Five young American women, all in their early 20s, are changing assumptions missionaries have of Muslim people.
In less than three months, the women — including Jessica Busko from Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, Birmingham, in Birmingham Baptist Association — had more than 50 professions of faith in Jesus, most by those who had never heard His name before.
“There was a mentality that it takes a long time to reach Muslims,” said two-year missionary Rachel Weigand, noting studies claiming it can take up to eight years. “I came here thinking we would have groups who would listen to our stories but no one would accept while we were here. It would be with the people who came after us.”
One village of Sokoto Fulani people now has 10 believers, including a chief who had only heard about Jesus being a good man before Weigand and her teammate Melissa Woodson came to tell them that Jesus is God and the only way to heaven.
Woodson said she thinks some of the men may have heard about Jesus, a prophet mentioned in the Islamic holy book, the Quran, but she knows none of the women in the village has heard about Him. Yet they believe after hearing the Bible stories.
“It’s God and His Holy Spirit at work,” Woodson said.
She said the chief is still showing interest in the Bible and the stories they come to tell. He asks deep and thoughtful questions that show he really wants to understand and learn.
Weigand told the story of the creation of the world, Adam and Eve and sin to the village chief and his family.
The chief said, “Adam and Eve are the first people, so everybody came from Adam, right?”
They told him “yes,” everyone comes from Adam.
He then said, “So what color were Adam and Eve and then where did the Fulani come from?”
To answer his questions, Weigand and Woodson told the story of the Tower of Babel and how God gave different languages and scattered the population around the world.
The chief understood the story, and it helped to explain how his people came to speak Fulfulde and live in the desert.
Along with statistics claiming it takes eight years to reach a Muslim, other studies say a Muslim man will not listen to a woman talk about faith.
Busko and Sarah Saxon heard all the statistics during their training to become journeymen — two-year missionaries — with the International Mission Board.
The statistics didn’t scare these two young women from moving to the 80 percent Muslim country.
“It doesn’t seem to bother them that we are women,” Busko said about the village where 16 out of the 25 believers are men. “It bothers us more than it bothers them.”
The men gather twice a week to study the Bible, sing and pray. Sometimes Busko and Saxon join them, trying to encourage the village women to participate. But the women are hesitant, thinking they are not smart enough to gather with the men.
So Busko and Saxon spend their time in the villages roaming from hut to hut, playing Bible stories on cassette with a solar-powered radio. The village women stop their work to take turns holding the small radio up to their ears to hear the stories.
The missionaries’ biggest concern is to get the women believers baptized. So far, only the men have been willing to be dunked in the barrel full of water.
The women are afraid they are going to drown.
In this sub-Sahara climate, water is scarce. The only water they see is the few rain showers they get once a year, and the rain comes so swiftly that an area of dry sand becomes a raging river.
They are praying with an older woman who wants to be baptized about the best way to show the other women that God will take care of them.
Giving God glory
Danielle Koepke lives four hours away from her other teammates and was the first member of the Sokoto Fulani team.
She was an answer to prayer. A small church in Kentucky prayed for years for someone to work with the Sokoto Fulani and Koepke answered the call.
The four other young women were the answer to Koepke’s prayers for teammates.
Koepke still doesn’t have a partner, but this doesn’t stop her from getting on her dirt bike to make the 30–45 minute trip to her two villages. She has had four people become believers in villages that until now have been resistant to the gospel.
These young women are outsiders and still sometimes struggle with the Fulfulde language. They know it is not by their words or work that the Sokoto Fulani are coming to know Christ.
“God is proving He is above statistics,” Weigand said.
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