A day to Assess

The cool night under the African moon coupled with about 45 minutes under a mango tree (turned sanctuary) helped me gain the perspective I needed for the trip. The culture shock was gone. Sleeping it off and starting a new day under a Mango tree 100 yards away from camp with only my Bible and journal helped me see K-village through God's eyes.

Day 2

This would be a day of assessment. A day to see where the believers are or are not. A day of the customary go and greet the chief and ask for his permission to stay in the village and tell stories about Jesus.

We were very well received by the chief; in part, because we have spent over 2 years in the village building relationships with the villagers, teaching in the school, helping their sick and telling them stories from the Bible. The chief recently expressed an interest in "going the road of Jesus" when "Bangi" (Bobby M.) came and told stories from the Bible with him in September 2008. The chief was glad to see us, but he was most interested in the well being of Bangi. He instructed us all to make sure and take care of Bangi.

On the way through the village and back to our mud hut (AKA: Grace Point Hilton) we stopped by a circular cage. It was made of 3 inch in diameter posts driven into the ground with a thatched roof over head. The villagers in front of us walked swiftly past the cage, but we Americans, in true American flavor, stopped to admire it and took photos. We were quickly repremanded not to stay there and take photos. After inquiring with some persistance as to the African responses to "the cage" I was told it was a place of African traditional worship. The African man leading us through the village said that people in the village live in fear of evil spirits, disease, and danger and that we as Christians wouldn't understand and we were sternly told by the church leader not to talk about it and to move on.

As the day progressed into the night, we continued to see some disturbing trends with the infant believers of K-village. Very few people came out for our teaching at night. This wasn't the norm. When 5 white Americans show up in any rural bush village, there is always a buzz and curious, friendly interest. We went to bed asking a lot of questions...

• What was the spiritual health of the village believers?
  
• To what degree do the traditional animistic ways still haunt the villagers?


• How could we adjust and help in the spiritual formation process of these 30 or so believers?


• What was holding this church back from taking the message of Jesus to other villages? After all, we want to see many churches established throughout West Africa and the only true way to see such an advancement among a the Bambara people (4 million strong with less than 1% believers) is through a multiplying church effect. We want churches to go, engage, reproduce their faith in other villages.

We concluded the evening by issuing a challenge to the men. We asked if they were willing to walk to the next village, J-village, tomorrow. If so, we would leave the next morning with them.

J-village has barely been reached with the message of Jesus. A handful of people in this village recently became believers and wanted to continue to learn the way of Jesus. The problem was, the believers of K-village weren't going to J-village and instructing them. We went to bed wondering if any men would return tomorrow and walk to J-village with us.