Loron Children

Ivory Coast - Liberia - Guinea trip

Welcome to Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Baga Fore Literacy class in Guinea

On March 31, Marina left Burkina Faso and travelled via Mali to Guinea Conakry. She had an 8-hour layover in Bamako airport on the way there. David and Rachel Burke, missionaries from Northern Ireland who work among the Baga Fore people, met Marina at the airport and brought her to their village.

Marina was introduced to the villagers outside the mosque after Friday prayers and that evening the ladies from the village performed a welcome dance for her.

She was thrilled with the progress that the team had made in preparing their literacy materials and how things had been organised with the villagers for the start of the teaching programme. The village had picked a group of students to form the first Baga Fore literacy class. After taking a couple of days to finalise the literacy materials with the members of the Baga Fore team, on Monday, April 4, a new literacy school was started for the villagers.

Pray for Gene and Judy Bacon as they head up the literacy campaign in preparation for evangelism and church planting.

The same day that literacy classes were starting in Guinea I met up with NTM missionary, Dan Rabe, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Dan’s parents were among the first New Tribes missionaries to come to Africa in the 1950’s and Dan is now the chairman of the new NTM leadership team in West Africa. From Abidjan we travelled to the town of Tabou in the extreme southwest corner of Ivory Coast.

There we spent the night with Pastor Anatol and his wife. The pastor was excited to discover that I was from the same country as a missionary, William Brown who works with UFM, that he had met last year.

Canoeing on the Cavally

On Tuesday morning we travelled with Lesley Wolfe, an NTM missionary who has been working among the Glaro people for many years, in her Toyota 4x4 pickup to a little village near the Cavally river which forms the border between Ivory Coast and Liberia. Lesley is working on Bible translation in the Glaro language and has been making steady progress. This summer she will be getting some more translation checked in preparation for publication.

After greeting the village chief we asked him if we could leave Lesley’s pickup at his house while we crossed the river and spent a couple of days on the Liberian side of the river. Permission granted, we said our goodbyes and walked the several hundred yards to the water’s edge where we crossed the wide but gently-flowing Cavally river in a dugout canoe.

The Ivory Coast side of the river is highly cultivated with huge plantations of coffee, cocoa, palm and rubber trees, but when we stepped off the canoe on the Liberian side and climbed the steep sandy slope to the tree line, we came to the edge of a virtual rainforest.

After just a short distance we came to the first Glaro village. Most of the folks were away working in their fields but those remaining greeted us and led us to a small grass shelter where we explained who we were and the purpose of our visit.

The Kola Nut

We then participated in the first of many kola ceremonies that took place in the various Glaro villages and homes that we visited over the next twenty hours or so. These ceremonies indicated acceptance by our host of our presence and friendship. The kola is a rather bitter nut, native to the rainforests of Africa, which was served to us in small pieces in a bowl along with a separate bowl of hot spice and some drinking water. I enjoy eating spicy food but I’ve never eaten anything quite as hot as what was offered at each of these village stops. However, I quickly mastered a technique of taking as small a pinch of spice as possible and quickly flushing it down with a good gulp of water. Invariably, though, my lips and mouth would still sting for quite a while after.

When we had completed the kola ceremony a small child entered the shelter with a large bucket laden with bananas and oranges to refresh us for the journey ahead. Once everyone had eaten to their satisfaction we asked permission to leave, and we were soon on our way.

We set out along a narrow but well-worn track covered with tree roots, small rocks and vines. Mawly, a Glaro man who had already walked for several hours from Liberia to the Cavally river to meet us, took the lead along the twisty track. When we had started our trip he had asked me if he could put a bag of cooking cubes that he had just bought for his wife in my backpack. I had gladly agreed but he then insisted on carrying my backpack for me as he reached me his machete.

As we walked, we crossed a number of small streams and water holes, although, as rainy season has yet to start in earnest, there was a lot less water that I had expected. We passed through several thick bamboo growths and heard a lot of birds, but we didn’t see any animals.

Hot and Sticky

After about four hours of steady walking, with a couple of short stops in between to greet some villagers, we arrived at another large river, the Doube.

Everyone, including Mawly, our guide, was perspiring profusely. My teeshirt and jeans were saturated and sticking to my body. A young Glaro boy brought a canoe from the far bank and after a couple of trips we were all safely on the other side. I hadn’t realised that we had actually arrived at our destination so it was a pleasant surprise when we reached the top of the hill and I heard someone say: We’re here!

As we entered the village, people came out of their tidy-looking mud and wattle houses to eagerly greet us. I quickly learned to say: Ao, nateera, the appropriate response to their greeting. We passed by a number of well-spaced homesteads through the east side of the village and arrived shortly at our hosts. Dan and I stayed with Alfred and his family and Lesley stayed at the home of Bligh, one of the other main men in the village. They offered us each a double bed complete with mosquito nets – another unexpected but welcome surprise.

