In the most recent 12 months dominated by war, political crises and humanitarian emergencies around the globe, Chad, a landlocked country in north-central Africa, took the unwelcome honor of being the world’s most negative country.
As per the survey, in 2018, more than seven in 10 Chadians (72 percent) said they struggled to afford food at some point in the past year.
Astha Agnihotri (CNBCTV18.com) commenting on the newly released Gallup 2019 Global Emotions Report
See the full article here.
Last week I traveled about 2.5 hours out of town to attend a wedding for Abdoulaye’s cousin.
The Maba, like most of the tribes here, have a two-stage wedding. They first do what’s called the fateh, which is something more than an engagement party but not quite a wedding ceremony. The fateh takes place once the bride’s family have agreed on a bride price and the groom has provided at least part of the price. The price for this wedding was something around $500, several large sacks of sugar and rice, and a cow or two. This can vary greatly due to the status of the bride and her family. For the Maba, unlike some of the other tribes, once the’ve had the fateh the groom can “visit” his wife, even though she still lives with her parents. Yep, I imagine this leads to some awkwardness, but culturally it’s very normal.
After a time (months, even a year or more), when the groom has paid all of the bride price (or the bride’s family just gets tired of waiting and gives up), the second part of the wedding takes place. This part is called the “arrooz” and it involves officially taking the wife to her husband’s house. At this point the wedding is finished and they build a home of their own together. This stage also involves a big party, lots of good food, and housewarming gifts for the bride. Often large glass cases (with mirrored back panels) are bought to display the dishes the bride receives. So it would not be unusual to go into a mud brick house and find a large glass cabinet displaying fancy dishes.
Of course, all of this varies a bit from family to family, and from village to city, just as with American weddings. But this is the general process.
Back to our visit… The unique thing about this fateh, I learned in the car on the way there, was the the groom’s father was also re-marrying the groom’s mother after having been divorced from her for 5 years. So it was a double wedding! Divorce is relatively easy here, especially for men, but I’ve yet to fully understand the rules governing it. So maybe a later post on that when I figure it out. The time in the village was a joyous one, with lots of singing and dancing by the women and cheerful conversation by the men. Thursday afternoon, soon after we arrived, the actual ceremony for the son took place. The grooms’s representative and the bride’s representative recount the bride price and the amount paid so far to the men sitting on mats. The two representatives shake hands three times, one of them saying something that I can’t quite remember, and then the proceed with someone leading prayers. The prayers are presumably for the newly married couple, although I couldn’t hear a lot of it because the guy leading was speaking too softly. Others offered what seemed like spontaneous contributions. When the prayer was over (after about 5 minutes), that was it, the fateh was complete. All that was left was the celebration.
We stayed that night, at one point visiting the women and greeting them, at which point they began dancing and singing. The sisters of the groom were apparently overcome with joy that their father was returning home as well, and their songs were all about “good rains” and “crops being plentiful”, I think a metaphor for their joy at being reunited as a family. We ate lots of meat and sauce that night, slept out under a tree, and the next morning continued the celebrations with more dancing and singing, horse races, and lots of laughter. At one point during the morning there was another short meeting of the men similar to the night before, but this time for the father. He even had to pay another bride price!
Around noon we loaded up and took off for home, for me a bittersweet time. Just before leaving, I had gone with some of the men to visit the wife the father had taken while he was divorced from his first wife, and our mission was to inform the other wife that her husband had reunited with his first wife and that she was now #2. She held it together pretty well, at least until we left. They had said that when her husband had mentioned the possibility to her of reuniting with his first wife she had thrown a brick at him. After all the joy of seeing a family reunited, I was reminded of just how broken the institution of marriage is in the Islamic world. Something meant to be shared between one man and one woman has been corrupted, just like in the times of the Patriarchs and Kings of the OT, and the consequences today are just as terrible as they were back then.
We’re back now from our trip to the town/village where we spent 6 nights starting last Friday. It was a great trip, very encouraging and also eye-opening!
We arrived Friday afternoon after about a 4-hour drive. We’re thankful that the drive was uneventful, always a blessing here. We settled in Friday evening, girls sleeping inside and the boys outside under the stars. I was glad we had brought all of our thick blankets because it was COLD!
Saturday was market day, so the ladies went to visit the market in the morning and the men took a walk around town, including the market, in the afternoon. Iwas asked that morning if I would preach the next day at the church. It wasn’t a total surprise, because we’ve learned it’s typically an honor given to visitors and I had been put on the spot once before. So I had come more prepared than the last time, with a sermonette I had just shared the weekend before at our TL retreat. But it was in English, and I had to preach in French. So Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning were spent translating the sermon, because my French is not good enough to just do it on the fly.
