Here in the Sahel, one of the driest parts of the world, rice growing might seem an unlikely activity. However, in Boukouma there is a big reservoir which during rainy season holds enough water to irrigate a few hundred plots of rice. My co-worker, Keith Smith, and I are here with a group of Fulani men and women. We live, work and worship in community, with the aim that we might all grow as disciples of Jesus. We trust that our Fulani friends will gain enough rice to be able to provide well for their families this year.

When I was nine, and attending a Methodist chapel in rural Nottinghamshire, my concept of world mission was mostly limited to worrying about the discrepancies in my JMA collector's book. But even then I had a hunch that I would be a missionary when I grew up. I was scared by the idea and hoped that God would forget the whole business.

He didn't. For just over a year now I have have been in Burkina Faso, a small landlocked country in West Africa. I live in the hot, dry north of the country, amongst a cattle-herding people called the Fulani. The Fulani are traditionally nomadic, travelling with their cows to find good pasture and water. As a minister's son, I am used to a more or less nomadic lifestyle, so I feel at home here.

Keith and I are with World Horizons, an interdenominational movement which works amongst peoples not yet reached by the gospel. The good news "For God so loved the world..." is by definition trans-cultural, and yet there are still many cultures where that good news has made little or no impact. The Fulani people is but one example. Jesus's 'Great Commission' presents us still with the challenge to go, and to make disciples of all nations.

Even after twenty years of mission here, there are no more than thirty Christian Fulani men and women in the whole of the north of Burkina Faso. Discipleship is difficult because most of them are very isolated, living in settlements where there are no other believers. They have no opportunity for Christian fellowship and often experience rejection by their communities on account of their faith. We toyed with the idea of arranging a few circuits and travelling round on camelback to encourage and teach, but then Keith came up with the idea of a rainy season community. This way, our Fulani brothers and sisters get to spend six months together being built up in their faith and being equipped to return to their own communities as witnesses to Christ.

Not long ago, a Fulani man would have been ashamed to cultivate the ground, it being firmly rooted in Fulani identity that herding is the only honourable work. Yet droughts and desertification have made life hard for herders here; nowadays there are very few who can live purely off their animals. Fulani men all over the Sahel are picking up hoes for the first time. Needs must.

"Golle maaro na tiidi, nyaamugol maaro na weli." Growing rice is bitter; eating rice is sweet. Hamadou said this yesterday as we ate together in the field at midday, and we all chortled our agreement. The work is indeed hard, but the rice is growing well so far. When locals have passed by the fields of our brothers and seen the size of the rice plants, they have on occasion exclaimed, "God really is with you."

It is not just the rice that is growing. When we see what God is doing amongst us as a community we cannot help but be thankful for it. At home in the compound and out in the fields there is more laughter and less bickering than there was at first. Prayer and worship is becoming more spontaneous, and some have encountered the Holy Spirit for the first time. Aadama, a young man who has been visited by two ginns (demons) every Friday night for as long as he can remember, has been freed from this oppression. Wadda, Hamadou's wife, recently gave her life to the Lord after years of fierce resistance. Their children, Amadou (9) and Iisaa (6) will be the first Fulani children to grow up in this region having Christian parents.

All over the world the gospel is spreading and bearing fruit, and now the Good Herder has followers amongst the Fulani as well. I am very glad to be here to see it happening, in spite of the balkos.