Their greeting and hospitality was quite overwhelming. After walking for several hours seeing nothing more than a curtain of, at least, forty shades of green and the occasional glimpse of blue sky, with a thin brown thread of a track weaving its way over rocks and around trees a few yards before us, here we now were in a large clearing in the middle of the Liberian jungle being treated royally and being given the best that could be offered. It was a very humbling experience.

The purpose of our trip was to ask permission from the village elders to send a new missionary family to their village. The work among the Glaro people had started over twenty years previously in Liberia, but missionaries had to leave there because of a long war in the 1990’s. Then the war in Ivory Coast, which started in 2002, had forced the missionaries from another Glaro village, so the work has been very slow and difficult. So we arranged to meet the village leaders first thing the following morning.

For breakfast we had another hearty meal of rice and sauce. In previous meals we had chicken sauce or fish sauce with big chunks of meat, but this morning we had a choice: fish sauce or toucan. I tried the toucan. The spices camouflaged some of the taste but it seemed to be pretty much like chicken. A short time later, when the elders had gathered in a large leaf-covered structure we were summoned to meet with them. After the formal greetings and kola ceremony we presented our request.

Permission Granted?

As soon as we said that we would like permission to send missionaries back to their village, the ladies started to sing and clap and dance. One of the elders, the spokesman for the group, expressed agreement with the suggestion saying that his loud voice was not because he was angry but because he was very happy. The lady song leader came up close to us, with a chorus of other ladies in tow, and sang something specifically to each of us in Glaro. I have no idea what she was singing, but it was obvious that everyone was quite excited about the prospect of having missionaries living among them.

We also asked if the village could provide temporary housing for the new missionary family. We were assured that that would be taken care of. After a few more formalities we asked permission to leave as we had a long walk before us back through the forest.

On the return trip, Lesley led the way. She set a brisk pace, and, on some of the steeper parts of the path, it took quite an effort to keep up with her. We made the obligatory stops at a couple of small villages along the way, but we nevertheless shaved quite a bit off our walking time.

When we got back into Ivory Coast we made our way to the village where the new missionary family is currently living and learning some basic Glaro. It was my first time meeting Aaron and Amy Speitelsbach. Aaron is from Germany and Amy is from Tennessee in the US.

Please pray for this young couple as they prepare to move to their new Glaro village in Liberia in the next couple of months.

Burkina Update

We have had only sporadic access to the internet since arriving in Gaoua, Burkina Faso, but a lot has happened in the past three weeks or so. We are now back in the capital, Ouagadougou, for a couple of days, so it’s good to catch up on emails and news.

On January 19, just 24 hours after we arrived in Gaoua, we found a very suitable house to rent. It has enough space for an office and also a printing room. We are currently brushing it out (it hasn’t been lived in since it was built four years ago), washing floors, getting it painted and putting screens on the windows to keep out the mosquitoes. We are also unpacking our furniture and the office equipment that we had stored while we were in Northern Ireland. Some of it was very dusty, but almost everything was in good condition. The WEC missionaries in Gaoua have kindly allowed us to use one of their houses until we sort out our own place.

We were given a very touching welcome when we attended church in Gogo, Ivory Coast on January 24. Normally we had to either make a long detour in our pickup truck around the village in order to get to the church from our village home or else negotiate a series of deep ruts and a maze of tall grass. But this time the young Christians in Gogo spent the day before we arrived cutting down the elephant grass and preparing a direct route for us to take to church. We really appreciated their willingness to spend hours working in the hot African sun just to facilitate our arrival. We had a great time with the believers after almost two years apart from them. The work among the Loron continues to grow with new groups of Christians meeting in the villages of Gbarke and Goroko, places that we have never even visited. The Lord continues to build His church among the Loron people.

We spent only one night in the village that first weekend before returning to Burkina Faso. We weren’t sure what condition our village house would be in. The following weekend we returned to Ivory Coast and spent three more days visiting other Loron churches and literacy classes in the region. It was thrilling to see progress among the Loron believers and Marina was very encouraged with the students who have successfully completed the literacy course.

We are planning to spend a few more days next weekend visiting more village churches. Thank you for praying for us as we travel.

Later this month I am planning to travel to Senegal to attend NTM leadership meetings. As a new leadership team we will be discussing how we can help the existing NTM tribal missionaries in West Africa. We will also be looking to the Lord for guidance as we expand into unreached territory. There are scores, possibly hundreds of ethnic groups in the region who have never once had an opportunity to hear the gospel in their own language. Pray that the Lord will give us a clear vision of the task ahead and that many more missionaries will be raised up to bring the light to ‘the regions beyond’ between the Atlantic and the Sahara.

