Contents
Goal
To gather together in order to pray for the Songhai People and your volunteer team.
Instructions
On the following pages you will find a recipe, devotional, prayer points, and fictional story. Have someone host the meal, and others to guide discussion of the story and lead the prayers.
Dinner Guide
If you really want to be authentic, you should cook this outside in 100+ degree temperatures over an open fire… When eating this dish in our home, we start with a green salad and have fruit for dessert. The Songhai would add neither of these.
Rice (“Mo”) and Black-eyed Peas (“Dunguri”)
Pot 1: cook rice according to package directions to obtain about 1 cup of cooked rice per person.
Pot 2: cook black-eyed peas according to package directions to obtain about 1/4 - ½ cup of peas per person.
Pot 3: chop 1 medium onion (“albasan”) and fry it in about ½ cup of oil (“ ji”) till slightly black (but not burned).
To serve: Layer first the rice, then the drained peas, and top with onion/ oil sauce. Salt to taste. Often it is topped with a powdered spice mix (“yaaji margu-margu”) made of powdered, roasted peanuts (“damsi”), dried onions, chicken bouillon cube (“maggi”), garlic (“tafarnuwa”), salt (“ciiri”) and dried, hot peppers (“tonko”).
Alternate recipe: Sometimes women cook their rice and peas together, seasoning it with a small chunk of market soda (“soso”) which turns the dish a dark reddish purple.
Devotional Guide and Prayer Points
In many ways “The Story of Ibrahim” tells of the life of most Songhai. For hundreds of years, they have lived under the Muslim religion that dominates their homeland. Their practices of sorcery, charms, divination, and demonic possession have increased fear and hopelessness in their daily lives. Now, they have become well acquainted with hunger and disease, as their lands are ravaged by continual drought. By reading and meditating on the story of Ibrahim, you will easily see four areas of great need. After reading the story, meditate on the verses, and focus on these needs, aided by these following prayer points:
Songhai Women and Children
As always, the weakest ones in a culture suffer the most during crisis. As men have lost the ability to provide and have moved into cities looking for work, many women and children have been left behind, suffering the brunt of hunger and drought. Please pray for:
- the women who have been abandoned and are trying to provide for their families
- mothers who have watched their children die from hunger and disease
- children that have never known the joys of childhood who scavenge and work along side family members, trying to stay alive
- women and children who have been taught they have no place in religion (as it is the man’s duty in the Muslim faith and African culture)
- Meditate on Matthew 11:28- 30.
Physical Needs of the Songhai
It is hard to underestimate the physical needs of the Songhai people. Most of what we consider as essentials, the Songhai do without. Food, adequate drinking water, clothing, and medical care are elusive luxuries in this land of want. Please pray for:
- well-trained medical providers and medicine to meet the health needs of the Songhai
- sufficient rains to fall to provide crops to feed the people
- increased drinking water supplies so that villages will have adequate water
- volunteer and long-term workers to respond to current job requests that will minister to the physical needs of the Songhai
- Meditate on Matthew 5:6.
Spiritual Needs of the Songhai
The Songhai live under the curse of generational sin. The lack of God’s provision is evident in each area of their lives. Only when the Songhai come out of the darkness of false religion into His redeeming light will their lives be changed. Please pray for:
- the encouragement of Christian missionaries that work among the Songhai
- the translation efforts under way to provide the Scripture in the Songhai language
- the Jesus Film that is in the process of being produced in the Songhai language
- the Holy Spirit to move in the Songhai people, leading them to hunger and thirst for His salvation
- Meditate on John 14:6.
Songhai Believers
To become a Christian in the Songhai culture is to go against everything that one has ever been taught. Becoming a Christian in the Songhai culture will assure ridicule and persecution by friends, family members, and one’s community. To become a Christian in the Songhai culture takes great courage. Please pray for:
- those who have received Christ as Savior and are being persecuted at this time
- those believers who have crumbled under the pressure of their culture and have gone back to the Muslim faith
- those who are ready to follow Christ, but are afraid of the consequences of their decision
- the few who have become strong and vocal witnesses to the saving power of Jesus Christ
- Meditate on Philippians 4: 13.