Sunday was church, of course. The kids do Sunday School first, and then they leave and play outside or go to their houses while the adults do church. The service was pretty typical, about 2.5 hours long with lots of drumming, dancing, singing, preaching, and church business at the end. After that was a break and then a separate communion service. Needless to say we were ready for a break Sunday afternoon, and we just spent the time resting.
Monday through Wednesday mornings were English class for Kimberly and Danielle. They did great and the kids and teachers loved it. They asked when we’d be back to do more, but at the moment we don’t have any plans.
Josh spent the mornings with the kids, doing math with Isaac and reading with Judah on a mat under a shade tree while Norah took a nap and Calla Grace played. We brought Ashta, our house helper, with us so she helped as well.
We enjoyed talking with the missionary, Jeremie, about his ministry in this town. He’s been there for 17 years, and is well-known and respected by the community. We learned more about the school, the upcoming “evangelization campaign” that the church is planning in a nearby village, and the particular challenges faced by the church in ministering among Muslims. Our good friend Abdoulaye was with us, and he spent much time in the market sharing the gospel and his personal testimony. He gave away many of the memory cards we had prepared with Bible stories in the Maba language as well as some evangelistic videos in Arabic.
We are thankful for our time in the village and the time spent strengthening our relationship with Jeremie and the small church there.
Here’s a link to some more pics from our trip, as well as other pics from the past couple of months.
I recently took off southeast from Abeche with Abdoulaye and his brother, “Omar” to visit their home village, who’s name in Maba is literally “eat and rest.” As it turns out, this is quite the appropriate name because that’s precisely what we did!
The trip took about 3 hours to go 90km (56 miles), so you get the idea of what the roads were like. We arrived early afternoon and immediately went to greet the adopted mother of Abdoulaye’s brother. Their mother had given Omar to her sister to raise because she couldn’t have children, so he had grown up in the village and remained there even when Abdoulaye and their mother moved to the city.
Greetings were very warm, and the initial greetings/blessings lasted several minutes each as is their custom. The longer it’s been since you’ve seen someone, the longer the greeting. Even if you repeat the same words over and over (“God Bless, I’m well, thank God, God Bless, Praise God, etc…”), no big deal. So after the initial greetings we were seated on large mats next to where they had stored the peanut harvest (which was convenient because you could just reach over and grab a handful of peanuts whenever you wanted). We spent the afternoon in further greetings every few minutes as the women came by to bring food or the men came in from the fields.
The night in the village is much cooler than in a large town like ours. I slept under a large blanket and still was cold. So the next morning none of us moved to much until the sun had started to warm the air a bit. After a breakfast of sweetened millet with milk and goat’s head soup, we went for a walk around the nearby wadi. A wadi is a seasonal riverbed that runs with lots of water when it rains but during the dry season the water remains underground, sometimes only a few feet. This wadi was full of date palms, mango trees and guava trees. We ate our fill of guavas straight from the trees while watching the monkeys playing in nearby trees.
That afternoon we walked in a different direction to see the well that was dug several years ago by some charities in cooperation with the European Union. It was located between several villages so that it could be used by all. But no one from the village was trained to repair it, so when a technician who had been working in a nearby town on another project finished the project and left, there was no one responsible or trained to repair it. So for the past year it has sat idle. This is such a common scenario in the developing world. Helping people improve their lives is usually much more complicated than assumed.
As we walked back from the abandoned well, my head began to throb and I started feeling worse and worse. By the time we arrived, I just wanted to lay down and try not to throw up from the pain. When I laid down it was around 5 PM, and I didn’t get up again that night. Fortunately though my friend Abdoulaye sat up with some men, including the village chief, and shared the gospel along with more of his testimony. As I was in and out of consciousness I heard them around me talking, but didn’t know what was going on until he filled me in the next morning. He shared openly, and people were attentive, and when a guy who had been in Sudan started to argue and tell them not to read the Bible, the rest of the group made him be quiet. Abdoulaye was very encouraged by this time!