Missionary Videos

About eight months ago I uploaded a variety of missionary videos to YouTube and several Christian video websites. I recently counted how many times the videos had been viewed and I was amazed to discover that they had received over 15,000 hits!

If you haven't checked the videos out yet, click the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/user/paulbriggsy

Is it fair?

I don't think we ever uploaded an article that was written by Noel Davidson about the Loron work. It was published in the LifeTimes magazine here in Northern Ireland in 2009.

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IS IT REALLY FAIR?

‘Is it fair that some people should have heard the Gospel twice when others have never even heard it once?’

When Paul Briggs read these words in a book of missionary challenge* they struck a chord in his heart. He and his wife Marina had become increasingly convinced over a period of two years that they ought to be giving their lives to serving the Lord in a full-time capacity. This pointed question added a new impetus to their thinking.

‘Wouldn’t it be a tremendous thrill and privilege to explain the Gospel to people who had never heard it before?’ they reasoned.

Paul and Marina were members of Bethany Free Presbyterian Church in Portadown where one of the elders had been supporting the ministry of the New Tribes Mission for many years. On observing the young couple’s patent interest in evangelism and hearing them express an interest in missionary outreach, he was quite happy to give Paul a pile of back-numbers of the Mission magazine ‘Brown Gold’ to look through.

When he and Marina had read these, and heard from others that New Tribes Mission had a Bible School in Matlock, England, they decided after much prayer and spiritual consideration to apply to study there. They were accepted and began a four year course, commencing in 1981. As part of their missionary training they spent some time at a ‘Boot Camp’ near Pittsburgh, USA, and it was there in 1983 they felt led of God to volunteer for service in Ivory Coast, West Africa.

In fulfilment of this call they arrived, with their three young children, Peter who was six, Laura who was almost four and six-month old Kyle in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast in 1986.

They had to spend a year in the capital, studying French and acclimatising to the local culture with two other families, before moving north into a village to join some missionaries working among the hitherto unreached Loron tribe.

Living in an African village, where the standard of hygiene wasn’t quite what they had been used to in Portadown, presented the new missionaries, and mum Marina in particular, with specific challenges. Their fourth child, Leanne, had been born while they were in Yamoussoukro and was now about seven months old. Marina found it hard when the African women reached out to hold and carry her baby. Marina realised she had to let it happen and handed her precious little one over into outstretched caring, but not always spotlessly clean, hands. She had come to help reach these people with the Gospel of the love of God, so how could she withhold her child from them?

A pressing priority for the newcomers to the village was to learn the Loron tribal language and this was to prove more difficult than learning French in the capital. There were no language schools in the bush and very few of the locals could read or write so Paul and Marina relied on the aid of ‘language helpers.’ Having learnt basic phrases such as ‘What is this?’ and What is he doing?’ in Loron they were able to build up a basic vocabulary by pointing, asking, listening and remembering. It was a tedious process but they were keen students who wanted to become fluent enough to communicate effectively with the villagers as soon as possible and so they learnt quickly.

In October 1987 and just six weeks after they had moved into the village, Paul was to discover very forcibly how important it was that they persist diligently with their language studies. He was trying to make sense of a chart of Loron pronouns when two men appeared at the door of the mud hut which he was using as an office.

Paul recognised one of them. His name was Chavaray and he had helped Paul and Marina settle into village life. He introduced Paul to the newcomer, Hovaray, who had, his friend maintained, an interesting story to tell.

Chavaray understood a little French and Paul understood even less Loron, but between them they were able to make Paul understand what Hovaray had to say.

The Loron man in a Muslim robe had embarked on a quest for spiritual truth and had experienced an unusual dream. Although he had spoken to many people none of them could satisfy him because they could not tell him what his dream meant. Perhaps ‘the whites’ in the village could help.

In his dream Hovaray had seen a book, with writing on the front of it, within a walled enclosure. As Hovaray talked, Paul thought, and still struggling to understand what this intense man was trying to explain, showed him his English Bible.

“No,” Hovaray said. “That’s not the book.”

Paul then had another idea. What about a French Bible? No. That wasn’t it either.

The visitor was convinced this was the right place for the wall outside to keep the village cows and goats out was exactly like what he had seen in his dream, but where was Paul to go from here? Then suddenly it dawned on him. A year or two before, Swiss translators had produced a copy of the Gospel of John in the Loron language, but as few could read, it hadn’t been much used. Reaching up Paul took one of these little booklets from a shelf and handed it to Hovaray.

There was a sudden intake of breath and then an excited cry.