The Story of Ibrahim
by Derek Frank
“Raise the rock, old man. Raise the rock!”
For hours now as he roamed about Niamey, their chant rang in Ibrahim’s ears. He continued to feel within him the weight of the rock, as if it had dropped from the sky in order to crush his spirit.
It had not been a particularly big rock. He had removed larger ones than that from the plot he had for decades tended in his home village.
As Ibrahim continued to stagger through the smoke and noise and confusion of the city, he realized that the rock had been placed there to remind him that he was an old man, a man defeated by a dry well, a relentless sun, and other forces beyond his control. That rock, which he had been unable to raise, would remain there long after he was gone— a monument to his frailty, a marker for his grave. “Raise the rock, old man!”
In the distance, Ibrahim spotted several palm trees planted in gardens of grass. About the tiny oasis was a ring of asphalt within which automobiles honked and blew smoke and continuously circled. “Where there are the trees and grass I might find shade and water.” He determined to make his way to the garden. Covering his mouth with an end of his head cloth, he probed the pavement with his walking stick and moved toward the trees.
When he reached the asphalt circle, Ibrahim stood there for a long time waiting to cross. No sooner would he find a gap in the stream of traffic than it would fill again with automobiles entering the ring. Twice he stepped off of the curb and tried to cross to the garden. Both times, he was chased back to the sidewalk by the blare of horns and the angry gestures of those who would forever circle. Once, as he waited, a coin fell at his feet.
As the sun dropped over the distant river— the same river that he had begun to follow sometime after leaving his village— the green and red eyes of the traffic light blinked less often and grew brighter in the waning light of that long day.
Gradually the traffic diminished. More exhausted than hungry, chastened by smoke and noise, Ibrahim chose his moment and hobbled across the pavement. He clambered over a low, white wall painted with slanting stripes of red and collapsed beneath a tree in the center of the garden.
He lay there for some time, straining to see the stars beyond the branches of the trees. They were the same type of palms that he had climbed as a young man. Then, many years before, in a grove beyond the village of his people, he would shimmy up the trunk of one of the trees and collect the dates that hung in golden clusters. As he picked the fruit and placed it in the sack that soon bulged with his harvest, the single strap pressed harder against his bare shoulder. He paused often to eat a few of the choicest dates and gaze at the fields he had helped tend. From that great height of the palm tree, he could see the village where he was born, where he played with brothers and sisters, where he laughed and raced with them on the backs of donkeys to the well some distance from the grove.
There, before the well, they took turns cranking the handle of the windlass, whose sighs were as those of an indulgent father. How they laughed and splashed there, before the well! He felt once again, the cool mud of the circle oozing between toes, the delightful cold shock of a goatskin of water poured over him by an older sister, who would then scrub him until he stood straight and polished like his mothers’ grain pedestal.
Ibrahim opened his eyes. He knew not how long he had laid there. Still he could not see the stars beyond the arc of the city glow. Instinctively, he reached for the amulet that Jima, the witch doctor, had sold him so many years before. But the token was gone, along with the leather thong that had chafed his neck for so many years. “That token brought me nothing but ill fortune,” he whispered.
It had dried the well of his childhood, withered the last stunted stalks of millet in a field dried and cracked like the soles of his feet. It was the charm, he believed, that had reduced his herd of goats, seized his only son, and caused him to grow lost, as he was, in that world of a city. And now, with its waning power— for he had cast it into a vanishing river— the token had humiliated him a final time and set the others to mocking him. “Raise the rock, old man. Raise the rock!”
The drought that had gripped Ibrahim’s village over three years ago had reduced his field of millet to a few windrows of fodder and caused him to bring first a few animals and then many to market pens already crammed with livestock for which there was little millet to sustain them. Ibrahim and his family had managed to survive the first four dry seasons by the surplus they had laid up in bountiful years. One by one, he sold or butchered the goats of a herd that had once numbered sixty- three.
