Ask For It

Two weeks after we landed in Ouagadougou, the first team of volunteers would arrive to work on the camp sleeping shelters, dining hall and subsidiary buildings for the development project that we were going to lead. I would be working with this team and many others who would come every two weeks to Sanwabo in the bush area of eastern Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso).

The pastor of the first evangelical church in that area of the country and a couple of other church members had been working with the chiefs to grant us land where we could build the camp and two houses and a small clinic. The houses were for our family and an undetermined family who would come and work alongside us.

Soon after we arrived in Upper Volta, the chiefs of the six villages nearest Sanwabo invited our family and other mission families to a celebration between the villages of Sanwabo and Zekka. We arrived and were impressed with the crowd of people gathered. I asked one of our mission colleagues if her was surprised, and he said no because first of all they have never seen this many white people together, then they are very curious people who would not want to miss this big event, but most of all because they knew there would be food served.

There were a dozen ladies scurrying around three or four fires where they had set up a kitchen to cook for the crowd of people. Rice was served and that was always a treat to the villagers because there was not enough rainfall in this area of the Sahel to grow rice. All the rice in the country was imported from south Asian countries and it was expensive for the common villagers. Another treat for them was a sauce that had meat in it. Meat was not an everyday part of their diets—not because they did like it, but because they could not afford to buy meat. The most common source of protein was black eyed peas which they would dry and store in small mud granaries during the long dry season. I ate a lot of peas during the years we served in Sanwabo, and I don’t think I ever ate one that did not have a weevil hole in it!

We were seated in a circle with the chiefs on benches from the Sanwabo church. The ladies served us rice covered in a stew made with a few pieces of beef, tomatoes, onion, okra, and some local spices. The beef also meant bone and gristle but no fat as the cows were very lean because of the scarcity of proper grazing food.

During the meal, I asked the chiefs, “What is the greatest need of your villages?” They parlayed for several minutes and one of them said, “Water.” I asked them what was their second greatest need after water. Again after 15 minutes of discussion, they answered, “Water.” Then I asked them a third time, “After water what is your most urgent need?” and one could guess what they would say after a deliberation of 15 minutes while the crowd of villagers patiently waited and stared at all the white people. “Water!” We received the message that we should begin by helping them get clean potable water, and we did just that once we were able to get started on the project.

The pastor of the Sanwabo church led the program and introduced our family and other mission families who had come to participate in the kickoff of a five-year development project that would bring hundreds of volunteers from the states of Tennessee and Michigan to work in agriculture, water, public health and literacy programs.

I was getting a bit anxious about getting some land for our project because no one had even mentioned land during the three hours that we had been there. Then, one of the chiefs came and stood before me and asked me to follow him. He led me to a termite hill about four feet tall and asked me to climb on top of the mound. Then he asked me to look in the direction where the sun came up each day.  “Look as far as you can see,” he said. I did, and he instructed me to turn to the south and look again as far away as I could. Then he repeated the instructions to look to the west and the north.

The villagers had trouble with my name as they pronounced the R letter like a D letter. So, the chief said to me, “Laddy, all you see is yours. All you have to do is ask for it.!”

It was an overwhelming moment. We were on the precipice of what we believed the Lord was going to do through his workers in establishing churches among the villages and helping the villagers with their physical needs.

Later that day, I was reminded of Joshua talking to the people of Israel before they crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land. “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.” Joshua 3:5

Imagine that you are at your desk or sitting in your favorite chair, and you have the controls of a satellite sitting on your lap. You focus the satellite on your neighborhood, then on your city, then you zoom out to focus on the towns and cities around you. You direct the focus of the orbiter to gaze at the entire United States of America. Finally, you direct the satellite to move rapidly up and around the whole world.

As a believer, perhaps the Lord was speaking to your heart during each of the satellite passovers saying, “All you see is mine. All you have to do is ask for it.” As followers of Christ our job is to ask for it, claim it for the Lord, and act to bring lost people to Jesus Christ.