By Peggy Itschner
As missions ream volunteers from Splendora, Texas, helped lay a foundation for a school in north central Mali in West Africa, the also laid a foundation for ministry relationships with the Dogon people.
The Dogon are a group of 600,000 people living in the cliff areas of the country. Less than 3 percent of them claim Christianity as their faith.
When the group from Splendora returned in June after having laid the foundation of the building in March 2002, they found that the Dogon people had been working on their school. They had begun building walls and filling in the foundation.
Because of a relationship developed during the previous trip, one Dogon teenager accepted Christ during the June trip.
Assembly lines of volunteers and Africans passed rocks, big and small, to throw into the floor of the three rooms.
The foundation grew stronger as more volunteers from Scottsdale, Ariz. came to share God’s love with the Dogon.
Initially, the groups began gathering stones and throwing them into large piles for the schools.
The Dogon people saw the love of Christ manifested in this group.
During their six-day stay, the Arizona group worked on filling in the floor of the three-room school. In six days, this volunteer team built relationships with the Dogon strong enough to bring tears when they had to leave.
Each team made a great deal of progress, both in building the school and sharing Christ’s love with the Dogon people.
However, much work remains to be done by future teams to finish the school.
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