The next morning, my head still throbbing, we gathered our things and after another round of goat’s head soup, headed home. I arrived at the house around lunchtime, thankful to find a bottle of Alleve and a real bed…
“Emmanuel” had just graduated from an Islamic school, having memorized the entire Qur’an, when he visited his cousin, one of my good friends and a Muslim-background believer (MBB). He wasn’t satisfied with what he had learned and said the Qur’an doesn’t have any help for him. My friend “Daniel” told him he could study the New Testament with him, but that if he’s looking for money or worldly things he wouldn’t find them there either. But Daniel told him that he could show him the way to eternal life, and that it was only found in Jesus. Emmanuel took a New Testament to read and came back a few hours later offended by what he had read. “How could you abandon the religion of our fathers?” Daniel simply told him it was the truth, and that he should keep reading. Emmanuel continued to read and discuss with Daniel what he was reading. They discussed how it could be possible for God to have a son, and that his son could become a man. This is a blasphemous thought to Muslims, and is explicitly denied in the Qur’an. They discussed the prophethood of Mohammed and how he compared with Jesus. Emmanuel became convinced that Mohammed was not sent by God and that Jesus was the best and final prophet. He professed faith in Christ and a desire to follow Christ.
Despite Daniel’s admonitions to Emmanuel to avoid confrontations with the Muslim community until he is well founded in his faith, Emmanuel immediately went out and began sharing publicly that Mohammed was not sent by God and that Jesus is superior in every way. This caused an incredible stir in the community as the news got out that a young man who had just completed memorizing the Qur’an has converted to Christianity. He was taken by force back to the Islamic school where he had studied, and the Sheikh there tried to figure out what had gone wrong. He decided that it was because he had only learned the Qur’an, and not the Hadiths (sayings and doings of Mohammed) so he set about trying to complete the education. After the futility of this became apparent, Emmanuel was taken to the central mosque in the town. He was set before the religious leaders of the town and told to take the Islamic oath, or shahada – “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.” This is where he caved, and in his weakness he took the oath. The pressure immediately subsided and he was set free, although under close watch of his family.
Emmanuel’s conversion brought shame to his family, and it was their job to remove the shame. It’s often the family who are the most hostile to a new convert, and this case was no different. They fully supported the proceedings against Emmanuel. His brother attempted to attack Daniel with a knife, but was prevented by another missionary who stepped in. Emmanuel was forbidden to see Daniel, though he managed to get him a letter expressing his grief and regret at having betrayed Christ as well as Daniel. He seemed to still believe, to still want to follow Christ, but was at a loss at how to proceed because of the swift and overwhelming force applied by the community against him. After a quiet few weeks, he left town to find work.
Emmanuel’s education in the Islamic school and his memorization of the Qur’an qualified him to work as a “faqi” – something like a combination between religious teacher and witchdoctor. When he fled he went to live with another faqi, several hundred kilometers from his hometown. Not having any other way to support himself, he began doing the work he was trained for. People would come with a problem and for a fee he would intercede on their behalf with God. He would pray for them, and he might write some Qur’anic verses on a special board, wash them off, and have the person drink the water. Or if the problem was fear of evil spirits or the “Evil Eye”, he might write the verses on paper, sew up the paper into a leather pouch, and the person would wear the pouch on their body for protection. It’s quite a lucrative business capitalizing on the fear that is ubiquitous here.
During this time, he also met a Christian from the southern part of Chad who was working as a nurse in the town. He confided in this new friend, sharing his story and his struggles, and they prayed and read the Bible together. He fluctuated between wanting to follow what he now believed was true and the allure of a life of relative ease, wealth, and approval of man.
Fortunately though, the story doesn’t end there. I recently took a trip with Daniel and some pastors from southern Chad and in the providence of God we ended up in a town not too far away from where Emmanuel is living. Daniel was able to get in touch with him and encourage him to come spend a day or two with us. He found a truck that was headed our way, and for a small fee they gave him a ride. He arrived in a nearby town around midnight and walked the remaining 10-15km to where we were staying. The next day, Sunday, he attended church with us. Daniel spent most of the day sharing with him, reading the Bible with him and praying with him. That evening, a group of us gathered to encourage him and pray for him. The Secretary General of the denomination was with us, and pastors and missionaries from all over Chad. He shared with us that he still believes, and that he’s struggling but that he wants to follow Jesus. He confessed the sins he’s struggling with. He said he wants to find another way to make a living and was considering fleeing to a town where he’s unknown. Daniel and the pastors encouraged him to stay and be a light where he’s at, because running isn’t the solution. They encouraged him with Daniel’s story of persevering under persecution and remaining in his community to be a light. He agreed that this was best and after circling around him and praying for him, we parted ways.