The well that had served the village for as long as the oldest one among them could remember began to fail. As the water from it took on a reddish hue, the sighs of the windlass changed to complaints. Fights began to break out there, where they had once laughed and sang. Some took to private baths at night and began to draw what water remained in the well under cover of darkness.
As the well failed, so did families. Sons left the village for distant cities. Wives argued over possession of household goods, the apportioning of food, and who would perform what chore. Marriages broke up, and granaries filled with shadows and dull echoes. Before the famine, differences were acknowledged though rarely exploited. But scarcity narrowed eyes as well as stomachs. “Why was he, a Hausa trader, allowed to earn his living in the village?” one might wonder out loud. “Did that Tuareg who insisted upon speaking Tamachek to his children think himself superior?”
As more people left the village, those who remained grew pinched by rumor. Some, like Ibrahim, became short-tempered and mistook the listless stares of hungry children for insolence. When he felt the drought like a fire within him, he would lead his shrinking herd to his parched plot of land, where he would clean a water channel (though the channels had not seen water for months) and strike weeds with is mattock (though there was nothing for the shriveled weeds to choke).
In the villages there were days of sudden, frantic activity, followed by periods of sorrowful lethargy. The gravediggers and fashioners of charms, however, seemed to keep busy. Only after Ibrahim had safely conducted his wife and two young children to the village of his wife’s birth with several months of millet and their remaining five goats did he take to the path that led out of the bush.
For some days he trekked south/ southeast with others from his village near Ansongo. There they parted, the others stopping at Tillaberi, he choosing the longer, more uncertain route toward Niamey. There he hoped to locate his oldest son and to find in that great city a means of supporting his family.
He had expected to reach Niamey before the new moon, but the more he walked the farther away the city seemed. Before long the provisions and coins he carried were gone. He passed through villages where he was surprised to find people who did not understand him. They did, however, comprehend the look and gestures of hunger. In most places, he found some food, but the drought had gripped other areas of Niger as well, and about the countryside, he found turmoil and movement. He did not linger long in any one village. At the hut of one farmer, Ibrahim patted his stomach after a single swipe of rice and claimed to have eaten his fill so that the woman and children, huddled in a shadow of that impoverished household, might also partake of the common dish.
“Must I, who had never before cast my gaze upon the ground before other men, now wander, a crooked man begging for my meals?” The idea of imploring others for coins seemed abhorrent. Until then, Ibrahim had borne pride like the staff he had first carved himself and used to herd his goats. But in the first town he came to, though he searched for a day, he found only grudging hospitality. After wandering about the town, the tempest in his belly finally caused him to halt. There, on that street corner, he watched others approach cars and occasionally return with coins. That second evening he begged for the first time.
For two more days, he lingered in this place. When he collected some coins in a knotted cloth, he approached a rank of cars where, someone had told him, he might find passage to Niamey. From first one driver then another, he learned that the fare he offered was but a fraction of that required. At last, he was directed to a small truck, already overburdened with a great stack of firewood. For all the coins that Ibrahim handed him, the wood gatherer allowed him to crouch atop the insecure load.
Those hours atop the truck seemed like days. Ibrahim had ridden in a truck only once, and then only for a brief time several years before. As the wood truck careened through villages and towns along the Niamey route, he grew sick. At a small town, he climbed off the truck, short of his destination. There he lay among some bushes and forswore further travel by vehicle.
When Ibrahim felt that the world was no longer spinning around him, he began to walk on unsteady legs toward the sinking sun. That night he reached another village and learned that had he continued on the route of the wood truck he would have reached Niamey before sunset. He found food and the companionship of another farmer who made a place for him to sleep.
The following day Ibrahim’s host suggested that he continue walking south until he reached the great river, which he should then follow downstream. After another day of walking, he would reach Niamey.