“This is the book!” he exclaimed. “This is it!”

Firmly convinced that he was well on his way to discovering the truth he had been seeking, Hovaray began attending the weekly Bible studies under a large mango tree at the edge of the village. He asked pertinent questions, showed a tremendous interest in what was being taught and within several months of that first encounter with Paul had trusted the Lord Jesus Christ.

Although they had planned initially to stay just one year in the village assisting the other missionaries, Paul and Marina realised that God had a work for them to do there in helping translate the New Testament into the Loron language. They also began systematic teaching of the scriptures beginning with the creation story in Genesis 1 and leading through the Old Testament and on into the New, from which they were able to speak of the love of God and the provision of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

This proved an effective mode of witness for by 1992 there were three separate groups operating in different villages with a number of the villagers being saved. When the couple were more proficient in Loron, Marina had a dual role to perform. As a mother she home-schooled their four children, and as a missionary she joined another missionary wife going through the Bible study programme with the women in the villages. From that point on, and with a number of believers growing, Paul and Marina taught them the importance of witnessing to their faith. With the motto of ‘each one reach one’ the Gospel was spread and others came to trust the Lord.

With almost all of the people being illiterate the missionary couple then recognised if the new believers were to grow in their spiritual lives they would need to be able to read the scriptures which they were helping to translate. To help address this issue Marina started literacy classes for any who wished to attend and these proved very popular with some of the younger people especially.

Paul and Marina returned to Northern Ireland in 2000 for two years to see the two older children settled in further education before returning to the Ivory Coast, and their home in the village in July 2002. They were only back in the country and had barely time to unpack and resume their normal routine before the country was ravaged by civil war. Paul, Marina and all the other foreign missionaries in the region were advised to leave everything and flee to either the neighbouring country of Burkina Faso or southwards towards the capital.

The road to Burkina Faso was blocked by the rebel forces so their evacuating convoy had no choice but to travel south. God miraculously opened the way for them to pass through all military checkpoints unhindered and unharmed but when they approached Yamoussoukro it was considered too dangerous to enter the city. Marina found this upsetting for Kyle and Leanne were at boarding school there. Her only consolation was to talk to them by phone and learn that they were also being evacuated to join the escaping party. On meeting up they returned to Northern Ireland, much to the relief of Peter and Laura who had been very concerned as they hadn’t heard from their parents for some time.

Instability of government in the northern part of Ivory Coast made it inadvisable for Paul and Marina to return to the country and so they continued working on Bible translation, literacy and Bible teaching materials in Northern Ireland. In 2006 they moved out to live in Burkina Faso and from there, and with the permission of the rebel soldiers, they made numerous cross-border trips into northern Ivory Coast.

Their first return visit to their village over the Easter weekend proved both heart-wrenching and heart-warming all at once. They were sickened to witness the state of their former home which had been looted and used as the local rebel headquarters and then a prison at various stages in the course of the war. Seeing 200 eager believers packed into the small church on Easter Sunday to welcome them back more than compensated their disappointment about the house, which they vowed to restore, little by little on later visits.

As they look back on more than 20 years working with the Loron people of Ivory Coast, Paul and Marina have much for which to praise God. They have seen 9 churches established in which around 400 Loron believers meet to worship. Twelve Bible teachers have been trained to continue the programme of evangelism and church planting in other villages. A radio ministry has been established in Burkina Faso and around 40% of the New Testament has been translated into the tribal language. Marina has worked tirelessly on the adult literacy programme and now 25 literacy teachers have been trained and they hold classes in 11 villages with a total of 200 students enrolled for courses.

This they feel, however, is only the start, merely a tiny ‘tip of the iceberg.’ Paul and Marina plan to return to Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast in 2010. There is so much more they would like to see done in the will, and with the help of God. They aim to complete the translation of the New Testament, develop the literacy programme even further and tell more people who still haven’t heard it yet, the wonderful news of the Gospel.

They will be glad to return to West Africa and continue the work into which they felt led of God more than a quarter of a century ago. Their work is making a difference to one small tribe in one small country, but the challenge that pricked their hearts can still apply to the evangelical Christian church in the present day. Around 20% of the world’s population in more than 2,300 people groups have never heard a clear presentation of the Gospel in their own language.

‘Is it fair that some people should have heard the Gospel twice when others have never even heard it once?’

‘Well, is it?’ they ask.

If the instinctive response to that challenge is ‘No,’ then we need to consider a second question which comes directly from the Heavenly Missionary Questionnaire.

It is, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’

Can any of us answer honestly, ‘Here am I! Send me?’

NOEL DAVIDSON (LifeTimes, 2009)

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* Oswald J Smith, 'The Cry of the World'