The Detour
Church discovers new routes to reach the Bambara

By Emily Peters

The Mali sky simply erupted.

The three volunteers from South Carolina had never been to West Africa before. They were on their way to share the Gospel in the Bambara village their church recently adopted.

That′s when the surging showers washed away all their plans.

Mud swallowed the truck tires beyond rescue. Night was falling in the Mali bush and they knew they had to find some shelter. With their two African guides, they held their bedrolls over their heads and trudged through knee-deep sludge into the nearest village.

"They arrived in the village wet, a little distressed, and the people were very hospitable," said International Mission Board missionary Steven Roach, who came from the city to rescue the volunteers. Roach has lived among the Bambara people for five years, but he had never been in this village before.

In the morning, a young Bambara man approached Roach.

"I′ve seen your truck pass this village before, but you never stopped," the man said. "You all are Christians, aren′t you? I want to become a Christian."

Roach hesitated, skeptical. "Does this guy know what he′s talking about?" Roach wondered.

Modibo* explained he attends the university in Mali′s capital city.

"Whenever he was in the city, he′d read whatever Christian literature he could find," Roach said, a tough task in this country that′s 99 percent non-Christian. "He′d been reading this stuff for years. He just hadn′t ever run into a Christian."

That week, the volunteers from Beulah Baptist Church in Hopkins, S.C., told Modibo and his friends about Jesus, and six became believers. Modibo was baptized in the creek, which was filled with water from the same rains that had stranded the Americans just a few days before.

It soon became clear God had used this little detour to put these Americans right where He wanted them. And that side trip is just one of the opportunities Roach discovered by deviating from the beaten path.

There are about 4 million Bambara people scattered in 3,000 villages throughout Mali. Roach ministered for years in areas with little response, but in 2006 he switched gears to work in a new part of Mali.

"In one village, over 100 people came to hear me preach the first time I was there," he said. "In another village, 50 or 60 came. They all said I had to come back."

So Roach came back … with some Partnering Churches from America to help with discipleship.

In one village, 13 came to Christ the first week the Gospel was shared. Thirty in another village. And they weren′t empty professions of faith.

"How do we worship Jesus now?" they asked.

"You have to come back and teach us more."

"I told my friends and they want to follow Jesus, too."

There are now Christians in 17 villages that didn′t have believers before 2007. Three churches have officially started, and other groups meet regularly. Partnering Churches continue to come from the U.S. to help follow up.

A movement is beginning.

"It′s not as if God is just now suddenly doing something," Roach attests. "He′s been doing it a long time. It′s just now that we′re getting there."

And all it took was a little detour.

Learn how your church can become a Partnering or an Engaging Church in Sub-Saharan Africa.