A History of the Work
Our team’s first roots date to 1999, the year a group of students at Abilene Christian University began meeting to pray about the possibilities of mission life in Africa (given how dry and dusty West Texas is, we should have known we’d wind up in a place like Burkina Faso!). Although families and singles came and went, the team eventually settled out as four original families: the Burks, Carters, Chankins, and Johnsons.
Having established who we were, we next needed to figure out where we were going! We committed ourselves to prayer, gathering information, and seeking counsel from missionaries on and off the field. After a particularly intense period of praying and fasting, we met one evening, bound and determined not to leave until we had settled upon a location for our ministry. Although we each began this process with different ideas about where to go, the Spirit led us to a unanimous decision for the Dagara of Burkina Faso, West Africa, on our first secret ballot.
We then began the long process of getting to Burkina Faso. We sought out supporting families and congregations, spent time bonding with our overseeing congregations, and packed up all our belongings either into long-term storage or a big metal container bound for Burkina Faso. Having spent the better part of a year in Lyon, France, picking up the French language in preparation for living in a francophone country, the Burks, Chankins, and Johnsons arrived in Burkina Faso in the fall of 2002.
Our first year and a half on the field consisted of unequal parts fixing up our homes (most of which had no electricity or plumbing upon our arrival), learning the Dagara language, meeting new friends who would one day become dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and (truthfully) surviving. The Carters arrived in our town of Dano in the spring of 2004, just in time for the births of our first two churches in the villages of Nakaar and Mebar.
From those sputtering first stabs at evangelism, God has brought about the beginnings of an exciting people movement. Dagara churches are today found in more than 25 villages, over half of which have been planted by recently converted and trained Dagara evangelists! Over 2,000 souls have come to Christ by the grace of God, a number that is both always climbing and difficult to keep track of, given the speed with which this movement is growing. Our ministry is now multifaceted; beyond simply evangelism, we’ve been involved at different times in women’s ministry, congregational development, leadership training, woodless construction methods, agricultural development, and translation of the scriptures. We’ve of late become more intentional about discipling leaders through the use of the recently-translated Train and Multiply program. We’re also eagerly awaiting the publishing of our Dagara-language children’s Bible. Finally, we’ve begun a water ministry to complement our teaching efforts. Through a partnership with Living Water International we’ve begun repairing broken wells and training teams of Dagara Christians to be leaders in their communities both in maintaining and repairing their local wells and in leading people to the source of Living Water.
Our team today resembles very little that group of college students who began dreaming together in 1999. Some have left: the Chankins returned to the States in the spring of 2008, and the Carters in early 2010. Some also have come: the Richters arrived in late 2008; after a period of French learning in the capital, they have jumped right in to water ministry. Some also are coming: the Sands are in the process of discovering the support needed for them to arrive on the field by (hopefully at the latest!) early 2011.
One of our prayers is that others would respond to God’s call to ministry among the Dagara. Many avenues of ministry remain unexplored for lack of man (or woman!) power. If you have an interest in exploring the possibilities of coming to work with us, whether short term or for the long haul, please contact us at aburk@dagara.org.