his is one trip I was not very sure of till very late, it was on and off again many times. I had met (through Patrice) the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God in Burkina, Pastor Pawentraore Ouedraogo, couple of years before and we had spoken about a countrywide AG marriage conference for their over 3,000 pastors, but things did not work out that year.
When I was contacted early this year (by Patrice Kabore) about this
opportunity, my initial reaction was negative, I gave the excuse that it
was too close to an already planned international trip and also that I
don't have the money for another international trip. I did however commit
to helping Patrice, in whatever way I can. While in church, about eight
weeks before the trip, I felt God instructing me to go on the trip, I
shared my feeling with Ola sitting next to me, and her words to me were,
"so why are you telling me, you better go - if you know its God".
As some of you have read in my last article, my trip to Manchester,
England the week before bummed, and I was in an emotional valley, when I
boarded the aircraft in Omaha for Burkina Faso. Meeting with the other
team member cheered me up a little. I was pleasantly surprised at the
services of Air France from Paris - Ouagadougou, it was not a second rate
aircraft or service as I'm used to with some airlines when they go to
Africa, the Islands or places they don't consider important.
We arrived on Saturday, September 27th at about 7.45pm and a team was
waiting for us at the airport. We were treated like VIPs as we went
through immigration, without lining up. It felt good, but I'm not sure I
like it; I would have preferred the normal process. Our lodging was at the
guest/mission house of the Assembly of God in Ouagadougou (more like the
mission house of the Catholics in Banjul, Gambia - but a little better).
Dinner was great and we all went to bed. We woke up very early on Sunday,
had breakfast and went to church, that was when the reality of being in
Africa dawned on me, the service lasted four hours (8am - 12noon), then
the whole church had lunch together afterwards. I understand that it was a
joint service of four churches. Six different choirs sang (some of the
songs were the French version of the hymns I sang growing up - the praise
songs were also familiar from Eya we Kumama - Congo to Neba fa mi yeliya -
More), there were two sermons. It was fun sitting down and guessing what
was going on - there was no English interpretation, only from French to
More. It really put a new meaning on the "love language" concept for me.
One of our team members knows the US Ambassador to Burkina and she had
granted us audience, before we got to Burkina. Our visit was 8.00am on
Monday, September 29th. The visit went very well, Ambassador Jeanine
Jackson, is a very personable person and she told us what the embassy is
doing in Burkina, which I find very interesting. I knew President Bush has
spent a lot of money in Africa, but seeing the benefits first hand makes a
huge difference. We went from the embassy to an orphanage. I must confess
that I'm not an orphanage guy when on a mission trip, but this place was
fascinating to me and for the first time (in many orphanages worldwide), I
actually carried some of the children. The children ministry of a church
(http://www.enwc.net) in Omaha donated $1300 to the home, plus another
$300 from another ministry in Omaha. A lady whose husband work at the US
embassy is helping to coordinate donations (from the US) for a school
building within the orphanage facility. She also wants me to pass on that
Children in the orphanage (and other orphanages in Burkina) are available
for adoption, a new deal just signed between the American government and
the Burkina Faso government.
Our trip is actually three events rolled into one. Assembly of God have 50
districts in Burkina, each district sent 3 children's leader for a three
day Children Ministry training, making a total of 150 participants. The
150 will now go back to their districts and conduct the same training.
Denny Hartford, is the president of Vital Sign Ministries, he took the
morning sessions and concentrated on the theology of children ministry,
while Pastor Kristen Gray, the children pastor of Eagles Nest Church,
dealt more with the day to day activities in the children's church. The
second event is a two-day, evangelistic tent revival by Pastor Teran
Anderson specifically for the neighborhood of the conference which is a
developing area of Ouagadougou. Teran is the senior pastor of Freedom
Church (AG) in Omaha. The third event is the marriage seminar for all
Ouagadougou AG churches (other denominations were invited as well).
Speaking at one of the churches |
The team with Ambassador Jeanine Jackson |
Children playing at the festival |
The team with Col. Zerbo and his wives |
The team was kind of tired on Tuesday, I believe it has to do with the
heat and the new sleep pattern, everyone was a step slower. As we
proceeded from the mission house to the event venue, we noticed that many
stores were closed, we were told that, Tuesday September 30th is the end
of Ramadan fast and the government had declared the day a holiday. Denny
spoke in the morning sessions, while Pastor Kristen Gray spoke in the
afternoon session (which was more animated and fun). On Wednesday, the
pattern was repeated, Denny spoke in the morning and Pastor Kristen spoke
in the afternoon session, we also spent time getting ready for the
children's carnival on Thursday morning (elementary/primary kids have
Thursdays off).
I started my marriage speaking on Wednesday, night. I spoke at the Church,
where the General Superintendent calls home. They have a wedding during my
general sessions on Saturday. My initial plan was to speak on
Understanding love, but I changed the topic, during our conversation with
the Ambassador on the importance of maintenance in Africa. The new topic
was "Maintaining your Marriage". I defined maintenance using God's
instruction to Joshua to dwell/meditate on the word day and night. We then
went further to described how to maintain a marriage spiritually, how to
maintain a marriage in our soul, through showing love and through romance
which is doing loving things for each other the way and what the other
person wants. The final maintenance was then in the body realm, which was
looking physically attractive and recreational sex.
The topic that got the most attention as always was recreational sex. Most
of the questions after my speaking were centered on, praying after sex and
most people wanted to know more about lubricants, especially the older
women. An elderly woman was even bold enough to come out and ask more
specific questions. A nurse in the audience promised to make lubricants
available, including estrogen cream.
The Children's festival was the next morning, so the team woke up 30
minutes earlier so we can go and arrange the location for the children.
