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December 31, 2007
Happy New Year !
May God lead you in all his best plans for your life through Christ in the coming year.
December 28, 2007
I (nearly) get a wife
I was offered a wife this week.
One of my older Fulani friends had been concerned for some time that I don’t yet have a wife… especially given how old I am. He really wanted to help me, because I have apparently been so kind to him in the past. But he knew that I only want to marry a Christian. He has obviously given a lot of thought to this, and he said he sees that the way of Jesus is good.
So he came up with – to his mind, at least – the obvious solution: he offered to give his daughter to follow the way of Jesus, and to give her to me to marry.
A kind thought, but one I have had to – with agonising attempts at culturally-sensitive appreciation, combined with culturally-inappropriate directness – decline.
Nevertheless, it was an opportunity also to talk again about the way of Jesus, and to challenge him that, if the way of Jesus is as good as he sees, he should give himself to follow too.
December 27, 2007
Christmas Family Photo
Here is our family:
Left to right:
Berta, Sarah, Deborah, Asetu, Monique, Naomi, Lanssala, Denise, Samuel, Olivia, Timotee, Obil the Camel, Pierre, Keith, Seydou.
It has been great to be able to welcome Pierre and his wife and children into our family, and to celebrate Christmas together. I will introduce them to you in the next few days.
Christmas went well. We found a sheep, which gave its life (although, like many of us, not exactly willingly) for the proceedings. Apart from the various church services and family celebrations, we also managed to squeeze in a baptism service on the 24th and a wedding on the 25th. We had several visitors, all of whom received food and the good news of Christmas. Yesterday we relaxed together and finished the day with an hour of frisbee. Pierre turns out to be a bit of a natural frisbee-thrower.
Now Christmas is over, we are thinking about how we can live and work together for God’s purposes in the coming year. At 6am this morning, we started a short daily family worship time, to worship, pray, and read God’s word. It was great. There is an excitement about this coming year and about what God is doing. This afternoon two Fulani came round to ask for the Scriptures in Fulfulde. They had both bought gospels years ago, when I had my market stall, and after years of reading have decided to go against the ridicule of their friends and find out more.
December 26, 2007
Jesus discovers Christmas (Jn 2:13-16)
When it was nearly Christmas, Jesus went up to London to celebrate and worship with the Christians.
But he found the Christians at the shops, wasting their money on tacky decorations and expensive presents, and stocking up for parties. Other Christians were even selling “Christian merchandise”, making profit from the marketing of the festival.
So he made a whip out of electric cords, and drove them away. He took the money of the merchandisers, and chucked it out the window, and overturned their sales booths. He said to them:
“Get these out of here!
How dare you turn the way of God’s salvation into a market!”
December 23, 2007
Happy Christmas!
We are getting ready to celebrate Christmas in Gorom-Gorom.
Pierre and his two camels arrived on Friday, so the family is all together – 5 adults, 10 children, 2 friends, 2 camels, and an assortment of donkeys, goats, chickens, and pigeons. A full moon overhead, lots of twinkling, twinkling little stars, and a fair smattering of shepherds, mangers, and even the occasional wise man.
We will have a “family celebration” tomorrow evening, with guinea fowl, loads of rice, fizzy drinks, and “white man’s ears” (prawn crackers – becoming a favourite Christmas tradition in our home). Then to church for an all-nighter, with lots of singing, coffee, sketches, laughter, and general rejoicing at Jesus’ birth.
On the 25th, we will kill our Christmas sheep (if Seydou can track down any left after Tabaski), return to church for a short service and long meal, followed by exhuberant dancing by the Mossi Christians.
I will try and post photos.
I hope yours is fun. Enjoy.
December 22, 2007
I love Burkina Faso, but…
I love Burkina Faso and her people. Any regular reader of this blog will know that I always try to present the often unseen face of the beauty and wealth of this country.
However…
There are times that certain things here get me really riled. And one of them happened this week in Dori, just 40 miles from Gorom-Gorom.
It apparently started with a fight over a woman. So far, so predictable. What made this particular fight unusual was that it was a fight between a local man and a soldier – and the local man won, putting the soldier in need of medical treatment.
The soldier’s friends then apparently decided to take revenge, who then went on a wrecking spree in Dori. Any man they found on the street, they beat up, regardless of who he was, and without asking any questions. Two local pastors, friends of mine, who happened to be in town at that time, were among those who got beaten up.
The incident brings to mind the spat between the police and army in Ouaga earlier in the year. At that time, the soldiers reacted in a similar way, attacking indiscriminately the Burkinabé police, following an incident between a policeman and a soldier.
