The Ferke Mural Miracle

Here’s the background story:

Ferké is a town in northern Cote d’Ivoire. The Mission Baptiste hospital is located there, well known because it was the only to stay open during the war. Several of our RCI missionaries work there. Ferké is also the cross-roads between Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire), and Bamako (Mali) - 3 large capitals.

Glenn and Linn Boese live in Ferké . Glenn works at the hospital, and Linn has been working for over 30 years to learn the Nya?afolido language, and now translate the Bible into this language. They also teach Nya?afolido literacy. Linn grew up out here, first in Congo, and then in Ferké , at the hospital where her dad was a doctor. Glenn and Linn raised 3 kids here who are now back in the US.

Nya?afolido is a local language, part of the Senoufo language group. Originally from Mali, a few hundred years ago, they came down into Cote d’Ivoire. Legend has it, they were chased into the mountains. They hid in a cave, and a porcupine covered the hole, so they stayed there 3 days and nights before a deer put its hoof through the blockade and they saw the light of day. They were told to find somewhere with 3 rivers and 3 elevated places - modern day Ferké . Ny?afolido literally means “the language of the people who came out of the mountain.”

The story:

About a month ago, Linn contacted me to ask if I could come up to Ferké to help paint a mural of the Nya?afolido alphabet. They have a 50 meter long wall outside their mission center, situated in front of a public square. I jumped on the chance to paint, as I haven’t had many outlets for this passion of mine in the past year. I also jumped at the chance to spend time with Linn and Glenn. They are the type of people who fill you up to spend time with, soaking in their stories and the passion they have for their work. Before we started the mural, I had the opportunity to spend a night in a local Nya?afolido village, where Glenn and Linn have done language research, built a church, and found a family in the past 30 years. Ivorians have amazing hospitality, and I certainly felt like family.

As I took my bucket bath under the setting sun and then sat on the grass, watching the stars come out, one by one, I thought, “Stephanie, you are so far from home.” That day, I had been coming to grips with the fact that life isn’t about my dilemmas like where to go to grad school or what to do with my life. God’s far more concerned with how close I am to Him than where I go or what I do. It’s the motive He looks at. And as I was sitting there, surrounded by a chorus of crickets and the deep black of night, I felt the depth, the profundity of the fathomless God that I’ve believed in since I was a little girl. He began to fill me with a peace that cannot be measured.

On Saturday morning, we started the mural. Children trickled in and stayed there for hours, watching how we put pictures on the walls with a strange liquid most of them have never used. They were especially mesmerized by the mixing of paint. After the first day, I had to warn them all, in French, that if they touched the wall they would most likely die, because it was toxic. There is a partial truth to this - because it was oil paint and we used gasoline to wash off the brushes - but it was mostly a lie. A few boys took it upon themselves to spread the news, in Jula, for the kids who didn’t speak French.

Women would stop by, immediately recognizing their language, and light up with excitement as they saw a picture (a shirt, for example) and recognized the word below it, “burugo”. Not only did they feel pride in seeing their language written on the wall, but they could read it. A muslim man named Abraham came by, testing Linn on her Nya?afolido comprehension, asking things like, “why are you doing this?” or “why does it matter?” He said he would come back on Monday to pick up a copy of Genesis to learn more about his namesake, and he did. Others asked about the literacy projects, and it became evident that this mural would be a huge advertisement for their mission, as well as a betterment for the community. Countless women would stop by on their way to market, with basins full of vegetables or baskets on their heads, and men would pull up on their motorcycles, just to say, “C’est jolie!” (it’s pretty!) or “C’est bien fait” (It’s well done.).

We worked from 7 am until 6 pm with a break for lunch, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, then for 3 hours Wednesday morning, and it was completed! A title page and 24 letters later (each being 6 feet by 6 feet), we had covered the wall. There were 8 of us in all: a 5 member short term team from Michigan (Courtney, Sarah, Robert, Matt, and Phil), Linn, and I, then Beal - an Ivorian who helped us with cultural color choice, paint mixing, brush cleaning, and communication. I found myself as a foreman of sorts, often the one who translated for Beal and other Ivorians between French and English, mixed colors, and, with Courtney, drew the mural on the wall. Looking back on it, I call it the “Mural miracle”, because we did not think it could be done in such short of time. Yet, on Tuesday night, we found ourselves nearly at the end. I turned to Beal and asked if he thought it could be done by dusk, and he said “avec de courage,” (with some courage). We finished with fresh energy the next morning.

Thursday morning, I sat in a Bible study with Linn and the men who work in her translation office (all Nya?afolilo). We read Psalm 27. I sat with men who have faced much harder lives than my own, yet we could all relate with a psalm that calls God the “stronghold” of our lives, (“notre fortress”, in French), whether in the face of sickness, sorcery, or war. Looking back on the past few weeks, I didn’t face any of these (except a minor case of strep throat), but I can see how I wasn’t focusing on Jesus - the only thing that is unchanging in my life. I looked forward in the Psalm to verse 8: My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. I have been trying so hard to figure out all the little details, that I stopped doing this.. And then my heart cried out for patience and confident assurance in exchange for anxiety. I want to be a woman who trusts whole-heartedly that God is my stronghold. The whole point is that I seek His face, that I focus on Jesus and Him only. He said that He could destroy the temple and rebuild it in 3 days (which He did), He can move mountains (Matt 21:21), and now I know that He can make a mural happen in 3 days. I have no reason not to believe Him when He says: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.” (Psalm 32:8).

Here’s some pictures from Ferké :

pictures from the village

courtney, linn, me and sarah

Here is the mural!

beal