Le baptême - Dieu au Travail

A Baptism – God at work

One of our hopes for this venture to Niger is to see “God at work” in Africa.  This past Sunday we were invited to “experience” a baptism African village style.  This is the story of that day.

An American missionary and his 18-year-old niece (who had just graduated from high school and was here with his family for a year) picked us up at 7:30 am.   A God gift, his car had AC.  We drove out of Niamey on the main southern road for an hour and a half.  The countryside was pretty much green, with some scruffy trees and bushes, sparsely inhabited and consequently there was a lack of the piles of plastic bags we are used to seeing around Niamey.  We found out that he and his wife have eight kids ages 16 – 2 and have been in Niamey for 9 years with the exception of furloughs.

He does audio recordings of biblical passages in many languages.  He is also doing church planting.  He helped plant a church in the village we are going to by coming out once a month to meet with them.  Because of his relationship with this village and the church he was asked to come and participate in the baptisms.

We went past several small towns on the way.  They were all the same.  Little narrow “stores” or shops along the main road and then either clay brick houses or straw huts extending back behind them.  The shops all had tin roofs held up by wooden branches at each corner.  All of the ground was bare and sandy.

The village we went to was a little bigger and had “roads” going off from the main road.  We were told that there was some electricity by the main road but that was all unless you had a generator and only the local missionary had a generator.

We stopped first at the local missionaries’ house.  They are a couple in there fifties and have been there 25+ years.  Their house has the feel of the Out of Africa house without the openness.  They are walled in and there is no view.  As I said, they have a generator but it costs them a fortune to run it so much of the time they are in the dark and without fans.  But they did have a bathroom that we happily used.

We left the house and drove a small way on a road like path and then drove off into a field where we came upon a truly unique scene for us.  There were about 4 trees in the field of varying size.  Some men were in the shade of the big tree. The women were in the shade of another tree.  Some women were in the shade of the bushes and other men were in the shade of smaller trees.  All of them were waiting, patiently, not just for us but also for another church that was coming from 15 kilometers away.  There were many children just playing quietly and waiting.  We came up to the big tree and shook hands with the 50 or so men that were there.  Then Sally, the missionary’s wife, and his niece went over by the women.  It was not proper for them to wait with the men.

After a half an hour, we were joined by more people and a herd of 30 cattle.  Then we all, about 150 of us, started moving toward the baptism water.  The water was a watering/mud hole for the cattle.  There are no lakes, ponds, or rivers, just watering holes that form during the rainy season.  I guess God goes with what He has.  Four ministers, two missionaries and two local ministers waded about 30 feet into the muddy water until it got waist deep.  Then two by two they waded into the water to be baptized while the rest of the people sang songs and clapped.  The first couple to go out had to move the cows away.  I don’t know if there was much of a spiritual sense to the whole process other than the fact that here were three churches in this region, coming together to baptize about 40 people.  40 people were publically following Christ in a land that is 98+% Muslim.  In some communities here you get thrown out of your family if you convert to Christianity.  These particular communities seemed to be more receptive.  The local missionary said that in this area there have been many new churches started and that Christianity is exploding.  Wow!!

The Field

Finding Shade

                                               The Baptismal Font (It worked just fine.)

The Congregation

Local African Woman in Traditional Dress on Left

The ceremony took a long time and when it was over we all went to the local church.  The church held 150 people when everyone sat tight next to each other on benches.  Sally and I went in together but the pastor at the door directed me to the stage, Sally went and sat with the women because the women and kids sat on one side and the men on the other.  I assumed this wise man recognized or had heard about my many virtues and that was why I got an honored place on the stage.  Sally thinks it was because I was the oldest white male around.  Either way, I sat facing out over the sea of faces.  (Note: I was also sitting fairly close to a window that had the only breeze around.  I also sat on a chair instead of a bench.)  I was lucky!!

They began by singing songs in Gaurma.  We must confess that we don’t speak or understand Gaurma but the energy and spirit in the singing was very clear.  The place rocked.  There were two men on drums or bongos made of hide stretched over a box and then held tight by duck tape.  They could get all kinds of sounds out of these boxes by tapping on the side or in the middle and they played fast and hard.  I sat next to the missionary who brought us and at one point asked him if he was going to give the sermon.  He said he had on some occasions but not this time.  When the singing stopped, the local pastor asked him to give the sermon.  This had not been discussed before hand.  The missionary had given a sermon at another church not long before and it was in his bible so he gave the sermon.  He gave it in French and then it was translated into Gaurma.  Since I don’t have a good grasp of either language I understood nothing.

His sermon was not short.  After the sermon we sang some more and then the people who have not been baptized were asked to leave so that those remaining could take communion.  That still left a lot of people in the church.  One of the pastors from a small church got up to explain the meaning of communion, or so we were told.  After an hour of explaining, in both French and Gourma, we had communion.

Communion consisted of a bagette(s) of bread broken into a basket then passed around.  When they ran out they came back and broke more bread.  Then we all ate the bread.  More explanation and then they poured Diet Coke into a tray full of communion cups.  Both Sally and I got communion cups but more than half the people didn’t.  They got a cup that was passed along the row.  We gave thanks we were closer to the front.

After communion we sang some more.  Great singing but we had been in the church for over 2 and a half hours and it was getting hotter.  It was 100 degrees out, the sun was in full bloom, the church had a tin roof, there was just a hint of a breeze, and you had all of these bodies who had just been singing up a storm, packed together.  Sally was in the middle of it and noted that she could see the sweat dripping down the necks and faces of the women around her.  I know I was soaked with sweat and I had room.  We both did not understand a thing for the whole time.

After church everyone went out into the churchyard and stood around while the women brought out the food for the whole group of 150.  It was mainly rice but had macaroni noodles and spices in it and then small pieces of meat around the edges.  We weren’t going to stay to eat because we needed to get back but we ended up staying which was an experience in and of itself.  They brought us a 20-inch pan of food with a lid on it so that the food would 3 to 4” deep.  We were each given a spoon and were to dig in the common pot on our side of the pan.  After eating all we could we had barely made a dent in this pan of food.  We ate with the missionaries in a place of honor.  We think the Gaurma people didn’t even have spoons.  They just put their hands in and then eat!!

While we were at the church we met a young girl who had recently graduated from Moody Bible College and was now living in this village working with teens and older kids.  She had been in this village since last March.  She has no water and no electricity in her living space.  She goes over to the missionary’s house when they are using their generator to get on the Internet and read.  She gets into Niamey every other weekend.  I asked her how long she was planning on staying in the village.  She said it was her career to be here.  She had no plans to leave.  Talk about commitment.  She also said it was “The best year of her life.”

The drive back was uneventful but after we got back we talked about where we had seen God.  For me it was looking into those faces while up on the stage.   Remember, we understood nothing of what was said or sung so all we could do was to smile and look at the people, and look we did.  Here, in the heart of Niger, were people who had been touched by God.  People who would endure the heat, the smells, and the dual languages to worship God in a patient and enthusiastic manner.  For Sally it was the commitment of the women and children who would sit there in the heat for 2 ½ hours.  For both of us, it was the missionaries who felt so called by God to give their lives for others.  We saw and experienced people who were willing to be identified with Christ.  And in them, we saw God.