A Grain of Truth--
Southern Baptist funds feed Malians during food shortage

By Emily Peters

MALI, West Africa -- In the Bambara culture, pride often prevents the people from openly admitting they're hungry.

But evidence abounds.

Mud-wall granaries lie empty.

Mariama*, age 5, sprouts reddish fuzz on top of her head in place of hair -- a sign of malnutrition.

When Mamadou* is asked what his family has been eating lately, he plucks a green leaf from a nearby tree.

"It tastes very bad," he admits, "but … it keeps you alive."

And when a sack breaks at the grain distribution site for a Baptist Global Response project, a village elder drops to his knees on the ground to gather the grain out of the mud with his fingernails.

"I just know that when Christians come to work in a place," says International Mission Board worker Steven Roach, "we can't close our eyes to this hardship."

So he invited a team from South Carolina Baptist Convention and requested Southern Baptist World Hunger Funds to help stave off the starvation for about 31,000 people living in this area.

And this area, which covers about 120 villages and camps, is where Roach has recently seen unprecedented openness to the teachings of Jesus.

Killer climate

Four million Bambara people live throughout West Africa, and more than 99 percent of them are not Christians.

"We've been working in this particular area for about 18 months now," explains Roach. "Dozens of Christians are now meeting regularly for church where there were none before."

Multiple churches from the United States, including Beulah Baptist Church in Hopkins, SC, partner with Roach and send teams periodically to disciple new believers. But as the Americans guide the young churches and see a spiritual harvest ripen, they've noticed local crops of corn and millet failing and people struggling.

Mali is one of the poorest nations on the planet. In fact, the United Nations reports about one-third of Malian children are malnourished.

That's largely because most Bambara farmers only grow enough food each year to feed their families, which leaves little room for unexpected disaster.

"It's hard to pin down one reason why things got worse these last two years," Roach says.

Worms infested some fields. Others suffered with the collapse of the national cotton market. The rest were destroyed by patchy rains, part of a climate change phenomenon that will continue to batter the region with extreme floods and droughts, according the United Nations Environment Programme. Some blame the climate change on global warming.

Whatever the reasons, Roach hopes this grain gift will help the Bambara make it to the next harvest and display the compassion of Christ.

Distribution of life

Roach and his team of volunteers set up two distribution sites in village schools. They stack 250 tons of grain at each site and call village chiefs from all over the region to receive their share of the grain.

The roads aren't fit for trucks, especially during rainy season, so villages send hundreds of rickety wooden carts and donkeys, which arrive caked in mud.

Bambara elders and chiefs, draped in their religious robes and leather fetishes meant to ward off evil, gather to thank the Americans and the new Christian Bambara men. The Christians take the opportunity explain the gift and give chiefs Christian literature in the Bambara language.

"We're not trying to buy Christians," Roach tells the crowd of chiefs and elders, inciting a nervous laugh from the men. Roach explains the gift is free, prompted by Christ's compassion, and anyone interested in knowing more can come and ask.

And they do.

A village chief's son reveals he's been interested in Jesus for a long time. After watching the Jesus film by moonlight, another man and son decide to follow Christ.

Even the local teacher of another religion said, "Change comes slowly, but one day I could see myself becoming a believer."

The young Bambara churches in this area have agreed to follow through with these connections, bring the Gospel to these surrounding villages and start new churches.

"The people everywhere are thanking us," reports Adema*, one of the Bambara Christians. "We can only hope this will show them who Jesus is and bring them to start meeting with us."

*Names changed to ensure security.

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Since the early 1970s, more than $222 million has been provided for Southern Baptist missionaries to carry out nearly 7,000 human needs projects. To give, visit
http://www.baptistglobalresponse.com/main/.