April 2001
Our trips to the outlying villages in Kwongland to teach and preach these last few months have opened our eyes to some frightening realities with profound implications for our ministry. Here are three of them.
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The Kwong church is worse off than we thought
Mark has been telling people for years that "the Kwong church was
planted in the 1980's and we are doing what is necessary to assure the long
term viability of the church" (see our
philosophy of mission). Our travels through the outlying villages of
Kwongland have compelled us to reevaluate our perspective on things. In
particular, we found that it doesn't do justice to reality to say that the
church 
is
"planted" in most of these villages. The truth is rather
that there are one or two strong believers in each village with a a dozen or
so hanger's-on around them. These hanger's-on, as Mark has noticed
over the years in Chageen, are on a two or three-year rotation through the
church, and we question seriously whether most of them are justifiably
called "Christian" at all. The upshot of this is 
that we might
better think of ourselves as full-fledged "church planters,"
rather than the "church nurturers" which has hitherto been our
perceived role.
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Islam is on the march
Through deception, coercion and with lots of
oil money, the Muslim Brotherhood is turning Kwongland and the adjoining
areas into Islamic territory. Two of the Cantonal Chiefs (a canton is sort
of like a county in the USA) in our area have become Muslim recently.
The story of one, as told by another missionary who lives in one of tribes
adjoining the Kwong is illustrative of their
tactics.
This particular chief was your basic pagan and had no intention of becoming either a Muslim or a Christian. A Muslim trader in his village, however, sent a forged letter to the Brotherhood in the capital indicating that the chief would like to become a Muslim. A week or two later a convoy of 7 vehicles descended on this little village with a delegation of Muslim Imams. They had the gall to offer the chief the equivalent of two years wages and a pile of Islamic clothing to convert - something the chief had no desire to do. As it happened with so many "important" people crowded into his yard who had "come so far and at such expense" and so much money (not to speak of pride) at stake, he judged it "unwise to resist" and he became a Muslim. When we passed through that village on our way to Mobou in February, he had gone on pilgrimage to Mecca (all expenses paid, presumably), and a large new Mosque and Koranic school for the children (next door to the public school) were under construction. Short of repaying every last cent the Brotherhood expended for him, this man can never, at the cost of his life become a Christian. He has, quite literally, sold his soul to the devil.
What this means practically speaking is that our preaching and teaching is becoming much more aggressive on the subject of Islam. When I found myself standing before a village chief who had been bamboozled into becoming a Muslim only six weeks previously, I pulled no punches in speaking directly to the issues at stake. I was gratified when later he said my words were "delicious" (see our newsletter).
It also means that we're becoming more suspicious. It no longer seems coincidental, for example, that the man who has maneuvered himself to the right-hand of old Lubba, the Canton Chief of Chageen, is a Muslim (and a friend of ours as far as that goes). Is the Brotherhood just biding their time for Chageen until old Lubba dies and this fellow takes his place? We can't help but wonder.
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We don't understand Kwong traditional religion very well
Our final realization from our travels is just how little we really
understand about traditional Kwong religion. We have known, for example
about the "Yamas" that they worship, and habitually
translate in French as "idol." It is only recently, however, that
we are learning that they really regard these Yamas as a kind of guardian
spirit over the entire village to do both good and bad, and not merely the
evil fabrication of some enterprising shaman. The comparison with Baal of
the Old Testament seems very appropriate (and convenient for preaching
purposes). Pray for us as we try to better learn what they really think
so that we can preach with the kind of precision and clarity that will cut to the
heart.