At every step of the way I have
learned that my time here, my ministry here is not about what I do but about
walking in relationship with my God, about being who I am in Christ and growing
in that. I am constantly changing, but God is who he is everywhere and he is
the one who makes me effective and useful, nothing I can ever do on my own can
accomplish that. Gathering information and helping the Pastor with a plan for a
dispensary that he has wanted to start to help his people and spread the good
news, none of this makes any difference at all if it is just me doing it (or
him for that matter). I can’t make anything last, I am leaving in August. Even
if I weren’t, I am a flower that is withering, a passing breeze, a single
moment in time here. I am a moment, He is forever. His work is what matters; I
am simply privileged to take part in that work with others who he has chosen to
use for their short time here too. He said, “He has made everything beautiful
in its time. He has also set eternity
in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to
end.” (Ecc 3:11) and “For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do
good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:10) This
introduction is important because I am and always will be one small, small
piece in a gigantic puzzle that God himself is putting together. I can’t see
all that God is doing but I am going to do what he has for me to do now. Where
is my credit, my boasting? It is excluded (Rom 3:27) as it should be. So
instead of telling you all about “my project” let me tell you what I have seen
God doing in the Ferké area in Cote d’Ivoire.
The Nyarafolo people are officially
an unreached people group. Only 0.30% of the group are evangelical Christians.
3.00% are Christian but the vast majority are considered Islamic. But the
tricky thing about religion in Côte d’Ivoire is that the traditional religion
of Animism is everywhere. If they aren’t Evangelical Christians, no matter what
other faith they adhere to, they still practice traditional religion. That
means the stats are more like this: 0.30% evangelical Christian, ~99.5%
Animism, 3.00% Christian, ~70% Islam and ~0.20% no religion. There is a lot of
overlap, if the individual is not Evangelical, and the overlap includes
Catholics here also. This people group is pretty small with only about 62,000
people. (the solid stats are from http://www.joshuaproject.net/languages.php?rol3=sev)
But let me tell you, it is an engaged people group! In my village of ~100
people, there are about 45 evangelical believers. My church has produced two of
the only three Nyarafolo Pastors in the country. A good part of the translation
team working on the Nyarafolo bible are either from Tiepogovogo or have spent a
good amount of time there (learning the language or working in the church). God
has been moving in and through Tiepogovogo. There are so many stories they tell
about how God started things going there some 40 years ago, all of them amazing.
And he is not finished there yet. I don’t mean that that is the only place God
has been reaching Nyarafolos, nor that it all started there, don’t get me
wrong. He is doing so so much in Ferké in and with the four evangelical
congregations and many believers in the city. All the same, I see God moving in
Tiepogovogo and it has been amazing. How could I not want to help here? Spending
so much time in the village observing and listening to stories, talking with
the Pastor, I have found some things I might be able to help with.
I can’t speak Nyarafolo well enough
to start a bible study or help people learn to read. I can’t even do much
sharing. But I am built for planning, for observation, for the design process.
My idea was to start a library in the church and eventually have a community
center there in Tiepogo to help in learning to read Nyarafolo, hygiene and
sanitation would be taught as well. This would be a one on one thing (made for
this culture) and would hopefully spread through the villages. My thought was
to have low scale seminars to help keep things on track and help others learn
to teach. Anyway, none of that will probably happen, or at least not the way I
imagined. I’m ok with that, but I am still going to give my ideas to my Pastor
and the translation team. One day I was casually mentioning that I was going to
work on this plan to my Pastor and he said, what he really wants to see more is
a dispensary (a medical clinic) started in the area. Turns out he has been
planning and thinking about this for years. He has tons of information and lots
of ideas. But he has never been trained in planning and seems to feel he is
spinning his wheels right now in this. I, after praying about this quite a bit,
just want to help out. I have been trained in planning and not only that but
all that time I was sick, I stayed at the Baptist hospital with missionaries
who have been there for most of their lives and the director herself. I heard a
lot of things about running a hospital. Not that I can plan the whole thing
from that, by any means, but I have seen maybe some areas that need to be
investigated well before starting another medical facility, and I have become
at least a little familiar with medical missions administration.
I don’t know how much my planning
process will help him, but I hope it will be a good start in actually getting
this off the ground. I know of a couple of amazing missions planning firms
(like eMi) that can help them out too, which I intend to get them in touch with
(probably the most helpful of the two). Anyway, like I said, I am a passing
moment in this grand story. The third part clarinet in a grand symphony, I
don’t matter much in the over-all melody. But it is a privilege to be apart of
what God is doing here, to see his work, get to know his people and on some
aided occasions even encourage them and help them in their walk with our
amazing Father. I know they have encouraged me and taught me way more than I
ever could do for them. Yet again I am writing nearly two pages, I apologize,
but this is the big tamale and the whole point of God sending me here, I do
believe. I am learning so much from even trying to work on this and I believe
strongly that this is at least the direction of the answer to my big hairy
audacious goal question: what would landscape architecture look like in a
incarnational mission’s setting? It is an answer I can even do at home, as God
leads of course. So there you have it. This is mostly what I was leading up to
in my last two blogs and I hope my story encourages you and challenges you in
your walk with Christ.
