n 2008, a Burkinabe named Patrice, wanted to put together a Festival in the like of Luis Palau or BGEM in his home country. He asks if I will go with the team to teach on Marriage and Family, to which I said yes. It was on that trip that Pastor Pawentaore Ouedraogo, the General Superintendent of Assemblee de Dieu in Burkina Faso, ask that I come back to be a speaker at their next General Council meeting in January of 2010. The theme for the conference is “La famille”, I learnt of this when I got there and that I was the keynote speaker (deeply humbled).

With some pastors from a particular part of Burkina

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This trip was not without its own drama, towards the end of last year, the singles conference did not do well financially added with a couple of program cancellations, I almost called Pastor Ouedraogo to cancel but I thought about how I felt when I got the email to cancel programs that had been on my schedule for months, so I decided to go ahead and trust God (and He was faithful). I had been told to expect about 3000 participants and I had sent ahead the French version of BHM workbook (we have English, French, Spanish and Telegu-Indian language versions).

On my way out from Omaha to Cincinnati, I sat beside a missionary who had been married for 57 years, I thought I can chit-chat, but Rev. Herman Glienke beat me hands down even at 82, we spoke from the moment I sat beside him till we got off the plane. Rev. Glienke was a missionary to Cuba before Fidel Castro and considers himself a missionary now in America. He started many Lutheran schools (even in Cuba) and some are still operational today. Somehow I felt free to share with this man of God, and he answered every question I had with the wisdom of God and with the experience only a great-grandfather, whose children and children’s children are still serving the Lord could have. He gave me hope for the Lutherans, God still have those who have not bowed to “liberalism in the church” in that denomination that started out of an out pouring of the Holy Spirit. Rev. Glienke, if you ever read this, that one hour is appreciated.

I wondered what international trips would look like since Christmas bombing attempt by a Nigerian, I was actually not disappointed. At the Cincinnati airport, a couple of TSA officers stood at the entrance and eyeballed everyone that passes by (way to go TSA), I felt sorry for a gentleman with a Nigerian passport, he was pulled aside and questioned for a few minutes while I walked by, my blue passport in obvious display. I remembered also not to buy anything at Charles de Gaulle airport (Paris), because a bottle of coke cost about $5 in 2008, thanks to a caring wife who had packed animal crackers and cashew for me to munch on – love you Abike.

In Ouagadougou, the custom guy ask for my contact address in Burkina Faso, which I did not know, so an interesting conversation ensued between a French speaking man and an English speaking man, I kept saying the name of the church and the name of the superintendent, after like 5 minutes he waved me on, I picked up my bag and was received by someone waving my name at the entrance to the airport. My assigned host was Pastor Jean-Baptiste Roumba; he is the local pastor of the Central Church (the most influential AG church in Burkina attended by the Prime Minister and other big folks) and wrapping up his PhD at Regent University in VA USA. We had some discussions on the history of the church (AG) in Burkina and he finally gave a clue to a confusing phenomenon, most Mosse people share about 5 or 6 last names and they are mostly not related Ouedraogo, Nikiema, Kabore, Zongo, Yameogo and Sawadogo (there are other minor last names like his own).

The conference kicked of very well, with a little over 2500 participants on the first night. There were delegates from United States (about 9 of us), there was a team from Italy (Italy AG build schools in Burkina, Mali and Cote de Ivoire and sponsors students for free), there was a representative of AG in France, there is a Burkinabe who now pastor in Brussels, and missionaries to Mali and Senegal sent out from the Burkina Church. The night was beautiful, a lady and her team sang many songs (I was told her grandpa was one of the pioneer pastors when Americans established AG in Burkina) and the Men’s fellowship choir also belted a couple of hymns like only a man’s choir can do.

Then the funniest thing happened that night, NEPA took the light, well okay they don’t have NEPA. The government light came back after about 30 minutes. The sermon on the opening night was given by my interpreter Pastor Jules Compaore, he shared on the family.

I was at the convention ground bright and early on day two; Pastor Moise Sawadogo (a Bible School president) eloquently shared the first part of his message on the family with the latter part later in the evening session. He told a Chinese proverb and had the delegates do an exercise that proved the proverb. The Chinese believes our fingers represent family relationships, the thumb represent parents, the next finger represents siblings, the middle finger is self, the ring finger represent spouse and the small finger presents children. He then had everybody put all ten the fingers together, while folding the two middle fingers that represent self. This exercise showed that while we can separate all the other fingers, we cannot separate the one that represents spouse. In the evening Pastor Moise shared on conflict resolution and on parenting.

At the interval, I met Barbara and Nancy, the American missionaries to Burkina, they have both been in Burkina Faso for over 30 years, they both teach at the Bible school and help with the women’s ministry, they shared with me, how the Burkina church have come a long way with how the men relate to their wives. Another team of 5 people from US AG came the next day, primarily to computerize one of the Bible schools. On that team is Pastor Dale, a former missionary to Burkina, he had his two boys in Burkina and he still speaks Moore and French.

