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November 30, 2007
Coming to America
Just to let you know I will be going to the US (and possibly Canada?) in May 2008.
I will be in Richmond, VA around the 6-10, speaking at a World Horizons conference and doing some other visits there. But I hope to be spending about a month in the country, and am finding out whether and where people might be interested in having me come to share at their churches. I will be speaking about our work in Burkina Faso among the unreached Muslim Fulani, and also thinking about what lessons and challenges this brings to us in the west as we try to work out what it means to be living for Christ in consumerist, post-modern 21st century society.
If you are interested, please contact me by email at:
keith (at) undertheacacias (dot) org (dot) uk
You can also contact World Horizons, or Pastor Billy Rutledge of Hatteras Island Christian Fellowship if you want to find out more about me, and whether I am likely to put you to sleep.
Making friends
“I am the main man in this village, and if anyone here wants to follow Jesus, I will not stop him,” Hamidou said to us as we were about to leave.
The night before, Hamidou, Pastor Samuel, Billy, and I had been lying out on the mats under the stars with a group of men from Hamidou’s small Fulani village just outside Deou where Samuel is pastor. We had come to spend a day and a night getting to know Samuel’s Fulani friends there, and had been talking of all kinds of things, including the good news of Christ. Hamidou and Samuel have known each other for a long time, and when Hamidou invited us to stay, a large group of men gathered at his home to welcome us among their scattered huts among the cows.
Friendships Without Borders
Billy had come with a small team from Hatteras Island Christian Fellowship, where he is pastor in North Carolina. They have been praying for and supporting the work here for several years and have become good friends. So it was great to have them come to visit for a couple of weeks. Deou was a challenging place for them to come to – with unusual food, untreated water, pit toilets, draining heat, foreign language, and different culture, all in an unreached Muslim context. Yet, through the stretching times and across the differences, God has been building real friendships between these two groups of people from such very different communities.
There were many highlights of the trip, including playing games with the children, helping Samuel put a roof on his house, joining Samuel in preaching at market, and climbing the hill behind Deou to pray for the town stretched out below us almost as if we had travelled through time to a village in Biblical times. But the visit to Hamidou’s village was the high point for me. The good news of Christ had never been heard there before, and yet these Muslim men were welcoming the story of Christ. There was no big evangelistic campaign, no music or drama, and no emotional altar call. There was just a group of men sitting under a simple shelter and sharing their stories and faith in God with one another.
Samuel and his lovely family have been persevering in a difficult situation for several years now, and it was a privilege to be able to get alongside him in his efforts to bring the grace and love of Christ to his community. Short-term mission teams can never begin to do what he is doing there. But we do have resources that can support him in his mission. And we can always – if we are willing – be challenged and changed by such trips, to see our lives differently and be led deeper into God’s heart as we see it lived out by families such as Samuel's.
We need this challenge, and the witness of committed African Christians, as we seek to work out lives of faith in 21st century post-modern society.
Tags: africa sahel burkina burkina faso deou
November 16, 2007
So good they named it twice...
My visitors from hatteras island should be arriving at 2.40am tonight, after having missed their flight and being stranded for two days in New York.
When they get here, we will head up asap the same day to Gorom-Gorom and then to Deou. It will be great to get back north again.
I will probably be out of email and phone contact for a week.
Bani
Bani is a small town on the way from Ouagadougou to Gorom-Gorom. It looks interesting, and has an interesting story. A series of seven fascinating mud-brick mosques are scattered around the town, several on hill tops, standing out against the sky as you approach. I was told the mosques are laid out in the same pattern as in Mecca, though I have not been able to confirm this.
Bani is home to a community of an unusual Islamic sect - considered heretical by mainline Muslims. The story, as it has been told to me by "H", one of its former disciples, goes like this:
The Story of Bani
The man who started the community at Bani went to Mecca, but became disillusioned with the commercialisation of the pilgrimage, and with compromise in Islam in general. He preached at Mecca, calling people to repent. When he came back, Al Hadji Bani, as he became known, started fasting, only eating fruit, and only at night. He began preaching, calling people to "stop sinning, look after you family, read the Quran, and pray". Among his followers, he got rid of the tribal and animistic customs and practices that were against faith, such as the use of amulets. He went to other villages where they had idols, and destroyed them.