The festival was supposed to be from 8.00am - 12noon. We got their at
7.30am and there were kids waiting for us, Thursdays is a day off for
elementary schools in Burkina Faso, and I also found out that school kids
get a 3 hour lunch break every day! They break at Noon and return at
3.00pm - 5.00pm. Pastor Kristen and her team, put up a fantastic gospel
message with many physical illustration for the children, and almost all
of the 400 kids came forward to accept Christ, after the short service,
the kids were released to the playground, where we had 20 stations of
different games, from hot potato to filling a cup using a spoon of water
to soccer dribble. We decided to bring the kids in at 11.00am because the
temperature was really hot. Once inside we had face painting, more gospel
skits and games. The festival was finally over at about 12.30pm.
After the festival we had a light lunch and went visiting. One of our team
members had visited Burkina some years earlier to do a documentary film on
the life of one of the former presidents, a Muslim who converted to
Christianity while in prison. Col. Zerbo (was deposed by Capt. Thomas
Sankara) must be in his 70s now, pastors a church and live with his two
wives, kids and grandkids
(http://www.vitalsignsministries.org/cometothelight.htm). After meeting
the man, I was tempted to conclude that Burkinabes are people who take
life real easy, they don't put themselves under undue pressure. I ask him,
if he has reached out to other ex-leaders in Africa, so they can form an
alliance and be a resource to the continent, he said no but that he is a
resource to his country. We were later treated to lunch in the home of the
AG general superintendent along with some his leadership team.
On Thursday night, Pastor Teran spoke at a crusade attended by a lot of
people and I heard testimonies abound, a young man came out and confessed
as a thief and ask for prayer to stop that habit. I was not at the crusade
because we were starting a CCFI chapter in Ouagadougou. Paul and Germaine
Ouedraogo have an interest in helping couples, and they saw this as an
opportunity to have a formal setting. The meeting was attended by 6
couples, all married between 4 - 11 years. We spoke about five love
languages, but the discussions kept going back to issues about African
marriages. Praise God, CCFI now have functioning branches in three African
countries (Gambia, Zambia and Burkina Faso) and marriages are being healed
one home at a time.
We slept in on Friday morning and woke up to do some site seeing and to
shop, for anyone that was interested. Our first visit was to the A/G
radio/TV station both housed in the same building, we were giving a tour
of the building. We proceeded to visit a school with about 2000 students
from kindergarten to Secondary school. Our shopping trip took us to a mall
designed for foreigners to buy local stuff. The Friday evening event was
rained out, in everyone's opinion the rain was really needed and the team
got to go to bed early. Pastor Teran had the opportunity to share at a
youth gospel music festival on Saturday night (so he had the opportunity
to share twice, in-spite of the rain on Friday).
The marriage conference on Saturday went well, we had three sessions at
two hours each, the first session was African Marriages vs. Biblical
Principles (book version would be out in 2009 - God willing), the second
session was on Conflicts and Conflict resolution and the last session was
on Differences in Men/Women and Sex. I was pleasantly surprised at the
number of women who were bold enough to ask questions with the husbands
sitting beside them (that is not common in most African setting). On
Sunday, I preached two services at "Cissen Un" AG church, on the outskirts
of Ouagadougou. The first service was in French translation, it was a lot
of fun and the church was packed. The second service was in More
translation and it was more "Africanish", lots of music and dance, the
Holy Spirit surprised me as well, as the anointing of a preacher came on
me, instead of a teacher. We had altar call and many church folks gave up
church for a relationship with Christ. After the second service, the
women's choir invited me to dance with them and I thoroughly enjoyed the
few steps.
People and Culture in Burkina
There are a few interesting things of note in Ouagadougou. First everyone
either has a bicycle or a moped; I believe the number was even more than
what I saw in Vijayawada, India. What really blew me away was the share
number of women on the bikes. Several of the team members have camera
shots of women with 3 kids on a bicycle or a moped. However, only one in a
thousand had a helmet on.
Ambassador Jackson's theory about the helmet is based on the peoples
religious believes that with or without the helmet, they'll die anyway.
Some of the natives confirmed that thinking but also added that the cost
and inconvenience of a helmet play a crucial role as well. I see a big
lesson with all the bikes and bicycle, I do not remember seeing any
overweight person in Ouagadougou, every single person was fit as a tree. I
think, from riding bicycle and bikes, many who have cars also have bikes.
The people are also generally laid back. Most of the Burkinabes I know in
America are like that, but I saw it on a different level on this trip. I
ask a friend (a Burkinabe) the reason for that, his theory was that the
hot Sun have something to do with it, while I don't dismiss his reasoning;
I just think it is more than that. I really wish life in America can slow
down a little like the Burkinabe people.
Ouagadougou beats my expectations in terms of infrastructure, lights were
regular with the exception of the thunderstorm on Friday and it was
restored almost immediately. There was running water in most of the homes
we visited, and the road network, maintenance, and neatness way surpassed
my expectations (comparing to Lagos, Nigeria or Banjul, The Gambia).
I look forward to visiting Burkina Faso again, God willing.
Remain Blessed
If you live in Atlanta GA and environs, please join me for "TRANSFORMATION
WEEKEND - A TWO-DAY MARRIAGE CONFERENCE FOR AFRICAN COUPLES IN THE
DIASPORA" on Friday, October 24TH 7.00PM - 9.30PM and Saturday, October
25TH, 8.30AM - 4.00PM @ Jubilee Christian Church International, 1640 East
Park Place Blvd, Stone Mountain GA 30087. COST IS $50/COUPLE - you can
register at the venue on Friday.
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