In Benin, a ten-year-old pseudo-seminarian

With the sixth graduating class this summer, Benin Bible Institute will have provided churches with about 900 leaders, some of whom hold high positions in the national government. Other pastors with BBI diplomas serve their congregations in remote villages, working to better the quality of life for their members. However, when Mennonite Mission Network associate Anne Garber Kompaoré taught biblical geography at the institute last November, her most remarkable student was 10 years old.

One day after lunch, Kompaoré was longing for a rest. The grueling week of eight-hour teaching days in the humidity of Cotonou, the coastal city where BBI is located, was depleting Kompaoré’s energy. She had made it out of the lecture hall, where 70 church leaders continued to discuss the material she had presented that morning. Halfway up the stairs to the refuge of her second-floor room for a midday siesta, a child’s voice stopped her. Turning, Kompaoré was surprised to see the diminutive figure of Doréa, the 10-year-old daughter of Arlette and Théophane Boko, administrative assistant and caretaker, respectively, of the Bible school.

“I have some questions about things I didn’t understand when you were teaching,” Doréa told Kompaoré.

Doréa, who lives with her parents in the ground-floor apartment behind the lecture hall, agreed to wait until after Kompaoré’s rest to discuss her questions.

When Kompaoré went downstairs an hour later, she was surprised to see Doréa Boko’s copious lecture notes.

“She had some specific questions of a few things she had not quite picked up,” Kompaoré says. “This was probably the most touching compliment I received the entire week—and that from an uncounted but very attentive participant.”

Kompaoré says that Doréa had been listening as “quiet as a mouse” during all the lectures, but she didn’t realize until that moment how carefully Doréa had been following.

Doréa is one of the top students in the fifth grade of her elementary school and is already looking forward to serving God as a gynecologist or a surgeon someday.

Doréa says she isn’t bored by being the only child among all the church leaders that come to study at Benin Bible Institute but appreciates the opportunities to learn from the lecturers that come from different parts of Benin and many other countries, such as Nigeria, France, the United States, Canada—and, in Kompaoré’s case, Burkina Faso.

“I truly love living here,” Doréa says.

Doréa’s father, Théophane Boko, was one of the first Beninese Christians to welcome the Mennonite mission workers who came to live in Benin in 1987. He was also a member of Benin Bible Institute’s first graduating class. Having lived in Nigeria for many years, Théophane Boko has a good command of English, which has facilitated his interactions with North American Mennonites on fellowship visits, many of whom have memorable stories of adventures on Boko’s motorcycle.

Benin Bible Institute grew out of a request made by the Protestant churches of Benin, many of them African Initiated Churches, nearly 50 years ago. For two decades, Mennonite Board of Missions, a predecessor agency of Mennonite Mission Network, sent lecturers to Benin for periodic teaching visits. These seminars laid the foundation for a three-year systematic Bible training program that became Benin Bible Institute in 1996. Mennonite Mission Network continues to be partners with BBI.

Kompaoré has served as a linguist and Bible translation consultant since 1982 in what is now Burkina Faso. Her husband, Daniel Kompaoré, is the national president of the Apostolic Mission Church.

Anne Garber Kompaoré served with several Mennonite mission agencies throughout her career. The Kompaorés minister with the support of Commission to Every Nation, an interdenominational mission-sending agency, and Mennonite Mission Network.

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For immediate release.

Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact Andrew Clouse at andrewc@mmnworld.net, 574-523-3024 or 866-866-2872, ext. 23024.