Hi followers claim he had dreams and revelations about the mosques - about where they should be built. He claimed he was a prophet sent by God, and people started following him, and fasting in the same way as him. They would chant all night, reciting the Islamic creed that there is no God but Alla. "H" reports that evil spirits appeared to some, causing them to go mad.
Things Fall Apart
After 2 years, there was a change. Al hadji Bani stopped coming to the Muslim prayers, and started his own prayers. He said God had shown him that the 5 daily prayers were now to become just three. He then started taking many wives.
"H" says that Al hadji Bani then started claiming that he was Jesus returned, and that Bani was the new Mecca, and that Muslims should now pray facing Bani rather than Mecca. This was in 1989, and it was at this time that "H", along with many others, became disillusioned and left the community.
When peope began to leave, and prayers were not answered, Al Hadji Bani called people to confess their sins. Those who confessed to committing adultery were made to lie in the sun from 08.00 till 13.00. When the time came that they were allowed to go home, one young man was left - and was found dead in the morning. The police were called in, and Al Hadji Bani was arrested.
Bani Today
He is out of prison now, but the community is much diminished. Many of the mosques are falling down. But the villagers welcome tourists, and you are invited to go into the main mosque, which is still standing, and is an impressive structure. Inside are 100 columns, which are said to stand for the 100 names of God.
Tags: africa sahel burkina burkina faso bani mosque architecture islam
One for the ladies - a shoe shop...
November 15, 2007
An American In Ouagadougou
I'm stuck in Ouaga for a couple of extra days while my friends who should have arrived last night are stuck in New York for a couple of days, having missed their flight to Burkina Faso. (Through no fault of their own, I should say).
It turns out that another American, John Negroponte, the US deputy secretary of state, did make it to Ouaga, and has been making waves, talking of Cotton again, and of an American Military HQ in Africa.
COTTON AGAIN
Firstly, he has been defending America's illegal cotton subsidies. America will apparently only deal with them when Europe deals with its own subsidies. Now certainly, European subsidies also need to be dealt with. But someone found guilty in court of breaking the law does not normally say "I'll stop breaking the law when they do."
At the same time, even when America gives in to the inevitable and scraps its subsidies, the Burkina Faso cotton industry will not make as much progress as it should until there is re-stucturing of the industry within the country, and the virtual monopoly by Sofitex. Afrika Flak, writing from Ouagadougou, does an excellent critique of the cotton situation in Burkina. He also shows how Burkina needs to avoid becoming ever more dependant on cotton. And in an interview with journalist Na Eng, John Liebhardt explores the human stories of the issue.
While the US, Europe, and Sofitex each fight their corner, the Burkinabe cotton farmers continue to struggle to make ends meet. But regardless of what Europe or the Burkina cotton industry does, America needs to get rid of its cotton subsidies.
AMERICAN MILITARY HQ IN AFRICA
But John Negroponte's main purpose was to talk about U.S. plans for a new "military command for Africa" called Africom.
The US wants to establish a command headquarters on the continent to co-ordinate U.S. military operations in all of Africa except Egypt. African countries however don't seem to want such a presence. They are concerned that it could force them into conflicts that are nothing to do with them, that it would give Washington greater influence in the continent, and that this would undermine efforts to build regional solidarity and autonomy. Of all 53 countries, only Liberia has welcomed the idea.
Africa Loft has an open debate about whether Africom is a good idea or not.
Tags: africa burkina burkina faso us cotton africom trade subsidies military
France photos
Just a few photos from France from my last visit there to Marseille, Avignon, and Nantes:
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November 11, 2007
WEBSITE UPDATED !
