On Easter Sunday, with light streaming into a spacious, freshly painted room, the Mennonite Church of Ouagadougou choir sang in four-part harmony, “I am following you, Jesus, through the torn curtain.” For seven years, worship had taken place in a cramped, dark corner of a rental property, but on March 31, this congregation met for the first time in their own building.
“We were celebrating, first, the resurrection of Jesus, and second, our new church home,” said Nancy Frey of Mennonite Mission Network, who has served with her family in Burkina Faso since August 2012. Prior to this, they ministered in Benin, Burkina Faso’s neighbor to the south.
Frey and her husband, Bruce Yoder, help to build community at the Mennonite university student hostel, and work alongside the church leaders in Ouagadougou. They also maintain relationships with and teach at Mennonite-related colleges and seminaries in Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria.
The Ouagadougou congregation formed around a nucleus of Mennonite university students who came to the capital city to continue their education. Until recently, Mennonite congregations were mostly found in rural settings, as churches sprang up in villages where Mennonite missionaries began to work at biblical translation in the 1970s, and Burkinabe evangelists continued to spread the good news of Jesus’ love.
“With no Mennonite congregation in Ouagadougou, we were losing our educated young people to other denominations,” said Siaka Traoré, national president of Eglise Evangelique Mennonite du Burkina Faso (Evangelical Mennonite Church of Burkina Faso). “That is why we started the hostel for Mennonite university students in 2006. As they worshiped together, others joined them and the Mennonite Church of Ouagadougou started growing.”
On Easter Sunday, some first-time attenders increased the group of worshipers that usually numbers about 55.
“We were pleased to see some of the builders join us for the service: The mason with his wife and the painter had been specially invited to celebrate the first service in the new building that they had worked hard to get ready in time for Easter,” Frey said.
Calixte Bananzaro, pastor of the Ouagadougou congregation, preached on the last hours of Jesus’ life and the story of his resurrection.
“He encouraged us to share this good news with the people we know who are anxious, discouraged and suffering. We have peace because we know that nothing is impossible for God,” Frey said.
The service ended with 10-year-old Samuel Dakio, one of the Sunday school children, praying for Bananzaro, a fitting end to a service filled with youthful exuberance, Frey said.
People from the neighborhood around the new church joined the Mennonites in an Easter feast.
“The ministry of the Mennonite hostel has developed in ways its founders had not foreseen,” said Bananzaro. “The congregation that has sprung from the initiative provides its residents with a kind of ‘training ground’ for spiritual leadership.”
Bananzaro explained that those who have a university education are called upon to provide leadership, even if they have no theological or ministry training. The Ouagadougou congregation has been a place where hostel residents can hone leadership skills through leading worship, preaching, teaching Sunday school, and other congregational responsibilities.
“Perhaps the next seven years will result in even more unanticipated ministries,” Bananzaro said.
