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Reflections of an American Pastor turned Missionary living in West Africa

I first visited West Africa on a vision trip for American pastors in 2003. For over a decade I made regular trips to West Africa to teach some, but mostly to build relationships and learn what I could about the challenges facing the church in West Africa. In 2017, at the invitation of national church leaders, I moved my family to West Africa to play a support role in equipping church planters and leaders. There is no way to compare my experiences of visiting here on an annual basis and living here. I’ve been on a steep culture and learning curve since the day I stepped foot in Dakar, Senegal.

 I want to share eight things that, either I never learned, or I never fully processed before moving to West Africa. These things have helped me start to understand what I still don’t fully understand both about race relations in America and mission dynamics in Africa.

 First, the West African slave trade lasted for over 400 years from the 16th Century to the middle of the 19th Century. During that time, an estimated 12-13 million West African men, women, and children were shipped to South America, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe where they were sold as merchandise on the open market.

 Second, the East African slave trade, sometimes called the Arab slave trade, lasted for over 1200 years, starting in the 7th century and lasting until nearly the 1900’s around the Middle East and Indian Ocean region.  Though clear figures are not available an estimated 17-40 million East Africans were sold into slavery during this period. The country of Oman located on the South-Eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula controlled the East African slave trade. If you were to visit Oman you would find many Omanis who still speak Swahili, an East African language. And while there are some small communities of black Omanis who are descendants of slaves there isn’t the African-Omani population one would expect. Why? Most male slaves coming to Oman were castrated and not allow to procreate. To summarize, between the West African and East African slave trade, 20-50 million African men, women and children were sold as chattel around the world.

 Third, I live very close to one of the major points of departure for many who were sold to slave traders in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. I regularly take American visitors to one of many slave houses that once lined the coast of Gorée Island during the height of the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade. These men, women, and children who were captured as slaves were kept in the most inhumane manner, confined to several small, dark, and damp holding cells meant to sever families ties forever. There is a cell for young children who were separated from their mothers, a cell for virgins who were sold at a premium and often used to entertain slave trade clients, a feeding cell to fatten up slaves who didn’t meet the minimum 60 kilogram (132 lbs) weight requirement for sale, several cells for healthy men and women, and punishment cells. I’ve stood in all of these. Gorée Island use to be known as “shark island” because slaves who got sick or died where thrown into the water.

 Fourth, the strongest and healthiest West Africans slaves were sold to slave traders in-land. An estimated 15 to 30 percent of these died during the march to their coastal point of departure or in confinement at a slave house. Another 10 to 15 percent died during the trans-Atlantic voyage which lasted from 1 to 3 months depending on destination. So, for every 100 slaves who reached the Americas, another 40 men, women, and children were murdered or died in transit.

 Fifth, missionaries played a role along the coast in West Africa as slave brokers. Of all the presidents and international dignitaries, including most of our recent American presidents, who have visited the slave house at Gorée Island, to date the only formal apology was by Pope Jean Paul in February 2002. He said, “How can one forget the enormous suffering inflicted, ignoring the most elementary rights of man, on the people deported from the African continent…From this African sanctuary of black pain, we beg forgiveness for the above.” He also referred to the conditions of the slave house as that of a “concentration camp.”

 Sixth, you may have heard someone say, “African tribes sold one another into slavery long before the Europeans arrived.” While it is true that inter-tribal conflict sometimes ended in enslavement of enemy tribes, this does nothing to excuse or fully explain the European dynamic of the slave trade. Senegalese author, Tidiane N’Diaye said in an interview that “Slavery existed in practically all civilizations. This was also the case in Africa before settlers came. Thus, Arab Muslims (Arab Slave Trade) encountered already existing structures, which facilitated the purchase of slaves for their purposes.” It is also true that slave traders and their accomplices put tribal groups in the position of either selling out on one another or being taken themselves. Slave traders would come ashore with guns and rum and offer them to tribes willing to take slaves from other tribal groups. These tribes had little understanding of the conditions and circumstances that they were selling neighboring tribes into.

 Seventh, there is a small plaque on display in the slave house on Gorée island that recognizes the work of William Wilberforce, a British evangelical Christian and abolitionist who led the parliamentary campaign to end the Slave trade with the Slave Trade Act of 1807 and the effort to abolish slavery in most of the British Empire in the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. William Wilberforce is an example to all of us of how our Christian convictions should be lived out to bring systemic change and to defend the most basic of human rights for all.

