West Africa Trip Report #3
They call it lecheri. And they have told us it is really
special—like serving guests a T-bone steak or roast turkey. Except instead of a
meat dish, it is made up of white corn flour mixed with curdled sour cow’s milk
(like yogurt) sprinkled with sugar.
Actually, it isn’t really a dish at all, since we’ve all been given soup
spoons, and we’re tackling this delicacy out of a large plastic bowl in the
middle of the floor!
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| Enjoying a taste of lecheri |
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| Benteh Kanteh and his family |
Where is this feast taking place? In the home of Benteh Kanteh, located a rugged two hour drive south of Banjul, capital of the Gambia. Traveling in a stout Toyota Land Cruiser that can handle the bone-jarring drive on a mud road with pond-sized potholes, we’ve come here to meet the first Christian in this entire region of the country. With 99 percent of Gambia practicing folk-Islam, Benteh faced significant opposition because of his decision, such as having his in-laws take back all three of his wives! Fortunately, after seeing that his conversion did not turn him into the evil, wicked man her parents said it would, his first wife decided to come back to him. Now they have filled their little mud hut in this jungle village with eight kids! And, for the first time ever, she has three white folks sitting in her house eating lecheri!
As Benteh’s neighbors have watched the transformation in his
life and how God has prospered his farm and animals, they are slowly changing
their mind about Christians. This simple man who is living out his life in this
very simple little house, has definitely become a beacon of God’s Truth for the
tribal people of southern Gambia.
This is just one of our experiences here in the tiny but
fascinating country of Gambia. Hosted by the Evangelical Church of Gambia (ECG),
our ministry partner in this country, we’ve filled three days with visits to an
amazing list of projects and ministries:
· The House of Wisdom—a church shaped like a mosque that has been successful in making Christianity more attractive and acceptable to Muslim neighbors.
· A micro-enterprise grain mill that after two years has been so profitable that the reinvested income has allowed for purchase of four more milling machines and two more milling sites.
· A vocational training center where women at risk are taught to make fabulous tie-dyed cloth and then sew it into high-demand shirts and dresses.
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| House of Hope - a church built to look somewhat like a mosque. |
This impressive array of programs function well thanks to a
dedicated core team that lead the ECG: Alieu Bayo, Modou Camara, Francis Gomez,
Mathias and Ayeisha Agedo, and Steven and Helen Musa-Kormayea. Rarely have I
seen a leadership group in Africa that appears more unified and demonstrate more
cooperation than this group. And even more rare is to see one with wives functioning
as co-equals on the team along with their husbands.
The ECG may be a small church in a small country, but their
vision and commitment is huge. They want to see a church established in all
thirty-six districts of the country. They want to reach the business and
government communities with seminars on business ethics. They want to impact Gambian
youth through launching professional
Christian musicians into successful careers. They even want to tackle the evils
of the sex trade and human trafficking that plague the fancy sea-side resorts
frequented by vacationing Europeans.
I will leave this first visit to Gambia with two major
impressions: 1) The problems and challenges this country is facing seem to be inversely
proportional to its size. Tiny though it may be, the issues of social justice
and basic civic infrastructure are huge. 2) Gambia’s greatest hope for the
future probably lies in successful grassroots transformation realized through
the creative vision of men and women like those who lead the ECG.
Under His wings,
Jon
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