Although the Niger River was a continuous stream only in its center, Ibrahim gazed for a long time at the distant bank and imagined the force and breadth of that mighty river in wetter years. His hopes soared when he saw the tradesmen that the river supported: the brick makers carrying hoppers of mud from the shore, the tanners who had placed hides on the banks to cure, the dyers with their vats of many colors, the farmers who drew water from the river for their gardens, the fishermen mending nets and repairing their boats.
Ibrahim remained by the river for a day seeking work, so that he might earn more coins and continue his journey on his own terms. He approached the brick makers, but they did not need Ibrahim’s help. He went to one of the farmers, but the farmer had a large family to help him and, besides, he had no money with which to pay Ibrahim. The fishermen and tanners too had no work to offer him.
“But it is women’s work!” Ibrahim reprimanded himself.
"But I am hungry and, besides, work is work!” he reasoned.
His thoughts grew stubborn again. “I was not sent here to do such tasks as will bring dishonor to my family.”
From some distance, he watched the washer men and their mounds of clothing. One of them had even called to him, but Ibrahim had pretended not to hear. “Work is work,” he repeated to himself, in the same voice he used to halt further discussion with his wife. “Besides, I will not beg again… nor will I ride in trucks!” And, with that, he strode down to the bank of the river.
He earned 300 CFA (50 cents) that day. As he pounded and wrung clothing and laid them out upon the rocks to dry so that they formed a vast quilt on that riverbank, he thought not about honor. Mostly he thought about the well of his village, how once it had held enough water so that they could splash one another. He heard the laughter of the washer men and felt the mud of the riverbank oozing through his toes.
While they were collecting the garments, which had dried quickly beneath the strong sun, he cast the amulet away. As the charm skittered in a pond of water and disappeared, Ibrahim felt that he had released himself from the evil that he had foolishly carried around his neck. That night he slept deeply, his spirits raised by the opportunities he now believed he would find upriver.
He arose early -- by first cockcrow -- and set out walking, with the intention of reaching Niamey that day. When he rested, he did so briefly. Sometimes he walked upon the banks. At other times, the water was a thin golden band far below. Always, though, he kept the river in sight.
In Ibrahim’s imagination Niamey was a single point, a destination that could be simply located, like the village well. Although he had already passed through cities, there had always been a single road by which he would enter and leave.
He knew by the increase in activity that he was nearing Niamey or else had arrived. Ibrahim searched for high ground by which he could see the city, but the further he walked the more confused he grew. Cars and trucks moved in many directions. The more roads he crossed, the less he saw and the more tired he became. The remainder of the morning was a blur of noise, smoke, and dust. At some point, he lost sight of the river. For a while, even the sun vanished behind buildings, joined to the sky.
In a plot of ground no bigger than his own field, he saw the beginnings of another building. There many men worked in the sun, carrying stones, hammering, mixing, and assembling the materials upon the earth in a series of adjoining walls. He approached the building site determined to find work.
One man pointed him to another. They were young men, mostly, who seemed to have little time for anything but their immediate tasks. Ibrahim moved about the maze of walls, from one person to another, repeating his desire for a job. Finally, he came to a man smoking as he reclined upon a small mound of sacks. He could not have been older than Ibrahim’s eldest son.
This one seemed to do no work, but was there to watch the others. His clothing was cleaner. By his large belly, he showed the prosperity of that city. At first, he appeared bored, so that Ibrahim wondered if the man had heard him. But as Ibrahim repeated his request for a job, amusement showed in the man’s eyes. Ibrahim spoke a third time, and this drew from the man a grin that showed two rows of uneven teeth.
At first Ibrahim understood not the gestures and expressions of that city.
“See that rock, old one?” the man asked.
Ibrahim turned to where the man pointed, and was surprised to see that many of the young men, who had been working, now gathered about him.
“Lift that rock, old one, and I will give you a job.”
Ibrahim turned again and met the amused gaze of the crowd. He looked at the rock, and then at the rows of uneven teeth of the man. Ibrahim felt for the charm that had hung around his neck.
It was a large rock, but Ibrahim believed he could lift it. As he moved toward the rock, the crowd tightened around him.
