Immersion in a new Culture

Hi friends!

So, I just want to explain about the culture of where I’m staying and then I’ll get to details about the ministry.

Culture of our village of Diabo: there are 19 tribes around the area and each tribe has a chief and the “chief of chiefs” lives in Diabo. In order to get permission to do ministry here, we had to go before the chief of chiefs and present our ministry to get his approval and then in front of the prefect with the police (I had to try to convert him to Christianity on the spot in the office..funny thing, He’s already a Christian, he was just testing me) and then in front of the mayor. If we hadn’t gotten their permission, the government would have come down on our ministry hosts/ pastor if they found out and didn’t approve and we hadn’t cleared it with the local governing body. The chief of chiefs has 4 wives currently and judges cases in the local tribes that the local chiefs can’t handle such as land or adultery disputes and he is in a position of high honor and very respected. The chiefs use charms and do some witchcraft and really cannot be Christians due to all their pagan beliefs. One of our translators told us that his father was in line to be chief (it goes via bloodline and you are chief until you die) but he deferred to his brother, our translator’s uncle, as he didn’t want to renounce his Christian beliefs.

It’s become a running joke with our team that our squad leader is engaged to the chief of chiefs, since he is looking for a 5th wife and selected her when we met him and we are happy to give her away in exchange for the car he promised and the chance to attend an African wedding 😉 In this area, witchcraft is prevalent and people use charms and worship idols. We were advised not to wear much jewelry as it could be misconstrued that we are worshipping idols. It makes a unique atmosphere to share the gospel as we aren’t used to this culture in the U.S. Also, greetings are VERY important in this culture and you have to shake hands with everyone you encounter when you arrive and leave and sometimes once in between. Also, we all received our Bouli (spelling?) names. Bouli is the local language here in this village and French is the national language. Your Bouli names come from the day day of the week on which you were born so mine is Tuesday and is Adua. Whenever we meet people, they love to hear our Bouli names and always laugh at our pronunciation of them and of the local greeting (which seems to change every time we ask how to say hello, depending on the sex of the person and time of day).

So, we are officially on Africa time which means things don’t run on schedule and planned things just may not happen at all. It is hard to get used to, coming from America, but we are adapting and enjoying our afternoon siestas. And our pastor has never had a World Race team before and so we don’t have a set program of ministry and just take it day by day as they are trying to figure it out. He is trying to grow his church as he’s finishing up training as a pastor and only has around 20 adults in the church. So door-to-door evangelization is top priority for him but we are going to get to do kids ministry, women’s retreat(s), hospital visits, skits/ dramas, songs, and preach sermons. They don’t give you much notice in these countries about preaching or performing songs/ skits so we are going to be pushed out of our comfort zones and have already. We have evangelized some so far and it’s actually really fun and not as terrifying as it first seemed and people are very gracious and open to talking to us even if they aren’t Christians. Our white skin color helps a lot since they are fascinated by us since they rarely see people of light skin.

My team and squad have spoken into me and encouraged me that the Lord is saying I’ll blossom and increase in confidence and depth in my walk with the Lord this year and I’m excited to mature in the Lord and see how He will use me and grow me in my gifts this year! I am struggling a bit with having no alone time or privacy as there are always church members around and in our house making sure we are well taken care of, late into the evening, and 5 of us are sharing a bathroom. But, I feel so loved and they are so gracious and my team has been so great so I’m thankful for this community I get to be a part of. The Lord is so so good to me.