Yesterday I heard from Daniel that Emmanuel called him, and that he quit his work as a faqi because he “didn’t want to be in the Devil’s shadow anymore.”
Pray for Emmanuel. There are many unknowns, and he is still a “baby” in the faith. His worldview is still influenced by Islam in so many ways. These things don’t change overnight, but by the Spirit of God they do change for those who are his. Pray that he will find work. Pray that he will grow in his faith through reading scripture and that he will find ways to have fellowship with other believers. Praise God for his plan to call a new people to himself from every ethnic group on earth. He is working his plan, and will complete it, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable opposition. And he will get the glory.
Recently The Gospel Coalition launched their Africa site, where reformed theologians, pastors and elders from all over Africa contribute posts dealing with issues and concerns unique to this part of the world. Of course, not all the issues African Christians face are unique, but some definitely are. One of those issues is the fear/power dynamic. The traditional African worldview is one of fear, and African religion provides a means of gaining power over those sources of fear – the spirit world, ancestors, and other people. The most powerful people in African society are often the local witchdoctors, who (for a fee) promise all kinds of power to the fearful individual. Children are believed to be especially vulnerable to evil spirits (and the high rate of infant mortality, mostly from preventable causes, doesn’t help here).
But isn’t Chad majority Muslim?
Of course in Chad, and across the entire continent of Africa north of about the 10th Parallel (10⁰ North of the Equator), Islam is the dominant religion. But Islam, primarily spread by the sword, cannot deal with underlying heart issues. One becomes a Muslim by repeating the shahada, literally the “testimony” that there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah. Issues of the heart are secondary, at best, to the 5 “pillars” of Islam: the shahada, the 5 daily ritual prayers, the Ramadan fast, giving of alms, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. You can do all these “works”, with a heart full of fear, pride, lust, etc. and still be considered a good Muslim.
So, in Chad as in other African Muslim countries, you have Muslim parents visiting the local witchdoctor (who doubles as Muslim cleric) to buy charms to tie onto their children to protect them from all sorts of dangers – sickness, death, evil spirits, etc. etc. The witchdoctor writes verses from the Qur’an on pieces of paper and sews them up in a leather pouch to be worn around the neck or waist by the kids. I’ve seen toddlers with 6 or 8 of these small pouches hanging around their neck. But not just kids, often adults will visit the witchdoctor for help getting pregnant, or cure for sickness, or protection from specific enemies, or just general protection from the “Evil Eye.” It’s not unusual to see and young man with these amulets tied around his upper arm. I heard the story the other day of a certain type of person who can control the locusts and will sometimes come to a farmer to demand money with threats of sending the locusts to eat his crop. For this specific problem, the witchdoctor will write verses from the Qur’an on a wooden board and then wash them off with water into a bowl. This water is then put in a bottle and sprinkled over the farmer’s field to protect it from locusts.
To my Western mind, this all seems ridiculous. My initial response is to dismiss it as ignorant nonsense. But I am rebuked by the Word, especially the Word made flesh, who lived in a society and culture not so different from the one we find ourselves in here in Chad. And Jesus didn’t dismiss the spiritual realm as “nonsense” or “nothing to be afraid of” but demonstrated his absolute power over it. He commanded demons to come out and they came out, and they went where he allowed them to go. Jesus liberated people from spiritual bondage and destroyed the strongholds of Satan. Jesus defeated fear by His power, and he still offers the same deliverance today by the power of the Gospel.
Pray for Chad. This is not a problem only for Muslims, but it continues to be a problem for the church in Chad as well. Fear can be a great temptation even for Christians when they forget that Jesus, who commands them not to fear (Matt. 10:28), has given them the power of the Holy Spirit to obey that commandment (John 14:26-27).
Here’s the article that spurred this post:
https://africa.thegospelcoalition.org/article/spiritual-insecurity-fear-gospel/
Eid Al Adha is one of the two main holidays in the Muslim world (the other being the celebration of the end of the fasting month of Ramadan). Adha means “sacrifice” in Arabic, and this holiday celebrates the Islamic version of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22). I asked several Muslim friends to explain to me the significance of this holiday for them. They believe that God called Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael (thought to be the father of the Arabs), and that at the last minute he provided a sheep in his place. If he hadn’t provided the sheep, then good Muslims would be required to sacrifice their own firstborn. But since God provided the sheep, they celebrate by slaughtering sheep. And the sheep must be at least a few years old, in good health, no injuries or blemishes, etc. Sound familiar?