"Raise the rock, old one. Raise the rock!” one in the crowd cried. Then others took up the chant.
*****
As Ibrahim lay in the grass beneath those trees, he felt foolish and small and weak. Thrice he had tried to raise the rock. Each time the chanting had grown louder, the rock heavier, and the man’s teeth more numerous. Ibrahim had accepted the coins the man had slapped in his palm— the price for his amusement— but now he wished he had not, and had simply walked away. For the rest of the day the coins had burned in his pocket, that is until Ibrahim dropped them in the hand of another whose hunger, too, had reduced him to begging.
Ibrahim awakened before dawn. Raising himself from the grass, he felt stiff and sore from lying in one position. After retrieving his walking stick, he made his way to the edge of the garden, determined to cross the asphalt circle before it again filled with traffic.
Though he knew it to be the season before the little rains, the city seemed weatherless and absorbed by its frantic activity. Already at that hour, the roar of vehicles had condensed into a steady drone. As he continued to wander about Niamey, Ibrahim peered into the faces of those he passed in hopes of recognizing his eldest son. He thought of his wife and other children and longed to be with them, though they had little to eat. At one busy corner, he paused to cover his eyes against the sting of dust and smoke.
He felt himself to be deep in the city, for the buildings grew even taller, and joined one another in rows. Retreating from a busy intersection, Ibrahim chose a lane that was narrow and contained little traffic. The route was unpaved and covered with a fine dust, which he raised with every scuff of his sandals. He continued down that lane until hunger and uncertainty caused him to pause. Planting his walking stick in the powder before him, he leaned wearily against a wall and shut his eyes.
“Christian, Christian!”
For some moments after he opened his eyes, Ibrahim believed that the jeers were aimed at him.
“Christian, Christian!” The pitch rose and ended in shrieking laughter.
Further down the lane, he saw three boys kicking their heels against the mud wall they sat atop, in time with their jeers. These they directed across the lane, at an arbor made of palm mats and wooden poles. It was the type of shelter he had often helped to erect in his own village, to provide shade during weddings and other feasts. One side of the arbor was open to the lane. Curious, Ibrahim moved toward the source of the commotion.
“Christian, Christian!” The shouts continued, high and unrelenting.
Ibrahim peered through the opening in the arbor and was surprised to see many rows of people seated upon benches. The order and tranquility of that gathering contrasted with the noise and confusion he had passed through earlier that day. The bench sitters -- men, women, and children too -- were neatly dressed. They listened respectfully to their chief, staring intently at him, seemingly undistracted by the chant aimed at them from the wall across the lane. Their chief wore a robe and stood before a tall box upon which was secured a cross.
Suddenly those within the building stood and commenced to clap and sing. For some time their sounds rose above the cries of the three boys. Then they stopped just as abruptly and sat down on their benches, except for the chief, who continued to stand.
“Christian, Christian!” The boys redirected their shrill taunts toward the open doors.
Ibrahim did not like the insolent looks they wore. He watched the dust rise from their kicking heels. Though he did not understand the ceremony taking place within the shelter, he felt something drawing him closer toward its opening. He strained to hear the words of the Chief of the Cross.
“Christian, Christian!”
Ibrahim tightened inside. Turning suddenly, he raised his walking stick and flew toward the boys. In the moment before his stick fell with a great thud against the mud wall, the boys slid from their perch and vanished down the lane.
“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust.” The Chief of the Cross spoke in a voice that was firm and proud. He spoke in Songhai, the language of Ibrahim’s village. Ibrahim moved closer to the shelter.
“For who is God save the Lord? Or who is a rock save our God?”
The Chief stopped speaking. He turned toward the opening in the arbor. His kind face reminded Ibrahim of that of the man he had met in a village earlier in the week, who had shared with him his food and his hut and had pointed him to the river.
As the Chief of the Cross approached Ibrahim, those of the benches turned in their seats and faced the lane. Gently the chief extended his hand. Ibrahim accepted it and followed the chief inside.