Unafraid of the Sacred Forest

With a language that has 23 distinct secondary dialects, we felt lost. We struggled to adapt to living in a place where the people use a six-day week, where there are no years or ages, and where polygamy is considered a virtue.

We knew we needed to study the language, understand the culture and compare it with the Word of God, and discover ways of expounding the Word; but we were to learn that it was Jesus himself — not us — who was building his church.

Like Sue Frampton before her, Rossana (my wife) helped those who were sick. Although only a nurse, she found herself treating all kinds of diseases ranging from skin conditions and inflammation of the gums to malaria, hepatitis, tuberculosis and meningitis. Her patients, who came in from surrounding villages and from Nakpai itself, expected to be given a litapalpel (literally ‘white stone’), a term which originally alluded to the white chloroquine tablets used to combat malaria, and that generally came to mean any medication.

A woman approaches

One sunny morning, typical of the days preceding the Harmattan season when the wind blows down from the Sahara, Rossana got her medicines ready as usual, and laid out disposable gloves along with a supply of cotton wool and sticking plaster. I went outside to greet several elderly patients who were waiting under a nearby tree. That day we attended to 20 or so patients, helping them as much as we could within our limitations. By 11 o ’clock everyone had been seen, so we sat down to rest under the big tree in front of our house.

A woman approached carrying a baby. She was obviously not a Konkomba, having the paler skin and finer features of one of the northern peoples. In addition, she held her child in her arms, unlike Konkombas who tie babies on their backs with a large cloth. When she spoke she used a language we did not know, so we sought help from some villagers who knew Dagbani and Hausa, common northern languages.

Horrible sight

‘I belong to the Fulani-Kr people’, explained the woman, ‘and I have come because I heard that once again there are some white people here who are healing those who are sick’. (The Fulani-Kr are nomadic Fulas from the south of Burkina Faso. A small ethnic group, they are strongly influenced by Islam and very opposed to the gospel.)

‘May I look at your baby?’ Rossana asked. The woman handed over the little girl and Rossana took her in her arms. The seven-month-old child was a horrible sight, covered from head to foot in ugly growths. One big tumour near her left ear made her head look deformed. Yellow pus oozed from cracks in the tumours, soaking the cloth in which she was wrapped. The child’s eyes were inflamed, she had a fever — certainly due to the infection — and was having difficulty breathing. Even her crying was almost inaudible.

‘It started about three months ago’, explained the mother. ‘Almost every day the skin cracked and another wound appeared. The Fulani medicine men don’t know what to do.’ The woman looked tired and dejected, worn out by sleepless nights worrying about her daughter and by the long walk to get to Nakpai.

More powerful than medicine

Rossana and I looked at each other. Our small supply of medicines was almost finished and we knew there was no way we could adequately treat the child there and then.

‘Usually we have medicine which can help to cure the more common diseases like malaria’, said Rossana, ‘but at the moment we don’t have what we need to treat your little girl.’ The mother bowed her head despondently, but Rossana continued, ‘However,we know something which is not a pill but is more powerful than any medicine. If you so desire, it can heal your daughter.’

The woman looked up. ‘What is it?’

‘There is a God, whom we serve. He is the only God, and has power over everything, even the body, the earth and the spirits!’ Through our interpreter, we explained who God is. The woman listened attentively as we told her about his love and about Yesu Kristu, his Son, and the salvation promised to all peoples, including the Fulani-Kr. Finally we said, ‘We can ask this God to heal your daughter with his power.’

Then we prayed, giving time for each sentence to be translated into her language. ‘Do you believe?’ asked Rossana. Serenely she replied, ‘I believe’.

We then did our best to clean the child’s sores using mercurochrome diluted with a little water to make it go further, and then wrapped her in a new, clean cloth. After we had done all we could, the woman stood up and left.

God has heard!

During the next four days we were so immersed in our language study that we forgot all about the Fulani-Kr woman and her daughter. Then, late one afternoon, we once more saw the tall, slim figure approaching. I must confess that I had butterflies in my stomach as she got closer and I could see that she held a motionless child wrapped in a cloth. My immediate thought was that the child had died, but the mother’s expression was strange. As she stopped in front of us she broke into a huge smile which transformed her face, and unwrapped the cloth to reveal the child — fast asleep! I hoped the child would be much improved with tumours that were shrinking. But I was stunned by what I saw. The tumours had disappeared! In awe, we ran our hands over the baby’s chest and the head that had been so deformed by the huge tumours.

Now there was nothing, absolutely nothing: no sores, no pus — not even a scar! The only evidence of her dreadful illness was old skin peeling off. ‘God has heard!’ exclaimed the mother between smiles.

Unforgettable scene

Then an unforgettable scene, like none I had ever witnessed before, unfolded before us. The woman started going from hut to hut showing her child to everyone in that Konkomba village and telling them about Uwumbor, the God who saves! God had called us to take the gospel to this tribe but now we began to understand that, regardless of any feeble missionary efforts, it is Jesus himself who builds his Church throughout the earth. Hallelujah! The woman’s testimony made an impact on many people and they began to seek us out.

Then came the event that would later produce such surprise among the Konkombas of Koni village. It started when a few elders from a neighbouring village admitted that they had a certain difficulty with us. ‘We are delighted that you are living among us’, they said, ‘and the people in the other villages are also happy to have you here, but we do have one problem’.

We were puzzled.

‘What is it?’ ‘Your names! They are appalling and we can’t get our tongues round them. We can’t imagine how your parents could have given you such strange names!’

So we asked them whether it would be possible for them to give us Konkomba names.

How I got my name

Up to that point we were seeing it as a kind of cultural joke, little realising that the Holy Spirit was preparing a remarkable strategy for reaching those people. The dialect spoken by the Konkombas in Nakpai is a proverbial language. This means that children’s names reflect particular events surrounding the time of their birth. Just as in the Old Testament, names are chosen for their meaning rather than for the way they sound, so among the Konkombas there are names like Jagri (the one who left but came back), Unidanyun (if you have a family you will be well known), or Usaan Nyan (the path is a very good one).

Several days later, the elders summoned us to tell us our new names. They looked at Rossana and said, ‘We wish to call her Dotapii —the woman who heals’. In this way they acknowledged Rossana’s role as the one who treated the sick people. ‘And you will no longer be called Ronaldo, but Uwumbor Bi — the one who says, “There is a God!”’

Here was the Holy Spirit bringing to birth, in the language of the people, a way to proclaim the gospel. Wherever we went we were always asked, ‘What are your names?’

From that day forward, I could reply, ‘My name is Uwumbor Bi — the one who says, “There is a God!”’

This is taken from Unafraid in the Sacred Forest: the birth of a church in an African tribe by Ronaldo Lidoria (ISBN 978 1 84550 235 5), published by Christian Focus Publications (http://www.christianfocus.com), and is used with their kind permission.