 Eighth, on the heels of the abolition of slavery between the years of 1870-1900, began the great “African Scramble,” an aggressive and competitive European campaign to colonize Africa for its vast resources and strategic military purposes. European countries propped up tyrannical leaders, set up puppet governments, exploited countries for their natural resources, forced locals to learn European languages and embrace aspects of their culture, and gave them religion. As a result, missionary efforts during the final half of what is known as the “Great Century” in world missions (1790-1910) were easily confused with colonial ambition, and the gospel itself was laden with western cultural values, assumptions, and methodologies.

 Let me share some humble conclusions. These eight things have caused me to pause and reflect more deeply than ever on race relations in America and the struggle to end systemic inequality. I’ve heard many in America say things like, “We didn’t do these things” or “That was then, this is now” or “How long are we going to live in the past?” Others have asked, “Why is Africa so poor?” For 400 years in West Africa and 1200 years in East Africa the strongest, brightest, and capable human resources (men and women) were taken out of African homes, communities, and countries to support Western economies and further western empires. Imagine for a moment if for the next 400 years all of the strongest, brightest, and capable Americans were snatched away. Where would that leave us? What this does to a continent and to the psyche of a people is what you see today in Africa. Africa is not poor! Africa is rich in culture, natural resources, creativity, and potential; but it is still recovering from centuries of foreign domination and demoralization.

 From the other side of the ocean, my African American friends have parents or grandparents who lived with Jim Crow laws and some of their parents and grandparents were slaves. Can you imagine saying to your Jewish friends, “I know the holocaust was horrible, but isn’t it time to move on?” No compassionate person would say this or imply this in their actions or inactions. But I hear this sentiment as it relates to slavery from many in America. It’s only been 60 years since the civil rights movement and 155 years since the civil war! America has made progress in the area of race relations and equality, but you can’t cancel out the memory or impact of 400 years of slavery followed by 100 years of barely-there-citizenship so easily. African Americans still face an undeniable uphill climb educationally, economically, and socially. We can no longer overlook the fact that the median household income for African Americans is 41% less than the median income of white households or that Black and Brown men and women are murdered or arrested in much higher rates than white men and women.

 Without sounding trite, trendy, or ignoring the church’s troubled and divided past in Africa or America, I still believe that the gospel offers this world the greatest hope for change. I’m not suggesting that you have to be a Christian to deplore racism or to fight against social injustice. Nor am I suggesting that we can divorce belief in the gospel from the fervent pursuit of social justice. It was the gospel that moved William Wilberforce to dedicate his life to the abolition of slavery. And it was the gospel that gripped the heart of the “Amazing Grace” hymn writer, John Newton, and transformed him from a slave ship captain to an abolitionist and pastor.  By the gospel, I’m speaking specifically of the reconciling power of Jesus’ death on the cross to bring sinners into a right relationship with God and one another. The gospel continues to humble me and reveal my pride and prejudices, paving the way for better listening and understanding. The gospel empowers me to turn over every unturned stone in my heart to see what lies beneath knowing that a gracious Savior stands ready to help me. It is through the gospel that God is also creating one new redeemed man and community, the church (Eph. 2:14-16). The answer, best I can tell, is not the isolation of races to do their own thing and figure it out in their communities, churches, or the world, but partnerships built upon gospel humility and love. Perhaps the starting place is to own this painful part of our American history and its lingering effects, to acknowledge bias, and to learn from image bearers who are culturally different than we are. 

Be Still

Psalm 37: 7 says, "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him…" If I had a nickel for all the times my wife and I had to tell one of our kids to "sit still" I would be…and you fill in the blank. Our son, Nicholas, was particularly squirmy. Of course there is nothing unusual about a child struggling to sit still in church or in school. The wiggles are a normal part of growing up as we learn to wait patiently.

 This principle applies to our spiritual lives too. In this Psalm David is restless as he thinks about the prosperity of the wicked. It's hard to be patient and wait for the Lord especially when the wicked seem to be living in such ease. In Psalm 46:19 the Lord says, "Be still, and know that I am God." Spiritually speaking, we get the wiggles when we don't see God doing what he has promised to do or what we think he should do. I fear our fast-paced world of same-day Amazon drone delivery is conditioning us to be more impatience in ways that bleed into our relationships with God.

