New outreach in The Gambia sparked by retired Mennonite farmer
THE GAMBIA, West Africa – In the tiny former British colony of The Gambia,
thrust needle-like through the heart of Senegal along both banks of the Gambia River, a surprising new Mennonite mission partnership is emerging. Five years ago Beryl Forrester, a retired Mennonite farmer from Salem Mennonite Church in Oregon, moved to The Gambia at the invitation of Sulayman Bojang, a Muslim leader who
had befriended him while he was working on the YWAM Mercy Ship, Anastasis.
At Bojang’s invitation, Forrester moved 20 miles inland to Pirang where Bojang
was a community leader. Living quietly on his pension and with support from friends, Forrester established a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) registered with the Gambian government: Mennonite Educational and Horticultural Development Associates (MEHDA). Under this umbrella, Forrester worked with the community to develop a Small Farm Resource Center (SFRC), an elementary school, a clinic, carpentry school, and various job creation initiatives. In this milieu, seven Mennonite church fellowships have also emerged.
With the surprising proliferation of programs and churches – which have grown from among the nominal Christians of the Balante tribe – Forrester was eager to recruit mission partners to assist. The holistic ministries he’d begun were not only reaching out in word and deed to the Muslim-majority community, but were also resourcing and encouraging the minority Christian community.
Ever since coming to The Gambia 20 years ago to escape civil war in their native Guinea Bissau, the Balante people have been treated as outsiders because of their refugee status and refusal to convert to Islam. “Before you came we were like a wild garden with weeds growing everywhere. We were lost and in darkness,” two Balante women told Forrester. “We could not come together. We had no sense of community,” a Balante man lamented. “But when we heard Bible teaching and began to understand what God was calling us to, everything began to change.”
One Sunday last summer when a tropical downpour trapped Forrester at home, he arrived late at the Pirang Mennonite Church and found a Balante man up front preaching. Forrester said, “I had no idea what he was saying, but he was doing it.” Later the impromptu leader told Forrester, “We want to be able to lead our own churches, but we are ill prepared. We don’t know the Bible. We don’t know how to teach.” Forrester said that the seven new Mennonite churches which have sprung up are eager for Bible teaching so that they can function without outside assistance and more adequately address the spiritual needs of their own people.
Forrester’s search for mission partners led him to New Holland (Pa.) Mennonite Church, where his sister and brother-in-law Robert and Anna Mae Weaver welcomed him into their home and congregation. While in Lancaster County he also connected with Daryl and Mary Martin, who lead short-term mission trips to assist long-term workers around the world. Last year the Martins led two short-term teams from Lancaster to The Gambia and helped to set up a school of carpentry. As interest in The Gambia rose, Ron Zook, pastor at New Holland Mennonite, contacted Eastern Mennonite Missions for counsel and assistance.
After an exploratory trip in October 2004 to The Gambia by Zook and Clair Good, EMM’s representative to Africa, the EMM board voted to enter The Gambia as an EMM location. Earlier this month, Forrester was appointed as an EMM missionary and credentialed by Lancaster Mennonite Conference for the Gambia-Casamance field. Good explained that credentialing helps to open the door for national church registration of the emerging circle of churches. They are calling themselves the Mennonite Church of West Africa. A missionary support team (MST) based at New Holland Mennonite is raising program funds to assist with the ministries in The Gambia.
Almost devoid of natural resources, the tiny Gambian nation of one and a half million people has also become a home for refugees from one of the longest-running African wars in Casamance, Senegal, to the south. Working through grassroots tribal connections, MEHDA has also taken its holistic development to the Casamance region; another church is emerging among the Jolla people. When Good visited the Jolla region in October, a Muslim leader thanked him for the work of MEHDA and invited greater EMM involvement. “It’s hard to pray when you’re hungry,” he said.
Forrester believes that as they continue to work holistically in this Muslim-majority region of West Africa, tremendous potential exists for church growth in both The Gambia and Senegal. “People tell us, ‘You’re real. You don’t just preach and leave. You bring hope.’ When some Muslims initially opposed the opening of the church in Pirang, others defended it saying, ‘It’s a farm.’ We are committed to blessing the whole community,” Forrester said. When Good met with Sheik Lamin Gibba in Pirang, the sheik told him, “This Mennonite work helps to foster Christian-Muslim relations. We’ve been friendly for many years. There should be no ‘jihads’ for conversion. We know that some Muslims may become Christians, and some Christians Muslims.”
– Jewel Showalter
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