Église évangélique mennonite d’Orodara (Kénédougou, Burkina Faso)
The Église évangélique mennonite du Burkina Faso (EEMBF – Evangelical Mennonite Church of Burkina Faso) in 2022 was composed of some 20 local churches, of which the Église évangélique mennonite d’Orodara was a founding member. This narrative focuses specifically on the local church in Orodara, but its story will also illuminate the history of the larger Mennonite church in Burkina Faso.
In 1978, the first missionaries were sent by AIMM (Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission) to Burkina Faso. This mission was composed of two American couples, Loren and Donna Entz and Dennis and Jeanne Rempel, who arrived in Orodara to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of the Kénédougou province. A second wave consisted of two single women, Gail Wiebe and Anne Garber, who arrived in Orodara to work in the village of Kotoura in 1982. Other missionaries arrived later.
Brother Siaka Traoré, later a pastor, came from Moussodougou to Orodara in 1979 to join the missionary team. Following this contact, he was converted. He was baptized in 1980. In the years that followed, he and other new Christians joined the missionaries to form a Mennonite community in Burkina Faso.
In 1983, Brother Paul Ouédraogo, already converted since 1977, arrived in Orodara. Having befriended Siaka Traoré, he became involved with him in the management of the evangelical bookstore La Colombe, and continued while Brother Siaka was away for theological training in Bangui.
Other brothers and sisters also joined the nascent community. Among those who contributed to form the nucleus of the Église évangélique mennonite d’Orodara were people such as Tera Abel and his wife Mariam, Traoré Assetou, Traoré Tohalama, Traoré Brama, Bassolé Fréderic with his wife Jacqueline and their children, little Traoré Dramane, big Traoré Dramane, Traoré Sétou, Sanogo Moussa, Ouédraogo Thierry (a schoolteacher in Orodara), and Coulibaly Abdias. One might ask when the local church in Orodara actually began. Several answers have been given, but we retain the one proposed by Kumedisa Erik and his colleagues: "The first AIMM missionaries arrived in 1978 and the church was planted in 1983."
It was a multi-ethnic, multi-actor church whose identity would later be defined as evangelical Mennonite. It was a church formed by brothers and sisters who joined with Western missionaries. The group first met in the homes of the missionaries.
The site of the local church in Orodara in 2022, where meetings began in January 1984, was turned over to it in 1983 by the Christian Alliance Church, which had been there since the 1970s. The first pastor to be installed by the missionaries in 1985 in agreement with the Burkinabè was Drabo Youro Jean from Banzon. It is after his departure in 1989 that Coulibaly Abdias was appointed pastor to replace Pastor Youro Drabo. At that time, in the 1980s, worship services, baptisms, the Lord’s Supper, and other ceremonies were celebrated with simplicity in the style of the Mennonite missionaries. The languages used were French and Dioula, which has continued to this day.
The activities of the EEMO included worship services, community support in cases of death and illness, evangelism, training, and edification; and, in collaboration with the Office de développement des Églises (ODE – the development arm of the Protestant churches of Burkina Faso), animal husbandry, provision of inputs, mills, and a village pharmacy. All these activities had limited success due to the lack of competent resource persons. However, the evangelism component produced conversions that have maintained the sustainability of the work.
But contrary to all expectations, between 1986 and 1987, the mission changed its strategy of intervention. This new strategy resulted in an upheaval in the relationship between the nascent church and the mission. With this new missionary strategy, each missionary was to select an ethnic community in the province of Kénédougou, establish a missionary station there by first learning the language, then creating the alphabet of this language, and finally evangelizing the population through this local language. But for the local church in Orodara, which had not been founded according to this plan, this change brought confusion. What was to be done? Should they break up or continue? How should they proceed and with whom? All these questions remained unanswered and the members of the church in Orodara continued to meet, pray and exhort each other. The mission-church collaboration was troubled until this missionary strategy was abandoned, which allowed the collaboration to resume in the early 2000s in the present form of the Partnership Council.
The church in Orodara today
The number of members has grown noticeably. In 2020, the EEMO had 257 members. In addition, it had founded two branches – one in Kourignon (40 Christians) and one in Sipiki (50 Christians).
The church has a pyramidal organization with five departments: Teaching, Evangelism, Social Services, Resource Management, and Fellowship. It is through these five departments that all preaching, training, seminar organization, evangelism, outreach, and pastoral activities are carried out. The church in Orodara remains the flagship for other Mennonite evangelical churches in Burkina Faso in the Kénédougou province and beyond.
The Église évangélique d’Orodara has many stories to tell and to draw upon, but there is no archive to preserve these stories for present and future generations! The former members of the church from that period were still alive in 2022; perhaps it was the time to put in place a mechanism for collecting, organizing, and managing the archives before it is too late.
Bibliography
Bertsche, Jim. CIM/AIMM: A Story of Vision, Commitment, and Grace. Elkhart, IN: Fairway Press, 1998.
Coulibaly, Abdias. Interview by the author in February 2022 in Orodara.
Kodzo Badasu, Michael, I. U. Nsasak, and Erik Kumedisa. "Mennonite Churches in Western Africa." In Anabaptist Songs in African Hearts, John A. Lapp and C. Arnold Snyder (eds), translated by Élisabeth Baecher, 255-262. Global Mennonite History Series: Africa. Intercourse, Pa.: Good Books, 2006.
Ouédraogo, Paul, Othniel Dakuo, and Josué Coulibaly, eds. "Recueil de témoignages pour le quarantenaire: 40 ans de marche dans l’œuvre missionnaire au Burkina Faso – bilan, défis et perspectives," 2018. This collection of 29 accounts from women and men from 13 locations was compiled on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the EEMBF (1978-2018). See especially the testimonies of Coulibaly Abdias, Traoré Dramane, Ouédraogo Paul, and Ouédraogo/Traoré Assetou.
Yanogo, Félix O., Jean-Baptiste Roamba, Benjamin Yanogo, Emmanuel Kabore, Théophile Kambou, and Gabriel Kambou. Historique de la Fédération des Églises et Missions Évangéliques du Burkina Faso, 1961-2011. Félix O. Yanogo, ed. Ouagadougou?: unknown publisher, 2011.
Additional Information
Address: Église évangélique mennonite d’Orodara, secteur n° 3 de la commune urbaine d’Orodara, B.P. 85, Orodara, Burkina Faso
Phone:
Website
Denominational Affiliations:
Église évangélique mennonite du Burkina Faso
Église évangélique mennonite d’Orodara Pastoral Leaders
| Name | Years of Service |
|---|---|
| Drabo Youro Jean | 1985-1989 |
| Coulibaly Abdias | 1989- |
| Author(s) | Paul Ouédraogo |
|---|---|
| Date Published | April 2022 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Ouédraogo, Paul. "Église évangélique mennonite d’Orodara (Kénédougou, Burkina Faso)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. April 2022. Web. 20 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=%C3%89glise_%C3%A9vang%C3%A9lique_mennonite_d%E2%80%99Orodara_(K%C3%A9n%C3%A9dougou,_Burkina_Faso)&oldid=173712.
APA style
Ouédraogo, Paul. (April 2022). Église évangélique mennonite d’Orodara (Kénédougou, Burkina Faso). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 20 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=%C3%89glise_%C3%A9vang%C3%A9lique_mennonite_d%E2%80%99Orodara_(K%C3%A9n%C3%A9dougou,_Burkina_Faso)&oldid=173712.
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