Animism

I am trying to keep the momentum up with this communication resolution so here I am on this blogspot (which would have made me think of finding a dry cleaner's in the not too distant past, but...hey).
This year started off with something really quite extraordinary for me. The photos show some weird stuff, a bit 'scatological' looking even, right? Well, this is part of West African animism, which permeates the beliefs of most everyone. These 2 items in the first photo are 'fetishes' or amulets or talismans. They are believed to have magical powers to protect an individual or sometimes to enable one person to put a curse on another or on a whole family. The far left item has shells on it. Those shells were the original money objects here before Europeans arrived with metallic money. The hair is from either a horse or a donkey which are prevalently used here as transportation. The object on the right (which looks like something you need to scoop up after Fido) is actually a tightly wrapped bundle of papers with magic incantations written on it, often mixed with Koranic verses and then coated with an animal skin and then covered over with bees' wax to preserve it.
So, what is my connection to these things? The first week in January there was a knock at my yard gate and when I answered, I was surprised to see Eli, our former cook who worked on the base over 15 years ago! Eli is a very likeable, aimable guy who had a problem. He liked to help himself to things that didn't belong to him and so we had to 'let him go' but remained friends with him. He would turn up from time to time (in between short jail sentences... alas, he didn't stop when he left us. Only went on to bigger and better possiblities with people who were less willing to forgive).
About 5 years ago, Eli showed up at my door with an urgent request to borrow money, $300, and he was so convincing, especially that it would be paid back by the end of that month. Well, here we are 5 years later and he still owes me $200. (And please, don't inundate me with bridges that you have for sale... I know all about it!) So, that is Eli and he is at my door with a friend and he wants to make a partial payment on the debt. I was flabbergasted but invited them in to sit and chat for a moment.
In the course of the conversation, the friend, Yusuf (a form of Joseph), mentions that the lime tree behind me has special powers. I had noticed that Yusuf had a leather gris-gris on his wrist (which is a personal form of protective talisman that people often wear as either rings or bracelets of metal, leather or just string. Don't laugh, I know lots of people in the US with rabbit's feet or 4-leaf clovers or other 'good luck' charms. It is the same thing.)
Eli burst out laughing, saying that I didn't need any other power because what I had was much more powerful than anything else.
So this was the opener for an opportunity to share about El Shaddai, the Lord Almighty. As it turned out, Yusuf was a well know 'charlatan' who had clients coming from as far away as Ivory Coast for his magic. The problem was that his own powers weren't working for him. He confessed he was troubled with sleeplessness bordering on insomnia, alcoholism, a generalized fear and was often overcome by worries. The amazing thing that he shared with us was that he had had the same dream several times in which a Moses-type partriarchal bearded man would come to him, offering him a book that he knew was a Bible. He presumed that God was trying to get his attention and so he wanted to know more about Jesus and belief in Him. We continued to talk and eventually got on our motorcycles and went to a local Malian pastor that we work with who would do the type of follow-up this man would need. After another couple of hours of sharing from the Bible, Yusuf decided to put his trust in Jesus and burn not only his various bracelets and things that were on his person but he also handed over objects that belonged to his extended family that were part of his 'heritage' and that gave him his spiritual powers. The second photo is our fetish barbecue. Yusuf was very skeptical that we would even be able to burn these objects and insisted that they would 'jump out of the fire' or would be unburnable. Obviously, this was not the case!
It was really exciting, not so much burning this stuff, but realizing that this man was being set free from fear, from darkness and from an eternity spent out of the presence of the Father who loves him and created him for relationship with Him! Besides having the joy of praying with Yusuf to enable him to live for Jesus, Eli recommitted HIS LIFE to the Lord (and I got paid back a bit!)

Hope to hear from you and thanks for your prayers and friendship!

What would YOU like to know about life and ministry in Mali?