When we lived in Santidougou, I had plenty to do. I had small children then. We were working among a people who had no written language, so it was a big job giving the Bobo Madare language a written form. There was a Sunday School to start and mentor the teachers, producing SS lessons in Bobo each month for them. I worked with the ladies. We taught short term schools, with people coming from several villages to study with us at Santidougou. Dad had district work, preached somewhere every Sunday. He had a big medical ministry as well. He served on mission committees, which took a lot of time as welll. And he physically built churches in the new villages as well. He spent hours in counselling pastor and young men.
While we still lived in Santidougou, I was asked to come to Bobo one day each week to teach at Maranatha Bible Institute. I would go directly to the school in the morning, then come back to Kennedys' at the mission for lunch and a noon rest, then back to teach another course at the Bible School in the afternoon - and home again to Santidougou. That was my weekly Wednesday schedule.
But once we moved to the city, my ministries branched out. When Dad was director, I was mission hostess and in charge of the guest house, plus serving many meals. I also increased my teaching at Maranatha. What a privilege to teach young men and women from Burkina, Mali and Côte d'Ivoire, and then to follow them as they went out in ministry in these three countries. Our lives were enriched by them.
We had planned a city-wide evangelism crusade in Bobo-Dioulasso, and worked hard to set up everything - for church meetings and street meetings. I entertained the Zaire trio and Jim Sawatsky who travelled with them and came for our musical ministry. I was also asked to plan to do a follow up program for the new people we expected would come to Christ. So we planned and prepared. The trio and Jim Sawatsky, plus Isaac Keita (our evangelist) stayed in our guest house and ate their meals with us. They all arrived as planned, and our first meeting was Sunday morning in the Alliance church. It was a great service and a good response to the invitation to receive Christ.
But we had an unexpected surprise - our first Burkina coup (followed by several others in the following years) started that night! This meant very strict rules for everyone: curfew at dark each afternoon, no driving in the city at night, armed police and soldiers driving around to make sure everyone stayed inside, no crowds could gather anywhere in the city streets - there went our planned outdoor meetings. And it meant that we had a houseful of people staying with us. We got to know each other very well during that time. They had to stay until their flight would take off later in the week. And we enjoyed each other so much. We did have some meetings in the afternoons in our yard, and from those meetings we also had some fruit - people who received Christ as Saviour.
So after the team left us, I started my followup classes ever Monday night. There were several highly educated people who had come to Christ and they all came to the class. One of those people was Emmanuel Bamiki. He was a school teacher and had never had any contact with church or Christians. I remember during one evening class, he asked, "How do those people get up in church and close their eyes and talk to God? How do they know what to say and can I learn that too??" It was a delight to help an educated young person to learn to pray and give testimony and to see him blossom in his faith. He went on to Bible School and kept studying to a high theological level in a couple of schools. Today he is a pastor in the church and a professor at Maranatha as well as a national church leader. Those are the kinds of investments we remember from our many years in West Africa. And today we are able to communicate with many of them on SKYPE or Facebook! How the world has changed!
During those years we also had a TEE expert from Australia come and give us a seminar on the value of theological education by extension. This really caught hold with me and I began to draw up a program for people in our area and their felt needs. We organized and started to write and/or translate books. We formed a committee of pastors and missionaries. I headed up that program until we retired from Burkina Faso. Many students went through the whole program and some parts of the church still use the materials. I used to travel to other missions in Burkina and to Mali and Ivory Coast to give seminars on how to get started in TEE.
Ouézzinville Sud was our church when we were in town, and I enjoyed heading up a Christian Ed program for that church, training teachers, suggesting cirriculum, etc. One year when I was working day and night in the Bobo translation, I decided I needed a change of language on Sunday. The Bobo district church was trying to start a church in Sarafaralao in the yard of a church elder. So I worked with that church on Sunday and attended there and encouraged them and also started a SS for children. I worked in Jula on Sundays and that gave me a change of being steeped in Bobo Madare. I also had to learn to ride a motor bike then as Dad took our van every Sunday to the bush!
I was often asked to speak at national and local women's conferences. When we returned to Burkina in 2006, I had been asked to speak to a large group of women in the Bobo Central church one Sunday, so I agreed. I prepared in French, thinking someone would translate me, but no one was there who could do that. So I just switched to Jula and was delighted to see that I had no problems doing that. My languages are something I miss badly, living in this anglophone country! I was alwaus asked to preach at different churches for women's Sunday each year in Bobo.
A funny incident occured one day - a student pastor, André, was pastoring a new church group not far out of Bobo. He came to me one day and asked if I would come to preach in his church the next week! I said you mean you want Papa to preach? "No", he said, "I want you to preach. I want our women to understand that women can also teach and preach God's Word. I already asked Papa if he would be your chauffeur!" I was his prof in Bible School and I guess he knew I could preach, but was not sure if I could drive in the bush! That was the only time Dad had to sit in a little mud chapel and listen to my sermon!
My years of ministry in Burkina were rich indeed. It is also a delight to me to see you three girls continuing on in ministry in Africa and the Middle East. You will never be sorry for the time you have invested in others, through teaching, leading people to Christ, through friendships and just being an example of living the Christian lifeGod bless you!
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