Why must the sheep be “spotless”? I don’t know, and my Muslim friends don’t seem to know either. You see, Mohammed appropriated bits of the Old Testament story without a clear understanding of the meaning. The Qur’an includes bits from many of the biblical prophets, but without the redemptive thread. It’s just a bunch of stories and instructions with one overarching point – obey God and believe in Mohammed his prophet or go to Hell. You can’t know God, you can’t really love God, but you CAN and MUST fear and obey him. And on the Day of Judgement, if God wills he will send you to Heaven and if not he will send you to Hell. There is the idea of a set of scales, with good deeds on one side and bad deeds on the other. The hope is that the good deeds outweigh the bad, but know one knows.
I had a discussion with an Arab Muslim friend about assurance of salvation. I told him I know I am going to heaven, I have no doubt. The Bible offers that kind of assurance (read 1 John, especially 5:13!). But he said it’s impossible to know, and it’s arrogant to presume to know. “If God wills” could be the ultimate summary statement of Islam. And the god of Islam is an arbitrary god.
All that being said, this holiday is a time people look forward to. People buy new clothes, and over the 3 days of the holiday they visit family, friends and neighbors. Food is often shared around, and there are lots of sweets. Kids go around in groups from house to house to get candy and sweets (like some kind of Chadian Halloween without the costumes). The first day of celebration begins with mandatory prayers, and then the sheep (or sheeps, if you are wealthy enough) are slaughtered after proclaiming “Allah hu akbar” (“God is the greatest”) three times. Every bit of meat (including intestines, liver, stomach, etc.) is eaten – some grilled, some cooked over a fire in a sauce. And of course, afterwards there’s tea.
I visited my friend Abdou’s family this year, bringing Judah and Calla Grace. Kimberly stayed home with Isaac, who was sick. The picture above is in a room of his parents house where we sat and talked while the kids tried to finish off all of the candy, cookies and dates. The wood carving of Africa is a gift I had given Abdou a long time ago because he likes maps.
We stayed a couple of hours at Abdou’s parents’ house, talking, eating and walking around outside seeing how green the world has become during the rainy season. The kids especially enjoyed that part.
Chad faces numerous challenges: food and nutrition insecurity, forced population displacement, climate change (especially drought), epidemics (hepatitis E, cholera) and chronic poverty. As a result, about 4.4 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Four million people are affected by food insecurity and malnutrition, particularly in the Sahel belt, a situation that each year worsens during the lean season from June to September. About one million people are in need of emergency food assistance, with over 230 000 cases of severe acute malnutrition. In 12 out of 23 regions, global acute malnutrition exceeds the critical threshold of 15% set by the World Health Organization. For severe malnutrition, 15 regions are over the emergency threshold of 2%.
Violence and conflicts in Chad’s neighbouring countries (Central African Republic, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan) have led to an influx of over 440 000 refugees and asylum-seekers; however, as one of the poorest countries in the world, Chad’s capacity to care for them is extremely limited.
Read full factsheet here…
Last Tuesday afternoon, as we were packing and preparing for the long car trip from Abeche to N’Djamena that were were anticipating making on Friday or Saturday, I happened to glance at my email and noticed an email from Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), who operate a couple of small planes in Chad to assist missionaries and other non-profit workers with transportation. The email said they had a flight coming to Abeche on Wednesday, and then returning to N’Djamena on Thursday, and that they had seats available. Very interesting. The last time we made this car trip across the country it involved 14 hours of driving, several of those in the dark. And driving in the dark in Chad is not fun at all. Donkeys have died. Anyway, we were dreading the trip but there aren’t a lot of options. Normally to get a MAF flight, if there’s not one already scheduled, you have to charter it. That means paying for the entire plane, which usually means a couple thousand dollars. It didn’t even cross our minds to fly because we don’t have the money. But when someone else charters the plane, and shares the costs, it starts getting tempting. So we found ourselves on Tuesday afternoon scrambling to tie up loose ends so that we could fly to the capital on Thursday, and from there we’ll fly to Europe for a few weeks of meetings/vacation before returning to Abeche mid-June. And a very generous supporter paid for our flight, which was inexpensive for adults, half-price for the kids, and Norah was free.
We had a great time in the hills just outside of town this afternoon with some friends who will soon be leaving for furlough for a year. It’s pretty much paradise for our boys, with so many places to run and climb and hide.
When we head for the hills, we never know who we’ll run across. We seem to attract a little attention. This guy rode up on his horse and was very friendly.
The setting sun finally gave us a break from the extreme heat, which has had the added pleasure of humidity lately.
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