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In Summary A strategy for Christian witness must be based on basic premises: Christian witness must be made in term of Christian relationships. To win the Fulbe missionaries must be willing to live among them—and live like them. The Gospel needs to be communicated in the context of friendships with the Fulbe. It must also be able to flow along indigenous lines of leadership and communication patterns.

In this part of the article I want to talk openly and frankly. I have a confession to make. I used to be a strategy nut. I loved to think about and draw up strategies. I loved to wrestle endlessly with goals, and methods, and principles, and project descriptions. I was forever searching for that key that would unlock the Fulbe for Christ. It had to be there somewhere: that redemptive analogy, that bridge, that parable, that act of love that would just suddenly turn on the lights, draw the Fulbe willy-nilly to Christ.

I also knew, at least intellectually, that it is the Spirit who opens eyes, draws people to Christ, but the last few years this has been brought home to my heart. I know without a doubt that I alone will never convert a single Pullo. At the same time it seems that the Holy Spirit, working alone, does not convert the Fulbe either. He could, but he does not. He somehow, in some way, needs us, but not always in the way we think he does.

In 1984 we moved from Liberia to Mali and began to prepare for work among the Fulbe. We had done a lot of survey work in West Africa, we had carefully studied the Fulbe situation in Mali and developed a Strategy. The Strategy was based on several basic premises:

First, a conviction, based on experience and research that we had read, that people come to Christ through other Christians. There is research in North America which states that more than 80% of new converts cite Christian friends, relatives, or fellow workers as the primary force that brought them to Christ. Christian radio, for example, was only cited by 4%. The articulated gospel, divorced from experienced Christian love, does not communicate to the vast majority of people. If this is true in the West where we give top priority to efficiency, progress, and ideas, this would be even more true in Africa where human relationships are given top priority.

Second, the Fulbe in Mali, as most Muslims, had many misperceptions about Christianity but most had never had any contact with Christians. No missionaries nor evangelists nor even Christians had ever lived among most of the Fulbe in Mali. This was untouched territory, unplowed soil. This was 1850 as far as missions in Africa was concerned. Given the first premise, we knew that it was going to take more than preaching for the Fulbe to see Christ: we, as Christians, had to go live among the Fulbe. The Fulbe would have to be able to peer into the hearts and souls of real live Christians to see what they were made of, to see that they trusted God, to see and experience Christian compassion. We would have to scatter several missionaries to live in several areas among the Fulbe to be what we often call "front-line" Christians, to establish Christian presence, to build spiritual credibility.

Third, to become intimately involved in the lives of the Fulbe, it was deemed necessary to live as much like the Fulbe as possible. This would serve to help Fulbe to feel comfortable in our hut/home as well as indicate to the Fulbe that one could be a Christian and still live as Fulbe. By identifying with their lifestyle, their mats, their cattle, their food, their clothes, we would be indirectly affirming Fulbe culture in Jesus' name.

Fourth, it was hoped that in so doing the gospel would in time come to the Fulbe, not so much as something lobbed in from the outside, like a rock thrown over a wall, but rather would well up from deep inside of their communities and culture. The gospel would be communicated in the context of friendships with Fulbe, in an indigenous, contextualized manner. We decided that instead of calling ourselves missionaries, we would call ourselves Jesus marabous—in other words marabous who taught the Linjiila. We hoped that this would give us an accepted forum from which to evangelize in a natural, unobtrusive manner. Subsequently the gospel would be largely spread from relative to relative, family to family along traditional channels of communication. The picture would be more of a small match that sets a whole prairie on fire rather than a lightning bolt that burns up one tree.

Fifth, there were a number of other fundamental ideas:

First of all a strong emphasis on indigenization and contextualization was needed since it was felt the better this was done, the more easily the gospel would spread and transform lives and culture at deep levels.

Secondly, we would first attempt to reach the leaders of society—the older generation, the heads of family, the chiefs, the marabous, and the former noble class—but without ignoring other classes of people. As mentioned above, to facilitate this task we would call ourselves Jesus marabous thus giving us status in society.

Thirdly, we would integrate word and deed into a seamless kind of witness.

Fourth, there was a strong emphasis on kingdom, that is preaching, demonstrating, and extending God's sovereignty over all areas of a new believers life.

Last of all, we would de-emphasize mass evangelism tools since it was felt that these would only invite opposition from the marabous and polarize the community and undermine our insider approach.

So with strategy in hand but almost no Fulfulde in our minds, my wife, Ann, and our four children (ages 3 to 12) moved to our village in the north of Mali on Jan 1,1986 to become a Jesus marabou. It was a nine hour drive from Bamako and as we traveled farther and farther from Bamako, the road progressively deteriorated until we were following little more than tracks in the sand. Because of car trouble and other unexpected delays, we didn't arrive in our village until after dark. Being as yet unfamiliar with the terrain, it was light from the cookfires that guided us the last kilometer into our village. We were welcomed with a meal and traditional tea by the village. The celebration continued till midnight. The next morning we were awakened by villagers at the crack of dawn. While lying there staring up at the sky through gaps in the thatch roof of our hut, reality slowly sunk in. This was not some guest hut, this was our hut. Even though we felt like running, we were committed to stay. How were we to live in a few grass huts with no electricity, no running water, sand floors, no fridge, and the worst shock was yet to come: no privacy? At least that's the way it felt. For the next week we had people from dawn to dusk. We wondered if we were going to crack. Finally the lead woman said to Ann, "we hope you don't feel bad, we don't want to offend you, but we just can't hang around here all the time, we have got to get back to work!" This had been a classic clash of cultures: the Fulbe showing hospitality while we were desperate for some privacy. And so life settled into a routine of language and culture learning, albeit still with plenty of visitors.

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Larry Vanderaa presented an earlier version of this paper at the WEC International Fulbe Conference in The Gambia, September 22-27,1997. Revised January, 1998.


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