 This recent pandemic has been a great challenge for most of us because God is saying "Be still." But, it's important to remember that the psalmist doesn't stop with "be still." The psalmist says, "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him." The virus has brought the entire world to a standstill, but God is calling us to be still before Him. What does that mean? Well, it's being "still" for a higher reason, to see yourself again before the Lord. It's being still to remember again that you are his and he is yours. It's a "still" that helps you reframe your life by the truth that God has created you and called you to "delight yourself" in Him and "commit your way" to Him (vv. 4-5). Dear Ones, Jesus invites us in a more profound way to "be still" in his finished work for us at the cross, in the power of his resurrection, and before his throne. To the restless soul Jesus says, "Come to me all you who are weary." To the noisy conscience Jesus says, "It is Finished." To the fearful heart Jesus says, "All authority has been given to me." Oh that we would learn to be still in the grip of such marvelous grace!!!

How to Pray for Perspective

How many of us have the desire to pray like David in Psalm 39: "O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!" (Psalm 39:4). Why would we want to pray like this? The answer is, for perspective. We need to know that our lives are but a "few handbreadths." What's a handbreadth? Well, it’s a crude measurement using the width of your palm. That's between 3-4 inches for most of us. The point is, It's not big! Your lifespan even if you live to be 80, as David says, "is nothing before God," and "a mere breath" (v. 5). He goes on to say our lives are like "shadows" on the ground. Shadows don’t last because the earth never stops spinning. How can this perspective serve us well? Well, for one, David says, it will save us from the turmoil that comes when we try to heap up wealth, not knowing who will get it all when we die (v. 6). It's very easy to get locked into a money making mode of life and forget just how short life is and how impossible it is to take any of it with you. Before you know it your short stress-filled life is over and your family is arguing about what you've left them or not! On the other hand, Dear Ones, if we maintain the perspective not only that life is fleeting, but that life is lived before the face of God then He becomes the object of our hope (v. 7), the one we sin against and the one who can deliver us from our sins (v. 8), and the one who is preparing us for eternity by "consuming like a moth what is dear to us" (v. 11). Be thankful that God loves you enough to consume those things in your life that would cause you to lose perspective. Like David, we are mere sojourners passing through this life with God on our way to a better and lasting home. Jesus came into this world not merely to model the sojourner’s life for us and show us what a life lived before the face of God should look like, but to secure our resurrection and eternal life through his death on the cross. God did not create the first man Adam for a short, shadowy, life of amassing possessions on this earth, but for at eternal Kingdom! From the beginning God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11). And at the cross Jesus secured our eternity, conquering sin and death.

God Digs Ears

"In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offerings and sin offering you have not required." Psalm 40:6

 In reading over Psalm 40 this morning, I couldn't help but be taken by this verse. What does the Psalmist mean when he says, "In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear?" Sacrifices and offerings were the focal point of worship in Old Testament times. If you doubt that, you should read the book of Leviticus. God had made animal sacrifices the focal point of Old Testament worship to teach the people that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Lev. 17:11). Every Old Testament animal sacrifice was a shadow of Jesus' death on the cross, the final and ultimate sacrifice for sins.

So why is David saying to God, "In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted," when it is God who required them? There is another passage of Scripture that sheds some light on this, its Psalm 51. There, David says, "For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Ps. 51:16-17). What David means is that as important as animal sacrifices were, there is something that God delighted in more. God delights then and now in our broken spirit and contrite heart. He wanted that more than he wanted David to go through the motions of making another animal sacrifice. He wanted David's repentance and new obedience. Dear Ones, God delights more in your heart-felt repentance than he does all your sacrifices and service in life. Without our daily repentance the cross of Christ remains far off and all our religious experiences are mechanical. Never forget that.

 Now what comes next, is a little gem I think. David says, "but you have given me an open ear." A more literal translation says, "ears you have dug for me." Notice two things. First, it is God who digs ears for David. That's grace. We cannot dig ears for ourselves. Second, we need to have ears dug for us. Why? Because sin deafens us so that nothing that God says gets in. We need God to dig ears for us so that we can hear the gospel promises, repent, and follow him in new obedience.

 Stay with me because there's more! The author of Hebrews puts this verse in the mouth of Jesus saying, "Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure" (Heb. 10:5-6). Why has the part about "ears you have dug for me" been replaced by "a body have you prepared for me?" The author of Hebrews is quoting Psalm 40:6 from the very first translation of the Bible called the Septuagint, a Greek translation. It's hard to say how these translators went from 'digging an ear' to 'preparing a body', but the idea that God makes body parts is in both. So, dear ones, if Old Testament sacrifices and offerings were sufficient to appease the wrath of God and forgive sins, God would not have prepared a body for Christ to come into the world and die for us. As God to dig new ears so that you can repent and believe the gospel all over again today.