Burkina is generally a peaceful country, and has been free of the kind of conflict so often seen elsewhere in West Africa. However, the willingness of young soldiers (and they do seem mostly to be ill-disciplined young soldiers) to take the law into their own hands, and to do so with such indiscrimination, is a worrying precedent. They must not be allowed to continue in the belief that they can do as they please with impunity, free from the justice of Burkinabé law.
A couple of days of high tension followed, with nightly curfews, and mutual threats of further revenge, and the possibility even that Tabaski would be cancelled in Dori. But now, following an “agreement” between the military chief and the local authorities, Dori is apparently peaceful again.
The soldiers are currently keeping a very low profile. Please pray for peace.
December 17, 2007
Sunday – Day of Rest...
7.00 Village Trip.
After a quick breakfast, Pierre, Seydou, and I head out to a small village 13km away where a group of new Christians is gathering. Among the group is Amadu, the son of the imam. It is the first time he has managed to get away to come to church.
His father had taught him the Quran, but Amadu said that following the preaching of the gospel, he had seen four things that made him want to follow Jesus:
1. The names and honour given to Jesus in the Quran showed him Jesus was unlike anyone else.
2. He saw no-one else who did the miracles that Jesus did.
3. He saw no-one else who had risen from the dead.
4. He saw nowhere else he could get assurance of forgiveness for sin.
We have a short time to encourage the Christians, briefly visit the local families, who give us 2 chickens and a large calabash full of peanuts, then we head back to Pierre’s village.
10.00 Church in Pierre’s village.
About 11 adults, including 4 local Fulani believers are gathered together. It is Pierre’s last Sunday as he prepares to move up to Gorom, so we spend a lot of time encouraging the believers and praying for them. They in turn pray for Pierre and take up an offering for him. It is an emotional time, straining the limits of pulaaku, by which Fulani are not supposed to show emotion. They will miss Pierre.
While they wait for the new pastor, the school head teacher will continue to lead the church.
14.30 Move to Gorom-Gorom
After church, all the believers have lunch together, and then we load up the truck with most of Pierre’s belongings and his wife and four children. Two of his children are already in Gorom. Pierre will follow in a few days with his two camels and the rest of his belongings.
We arrive in Gorom at about 16.00, unload the truck, and move Pierre’s family into their new home. The two daughters already in Gorom are trying hard not to show how excited they are to have mum there. Monique wanders around checking that everyone is okay and has everything they need.
17.00 An Evening Off
I have a much-needed wash and sit down to rest. The weekend has been great, but tiring. I am looking forward to a relaxing evening, maybe doing the Guardian Weekly cryptic crossword…
A voice comes out of nowhere…
“Kok kok! A hebi beero!” “Hello! You have a visitor!”
December 13, 2007
Update from Gorom-Gorom
“I hope you are going to preach to us as well…?”
It is not an invitation that we often expect, least of all perhaps from an Islamic religious teacher… Yet, it was the village imam who was talking. He had heard that we used to preach at the market in Gorom-Gorom, but had never heard us. So when pastors John, Adama, and myself were in his village, he gathered his friends and invited us to tell them about Jesus. We accepted the invitation!
Muslims and Christians in Burkina Faso get on well and generally live peaceably together. But even so, it is rare for such an open invitation.
After we had finished, and were about to leave, the imam sent some of the boys of his family to surreptitiously sneak a chicken into our truck as a gift.
Nomad of the Sahel
I am not managing to post much at the moment. Life has been very busy and I have been on the move a lot around the area without internet or phone access. During my first month back in Burkina, I managed to spend one whole day in Gorom-Gorom!
I had a great time visiting all the pastors in the province over the last week, and came across many encouraging and many difficult situations.
Other events of this week:
• One pastor has just been kicked out of his rented accommodation. Another had his watermelon crop destroyed by someone in the night a few weeks ago..
• Another pastor has been visited by someone from a nearby village who has had a dream of Jesus and wants to know more.
• A Fulani in another village has just given his life to Christ, and is regularly visiting the other Christians
Please pray for the pastors here in all they face, and for me as I seek to encourage and help them as we work together. Thank you.
Tomorrow I am off to be chauffeur at a friend’s wedding, and on my way back hope to begin helping Pastor Pierre move from his village to Gorom-Gorom, where he will live with Seydou and Monique and myself. Hopefully he and his family and camels will all be with us in time for us to celebrate Christmas together.
In the meantime, we now have electricity in our home, after 15 years of living without it! We were hoping to get a phone line as well this week, but are still waiting…
More soon…
December 05, 2007
On the road again
I am heading off again for a week visiting the pastors in the north-east of Burkina Faso, so am out of email and phone contact till about the 12th.
However, during this week, I hope to get electricity and a phone line at home in Gorom!
More soon...
