

Several people have complained that I keep moving to places that they cannot possibly pronounce. First, Bamako, then Ouagadougou, and now, possibly, Bobo-Dioulasso or Niamey or Cotonou. I guess you can take your pick figuring out which one is more difficult to say.

The purpose of my trip last week was to view the work that the Engagement team is doing in the southwestern part of Burkina Faso. I spent the week with the team leaders, David and Cindy Pope, who were not only wonderful hosts, but also have become wonderful friends. They took the week to show me around Bobo, and much of the surrounding area, introducing me to pastors, pastors wives, villages and explaining much of the work to me.

So far, since moving to Africa last October, I have lived in a city of 2 million people and now a city of 1.5 million. Visiting a city of 500,000 was a refreshing change. I have always enjoyed living in smaller towns and definitely enjoy working in villages. Bobo has a small town feel. Friendly people, fewer roads to learn and navigate, less traffic, and it is much more relaxed than the city. It's streets are tree lined which provides a great deal of shade and greenery. The temperature is about 5 degrees cooler than Ouaga, which makes the climate a bit better. They receive more rainfall so the landscape is pretty lush even in the villages. There are also lots of hills, small ponds, and streams. Overall, I would definitely say that it is an extremely inviting town for lots of reasons.

I have created an album from my trip and posted it on the side of the blog. If you'd like to see more of the town, villages and my trip please enjoy the album. I will be traveling to Niger next week and will post pics of that trip and my experiences there as well. Then, hopefully the week after that, I'll be posting the name of my new home!

Mali Neighborhood (20 photos), by Alice Jenkins

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