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January 23, 2005

Fulani Friends

Taking a small gift of tea, sugar, and peanuts, we went back yesterday to see our new Fulani friends from the abbatoir. We met Sido, and he took us to the house he shares with a handful of other Fulani young men from different parts of West Africa. The atmosphere, so typical for a young men's house in a West African capital, was a different world from Fulani life in Gorom-Gorom.

The tv was on, with energetically choreographed music videos from the Ivory Coast. Young women were shaking various parts of their anatomy enthusiastically and provocatively in time to the beat, and the sound kept creeping up a notch or two. I suspected the gospel might have a problem competing for my friends' attention, so I went with the flow.

Across the distraction of the wiggling ladies, we discussed the recent "tabaski" festival (they had celebrated by killing a goat, and distributing some of the meat to poor neighbours), the African youth football championship (Benin's chances are not good to win), local dress fashion (Fulani in Cotonou don't wear turbans, which are seen as typical of those from Mali and Burkina), local islamic religious leaders (considered less knowledgeable than those further north), and other everyday topics.

Shortly before we left, I asked them to turn the tv off for a while, and the room went mercifully quiet. I thanked them for making me so welcome, and told them how glad I was that I had met Fulani here in Cotonou. Then I asked if I could tell them some good news from God, and they leant forward intently. The message of Christ is good news for all people. The story of the prodigal son reveals a God who welcomes back we who have wandered away from him and made a mess of things. He is the Father who, when we "come to our senses" and head home, runs out and throws his arms around us.

The tv forgotten, their attention was fixed on the story of Jesus. Muslims know and honour Jesus, and they know that all of us are in need of God's grace. That is part of our common ground. But God's promise of forgiveness and new life in Christ is still largely unknown to them after 2000 years. It is kept from them more by our own apathy and distortion of "Christianity" than by their own lack of interest.

I don't know how much Sido and friends truly grasped in the short time we had together, but please pray that light may shine in their hearts to give them a glimpse of God's desire to bless them through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Posted by Keith at January 23, 2005 03:22 PM