Those first couple of four-year terms, we lived right there in Santidougou. This gave us the chance to learn the language well, to begin producing a literature for our people, to help grow the church throughout the district, and to give you kids a stable home in Africa.
Later on, as our ministry changed and we were more involved in Mission administration and the development of church leadership throughout Burkina, we had to leave our dear village and move to the city. One year we had to move as far as Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, to plant the first Alliance church there. But to all of us, Santidougou was home.
From the beginning we were involved in church planting through the Bobo area. Our target people were the Bobo - first called Bobo Fing, then Bobo Madare. But the people referred to themselves as just plane Boboe. And they adopted us into their trible also. Language learning was first on our slate of things to do. The language was not written down and so we started with transcribing the oral sounds we heard, then analyzed both the sound system and the grammar. Each day I would process what I learned, put it on paper and then give it to Dad, along with exercises for him based on what we learned that day! It took a while but then we started to produce some books - primers to learn to read, then readers so the people would be able to practice their reading skills. We even produced a monthly news sheet from all the churches and this gave something new to read each month. We did booklets on various subjects to teach our people - books on marriage and alcoholism and story books.
Dad wanted to have a training seminar with the few beginning pastors we had, and so we translated the Timothy letters from the NT. Our first Gospel we translated was Luke, as it gave the birth of Jesus right through to his ascension. Then Acts came next, the beginning of the church. And on and on it went until finally after a couple of terms we produced a New Testament.
Those were busy days - we burned the "midnight oil" (literally as we had no electricity so used kerosene burning lamps at night. You kids were always a part of what we were doing and even liked to put together little booklets from the scraps of paper we produced, as we mimeographed our way through literature for the Bobos to learn to read.
One day the church leaders came to me and asked if I would start a girls' school there at Santidougou. The Bobo custom for a young man to marry was for his friends to "steal" a girl for him from a village and bring her to a family member to wait a few months for marriage. The church leaders wanted to produce trained Christian wives for their young men, and so they established a girls' school at Santidougou. A couple was sent in as houseparents and I had classes every morning with these girls. It was a great way to have lots of language practice and I soon developed fluency. It was also fun for you girls to have Bobo girl friends living in our yard and you hung out with them.
The Alliance churches in Burkina started a New Life For All evangelism program and we translated the material and joined our people each evening as we sat outside the village, praying by name for people in the town. This program over the years produced many believers and again we were involved in training them along with our pastors.
Uncle Dave and Aunt Margot came to Burkina as missionaries while we lived in Santidougou. They had first gone to Mali but were then sent over to Burkina where they were assigned as workers with the Youth. They developed a wonderful program for the youth of the church and saw many young people come to Christ through meetings and personal contacts. It was fun having them living in Bobo and we had many visits back and forth. They were coming out to Santidougou for dinner one night and were late arriving. When Dad went out to check on them (no telephones in those days!), he found them stranded by the side of the road. A tire had come off their car and rolled way into the field where it was finally found and put back on!
Uncle Jim and Aunt Donna also came to West Africa and were stationed among the Bwa people in Mali. We had occasion to visit back and forth with them also. More about that later. We felt very fortunate to have so much family in West Africa, as so often missionaries are separated from their relatives. However, we felt like the rest of the missionaries were also our family - as well as the Bobo people among whom we lived and worked.
Grandma Pierce came to visit us a couple times in Santidougou. She came from a very proper New England home, and I know it was a stretch for her to see where we lived and adjust to a visit with us. Our house was open and we tried to keep the mouse and roach population down, as I could not stand either. While Grandma was with us, one night a mouse visited her dresser drawer and nibbled the roses off her beautiful pink sweater which had appliqued rosebuds on the front! After that she put all her good things into a closed suitcase! And we tried to keep from laughing at the idea of that mouse eating her artificial rosebuds!
One thing that happened as a result of Grandma Pierce's visit was that we got a beautiful clock. In her home in New England, she had a beautiful clock in every room in the house! And we had watches - but no clocks! She mentioned it while she was there, but we didn't think anything about it. Several months later, Tom and Doloris Burns, our field director and wife, came out to our place for dinner one night. He noticed a package slip in our PO box in Bobo and so went to the PO to pick up the package so he could bring it to us. The customs men had the right to charge customs for packages, and the man looked at the large package addressed to us. He asked Tom what was in it and Tom said he had no idea, perhaps some toys for our children. (It was near Christmas time) We opened the gift right away, and lo and behold, a beautiful mantle clock which struck each hour! We had that clock on our piano all the rest of our years in Africa, brought it home and it still sits in our living room striking the hours in our Georgia home! The people of our village loved to listen to the clock that talked!
I need to get on to John's birth - our child of "worth" for our village, but that will be for another day......A Son is born!
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