BURKINA FASO? WHERE? WHY?
Burkina Faso is an independent republic in West Africa whose name means in the local Moore language "Land of the Man of Integrity." While Burkina Faso is made of up a number of different ethnicities and languages, the official language is French. Its population of approximately 22.5 million, has a median age of 17 1/2 years old, yet early childhood mortality is at 7%. Over the past 10 years, the population has become increasingly centralized due to activities of foreign "Islamic" terrorist organizations in the Northern and Eastern border areas with Mali and Niger which have displaced Christians and other minorities from their homelands into the capital city of Ouagadougou. Religious demographics include 63% Muslim, 31% Christian and 6% Indigenous / Other. The activities of the terrorist organizations, whose goal is to gain a political foot hold in West Africa, have represented the breaking point for the Burkinabe government, resulting in two peaceful coup d'etats between 2020 and 2022, as the country continues to discover its political identity and alliances, its military resolve, and its thirst for effective democracy. Being a landlocked country, on the edge of the Sahara Desert, Burkina Faso's most valuable resource is its youthful population, yet less than half of the adult population can read or write. But the young Burkinabe are a people who understand the power of prayer, and in the face of Islamic terrorism are also facing spiritual crisis and asking many questions about their understanding of faith. The fields are ripe and this is where God is moving in miraculous ways!
HOW DO YOU KNOW IT'S GOD?
It all started in 2017 with an unlikely friendship. A social worker and a linguist, a bunch of kids, communities, hungry and thirsty for this, that, and Jesus. At that time, the Lord sent me to Kumasi, Ghana where Mama Anna Nunoo introduced me to her Christian school, and threw a Bible and concordance at me, and said "You will be giving the Word of God tomorrow to the students."
​This is story of two hard-working, educated Christians in our 30's...alone and struggling, feeling like the gears were spinning and going nowhere. But we continued to correspond deeply with each other and constantly pray for one another through trial after disappointment, and disappointment after trial. Then came the pandemic in 2020, and Burkina Faso was hit hard with many foreign investors pulling everything out of the country and unemployment at unprecedent rates. However, Burkinabe like T. have an ancestral history of looking within themselves for sustenance. T. shared with me a real estate dream of selling land that was sure to appreciate in value. "Have you ever thought about buying land here that you can invest in real estate?"..."No," I told him. However, being a single parent having lived in California all my life, I had come to terms with the fact that I would never own a piece of real estate here. T. would tell me about different housing investments in the city. I still couldn't afford them. "Mam ba bipoaka ('Sister' in Moore), a friend of mine, a pastor, told me about a hectare piece of farmland, you can afford it with your savings. You can have someone plant fields and it can make you money." Ok, why would I want to do that?...A couple weeks later I tell him, " Mam ba biiga ('Brother' in Moore)....do you remember you told me about that dream of having your own language institute? Mam ba biiga, we're going to put your school on that land." T.'s dream of real estate to riches? Well, it was the only piece of land he sold before his pockets ran completely empty. The purchase was accepted and recognized by the community with full support from Pastor J. Nikiema and the Chief of Doulougou and his sons in September 2021 with a full realignment according to community needs: mother/infant program, primary school, secondary school, kitchen / nutrition center, infirmary. "But mam ba biiga, do we even know what we're doing?" "Don't worry mam ba bipoaka, my uncle is a schoolmaster... a very esteemed architect attends my church..." During this time, an evangelical conference was held at T.'s church where prophecy was shared about preparing Burkinabe Christians to go out into the English-speaking world. The pandemic passed and T. got a regular job in the reviving corporate world. In October 2022, I met Pastor J. Nikiema in person and connected on many different levels, spiritually, professionally; and learned of the prophecy God sent him to plant a ministry in Doulougou. And of course, I met architect K. Sessi in person, who apart from all of the projects he works on throughout the African continent, demonstrated so much joy in his partnership on this one. "Let me help you out with some of the people I know...it will move the administrative and permit processes faster." We continue to count on the oversight of R. Nikiema, a son of the chief, to watch over the land and utilize it for agricultural purposes for local community until the money is raised to begin construction.