I have finally updated my website. Let me know what you think, or if you see any problems. Particularly check out:
- MY WORK: now reflecting this newer phase of ministry, including community development and church partnerships as well as evangelism and social ministry among the unreached Fulani.
- THE SAHEL: info and pictures on the north of Burkina Faso and some of the towns there like Gorom-Gorom, Markoye, and Deou
- PHOTOS: completely new sets of photos of Burkina Faso, the Fulani, and my life there.
Tags: africa sahel burkina burkina faso photos gorom-gorom fulani missions ministry missionary website
November 10, 2007
Back in Burkina Faso
I arrived back in Burkina Faso at 3.30 this morning with Air Maroc. I have a few days before a team of friends arrive from N.Carolina to head up to Deou.
I have just re-vamped my photos pages: see here, and am in the process of doing the rest of my website, which I hope to upload tomorrow, so check back soon, and tell me what you think.
In the meantime, check out the Free Rice website. For every question you answer right, the site gives 10 grains of rice to the hungry. So far they have generated enough rice to feed 50,000 people for one day. The BBC reported on it today. Check it out.
Tags: africa burkina burkina faso photos gorom-gorom fulani free rice
November 06, 2007
Jesus and computer-shopping
I was recently given a couple of generous gifts towards buying a much-needed computer to help me in this new phase of ministry. But which computer to buy, and how to decide...?
Everyone who has one raves about how much better and more cool Macs are. But the money wouldn't stretch that far, so then I looked at good deals on Dell, who supposedly produce solid workhorse computers at good prices. However...
While I obviously needed a computer that can do the job, that was within my price range, and that has reasonable customer support, a question that concerned me, but that is rarely addressed even by Christians when it comes to computer-buying, is the ethical dimension.
Jesus and Shopping
Of course we are all now buying fair trade coffee, I hope... But what about fair trade computers? Are we willing to let our ethical values shape our attitude and decisions to shopping in general, and to buying computers and technology in particular? Or is the "cool-ness" of the thing my bottom line? A Christian ethic requires Christ's Lordship over all our lives, including our shopping.
Consumerism works because of greed.Quite apart from the issue of whether we actually need all the stuff we buy - and whether our willing and unthinking submission as disciples of consumerism is compatible with following Jesus, there is another question: are we concerned about whether the stuff we buy is part of a system that oppresses the poor in the pursuit of profit at all costs?
For example, is it right to seek the cheapest model, if by doing so, I drive down prices paid to the worker, and thus actively oppress the poor? Or if I buy a model which has better performance, but from a company which has a poor human-rights record? Or a computer which is cool, but produces pollutants?
Ethical computer-buying
So I went to the Ethical Consumer website. This charts the ethical values and practices of different companies for a whole range of products - including computers. They look at Human, Environmental, Animal, and Political issues. You can tailor the results to reflect the values which are most important to you - for example if respect for human rights is more important to you than whether they use animal testing.
The chart on the right shows results it comes up with for computers, showing the score out of 20 for each company. A more detailed breakdown is here
I finally decided to go for an Evesham model. And I must say I have been very happy with it so far, (especially having decided to take the leap and escape Windows and load a Linux operating system onto it).
"One-tenth to Jesus I surrender"...?
Now of course, this could appear to be a smug, self-righteous rant. And you might disagree with the ethical values chosen by the site or with its accuracy. You might even argue that we don't even need computers at all - that they are all a waste of money. You might accuse me of hypocrisy and point out other areas where I spend money unwisely.
All I'm trying to say is that we need to stop mindlessly following as disciples of Consumerism, and instead allow Christ to rule over what we do with his money. I know it is unpopular to suggest you can't do what you want with your money, but I'm afraid as a Christian it is true. And it is not just the tithe that belongs to God. It is all his. We are stewards of everything we have and are called to use it for good, not just for self-indulgence. Shopping is a Christian issue.
What do you think?
Tags: computers ethics christian ethics shopping christianity
