ELKHART, Ind. (AIMM/Mennonite Church Canada Witness/Mennonite Mission Network) – The health of the Mennonite Church in North America influences the health of the African church, Siaka Traoré said during his July tour of Mennonite churches in Canada and the United States.
“By the same measure, if the church in Africa is strong, this will strengthen the church in North America,” said Traoré, a leader in the Burkina Faso Mennonite Church. “We are part of the same body. If one of us suffers, the other parts of the body suffer with it.”
As Traoré and his wife, Claire, visited Mennonite churches and institutions across Canada and the United States, they found healthy intentions but sometimes feeble implementation of 20/20 vision statements. As he shared his own stories of faith – from perserverance through persecution by his Muslim family to his work connecting the church with economic development and church planting – Traoré offered evaluations and critiques of both his home and the North American church he observed.
“People have a heartfelt desire to be involved with God’s mission in the world,” Traoré said of his experience in North America. “There is much talk about being a missional church. However, in one church meeting, we heard that only 5 percent of the budget was allocated for mission purposes. In Africa, as well as in North America, we need to be careful that our actions are as good as our intentions.”
Traoré also voiced concern about the lack of youth involvement in the Western church. He described most interactions during their month of visits as being with older people. If young adults were present, they attended separate sessions.
“This is not a good sign,” he said. “The next generation will not feel that this is their church if they do not take part in the decisions that influence what happens in the years to come.”
Traoré, whose oldest child recently turned 20, described himself as one of the “old” men in the Burkina Faso Mennonite Church.
“Our church is full of energy because of the vigor of our youth,” he said.
A third ailment, according to Traoré’s diagnosis, is not unique to the North American church but a problem for Christians worldwide.
“We all have trouble establishing priorities, making time for the essential elements of the Christian life – prayer and Bible study,” Traoré said.
Traoré, an influential Mennonite church leader in his own country and internationally, was born into a Muslim family. He endured his family’s persecution for betraying their faith with such dignity and love that many of them have become Christians over the years.
Though Traoré currently serves as president of the Eglise Evangélique Mennonite au Burkina Faso (Evangelical Mennonite Church of Burkina Faso), president of Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission’s International Central Council and the Africa representative of Mennonite World Conference’s Global Mission Fellowship, all non-salaried positions, he must also find the time to support his family through businesses, a Christian bookstore and a hardware store.
Art Janz, former associate executive secretary of AIMM, remembers how Traoré’s bookstore began with a few volumes laid out on a cloth on the ground. The next time Janz visited, Traoré’s books were displayed in a small room with a bench for readers, who often engaged in lively conversation with Traoré about what they were learning from the printed page.
After Traoré completed secondary school, he went on for further training at a theological seminary in Central African Republic. While other students complained that they didn’t have enough scholarship money to eat properly, Traoré could be found planting and hoeing a garden. He was mocked for doing women’s work. The following year, the school allocated plots of land to each student to improve their nutrition, Janz recounted.
“Siaka wrote his final thesis on the self-supporting, self-propagating African church,” Janz said.
Many of the stories his North American colleagues tell about Traoré resemble Janz’s, describing Traoré’s gift of transforming adversity into an opportunity to share the good news of Jesus.
While economic enterprises could become a distraction from his ministry, Traoré sees them as avenues for mission. As a successful entrepreneur, he has earned the respect of other businessmen, many of them Muslim. When local shop owners come to him with questions about management and marketing, he makes it clear that God, not money, is at the center of all he does.
“When I meet Jesus Christ face-to-face in heaven, what would I say if he has to ask me, ‘Why did you teach people how to prosper their business but never spoke about me?’” Traoré said.
Traoré dreams of formalizing these conversations with the business community into seminars and prayer breakfasts, confident that such events would be the soil from which deeper faith-sharing would grow.
The current burning passion of the Traoré couple is their church-planting ministry in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second largest city. While grateful for the dedication of North American mission workers who have worked in village contexts for more than three decades concentrating on translating the Bible into African languages, the Traorés believe that urban mission is crucial for the health of the Mennonite church in Burkina Faso.
“Without congregations in cities, we lose our educated young people to other denominations,” Claire Traoré said, as she explained one of the reasons her family of five left a comfortable life with a salary in the capital city of Ouagadougou.
There are nine Mennonite congregations in Burkina Faso with five trained pastors providing leadership for 500 people, who attend regularly. Seven of the congregations are village churches that grew as local linguists found truth in the words they were translating and as their families and neighbors observed the transformation of their lives.
Two urban congregations have emerged in the past two years with Jeff and Tany Warkentin of Mennonite Church Canada Witness walking alongside believers in Ougadougou and the Traorés beginning their ministry in Bobo Dioulasso last January.
Mennnonite Mission Network is one of six partners that participate in shared ministry in Burkina Faso through providing personnel, program support and vision for mission. Other partners include AIMM, the Evangelical Mennonite Conference, the Mennonite Church of Burkina Faso, Mennonite Church Canada Witness and the Comité de Mission Mennonite Français (French Mennonite Mission Committee).