I stayed for the first part of the general session, were the executive officers gave their report, my chief host Pastor Pawentaore, has served as the General Superintendent for 25 years, and made it known to everyone that he’ll love to leave and make way for someone else, it was amazing to me that majority did not want him to step down, and their reason is very simple, they believe the Holy Spirit reside in him – what a life of Integrity. I met Pastor Pawentaore about 3 years ago and know all his kids (2 in Omaha NE and 2 in Ouagadougou); I must say I share his people’s sentiment on his life of integrity. My interpreter told me that this was the sentiment of at least 95% of the delegate. Each day has 4 sessions (2hours each) and I’m scheduled to speak at all 5 sessions on Friday, I’m prayerfully looking forward to it and very excited.

I woke very early (with the first call for Morning Prayer – which I can hear in my guest house) and ask God what He wanted us to do since, Pastor Moise has shared on conflict resolutions one of my main topics. I believe with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I broke down why God started family, first for relationship, secondly to multiply and thirdly to show forth His glory on earth. Then we talked about how the three nature of man (Spirit, Soul and Body) affect every stage we go through as a family. We then talked about 3 stages, the foundational stage – here we discussed how to set the right foundation, I challenged the national church executive to make sure any one marrying in Assemblees de Diue du Burkina MUST go through a pre-marriage class, it was accepted. The next stage is maintaining the marriage – these was broken down into 3, spiritual maintenance, emotional maintenance and physical maintenance. I was curious as to what the reaction of the people will be when we spoke about sex, however, it was my interpreter who had problem mentioning body parts initially before one of the senior leaders(who was later elected new General Superintendent) encouraged him on (I made fun of him later). In my opinion it was very well received and the folks ask a lot of good questions, similar to what I get anywhere else in the world (there is nothing really new under the sun). I had the time to briefly discuss the stages of child development and attributes expected at each developmental stage.

At the evening session, we discussed African marriages – the clash of culture/religion with biblical principles (based on my unpublished book – I gave the transcript of the book to the church publishing unit to translate and print in French and Moore). The discussion was lively and interesting and for the first time I went over my time limit, with permission. At the end of the day, God was glorified and honored, it was indeed a privilege to share with all of these pastors, I cannot put how I feel in words but I’ve channeled that feeling into a prayer that I want marriages transformed in Burkina because of this conference.

Being cornered by Pastor Pawentaore to say i'm coming back!

The delegates had their election on Saturday and they elected a new national executive team, the election lasted way into Sunday morning (midnight). Nine executives replace the former seven members, while two people from the past team stayed on. It was reported that AG Burkina have 3705 pastors, 3000 ordained and 3095 registered or attended this conference. AG Burkina was established by US AG almost 100years ago and they have in-turn sent missionaries to Mali, Cote de Ivoire, Benin, Niger and Senegal. I met the General Superintendent from Mali, a young man who did his bible school in Ouagadougou BF, AG Mali was birth 25 years ago.

The service on Sunday was packed and everyone dressed perfectly for the occasion. The new executives were installed, and Pastor Pawentaore had me come up and promise that I’ll be back, we all (including the audience) agreed that the wives of the pastors must be present whenever that happens. The ceremonies were interesting and I had the opportunity to greet the new team mainly in the Mossi way – you bump each other’s forehead (on the side) four times.

As a people I find Burkinabes very interesting, as their name suggested they are really upright, they’ll let you know straight up if they like you or not. When been driven by a driver (chauffer), the boss does not seat in the owner’s corner like in Nigeria, they seat in front with the driver, and this actually includes their president (President Compaore) as well. It seems to me that most of them take life real easy, I wonder why they’ve not been voted the happiest people on earth. I learnt something about myself also, I might be addicted to the noise of television, nothing was said in English yet I left the TV on while I work?

After service on Sunday and a little nap, I had a good America politics discussion with two of the American delegates. One of them Kirk is the son of a missionary and was born in Kenya, he still works for AG Missions and has travelled to almost all African countries. It is always interesting to me, when I meet Americans like Kirk (born in Kenya and still goes around Africa) or Barbara (lived in Burkina for 32 years) or my good friend Dr. Gary (lived in Nigeria for over 3 decades as well).

Hugging my friend Pastor Jean-Baptiste Roamba (a member of the new executive team)

Ok, so we arrived at the Atlanta airport from CDG and this conversation ensued between the Immigration guy and me:

Immigration: welcome back, where did you visit and why were you out?
Femi: Burkina and spoke at a pastor’s conference
Immigration: about what?
Femi: marriage (the family) from a biblical standpoint
Immigration: so you are a pastor?
Femi: No
Immigration: Minister?
Femi: No
Immigration: so what are you?
Femi: an author, speaker, and a brother.
Immigration: Oh!
Femi: the bible says, every believer is a royal priest, and we don’t necessarily need human ordination or title to function in these capacities?
Immigration: (handing my passport to me) have a nice day, I still think you are a minister!

Well, it is a privilege to be used of God. I hope this inspire someone to go on a mission trip, stop letting the devil sidetrack you with your problems, take a step of faith and go on a foreign mission in 2010.

Remain Blessed

William Femi Awodele is the Executive Director of Christian Couples Fellowship International, Inc. and a Vice-Chair of Embrace the Heartland in Prayer (http://www.prayheartland.com)