Shomog's Leader

Sarah and Jessica were two Journeyman that lived and worked with the Sokoto Fulani in Niger. Their town, *Tuss, is about 6 hours from where I live in *Kondike.
Sarah and Jessica’s terms ended last January and they said goodbye to their villages and headed home to America; Sarah to Seminary and Jessica doing a third year with the IMB and working with a church doing recruiting for WA in Louisiana.
During Sarah and Jessica’s time here they had volunteers that came to work with them last summer. One of the guys that volunteered for the summer was a member of the church that Jessica was apart of for her one year of service in America. As Jessica and Daniel got to know each other the Lord began leading them in a new direction towards a relationship and they are getting married in November. But because Journeymen aren’t allowed to date while serving, she had to resign from her position. They have a desire to come back to WA and serve as career as soon as they can be appointed.
This summer Daniel came back to work with the Tuareg people near Niamey leaving Jessica in the states. He lived in a village for almost three months until last week when Jessica and another girl, Sawyer, from their church in Louisiana, flew over to do a mission trip in Tuss. Melissa and I were both in Niamey during that time because it was right after ADVANCE. We picked them up at the airport the same night that we took Mike and his whole family to fly out for their six month stateside assignment.
Daniel was really excited about seeing Jessica since it had been almost three months! They are really cute together too!
Jessica, Daniel and Sawyer left on a bus for Tuss early last Wednesday morning. Melissa and I headed to my house and Melissa stayed the night with me and headed home to *Danji.
I took a bus on Friday to Melissa’s house and her and I left on Saturday morning for Tuss to be with the others for a couple of days.
Monday morning we got up and the five of us headed out to *Shomag planning to visit with the people. If they chose to let us… and so here goes the story…


There was a *Hausa1 man that lived in Tuss that had become a Believer when he heard the gospel from missionaries living there a while back. He spoke pretty good English and found out about Jessica and Sarah living in Tuss.
One day Hausa1 came to Sarah and Jessica’s door. He told them of a village called Shomog that had Fulani men that were meeting and worshipping with a *Hausa2 man. Hausa1 wanted the girls to go and meet with these men.
The Hausa2 man in Shogom had accepted Christ a few years earlier when missionaries came and shared Christ in his Hausa village. This one particular man learned Fulfulde and began sharing Christ with the Fulani in Shomog just next to his Hausa village.
The girls agreed to go and check it out and were excited about what they would find once they got there.
Jessica and Sarah left one day for Shomog with Hausa1. The girls wanted to meet the men that were worshipping. In Shomog that day 17 Fulani men made open commitments to follow Christ. They said that the man they had been worshipping was who they wanted to follow and change their lives to model. Hausa2 from the town next to Shomog went with them and the girls did Storying Trainers For Trainers (ST4T) with the men. The girls had been trained to do ST4T while in America. (It’s almost the same thing that Alyson taught my group while we were at ADVANCE.) 12 out of the 17 men were baptized right away! The others had been saved and baptized a couple of years earlier when Hausa2 had shared Christ with them.
They continued to do discipleship with the men, going through the book of Luke. On occasion Mike would go with the girls out to Shomog as well. The girls then lived in the village for days at a time and for a long time the women in the village were not involved with any of the teachings, storying or discipleship. They were friends outside of the discipleship group but not included in it. A while later a few women started coming and accepted Christ but had not yet been baptized. The week that the women were planning on being baptized something tragic happened…
There was a married couple that had both accepted Christ. The man was one of the five that had been saved a few years earlier when Hausa2 came to their village and shared Christ with them. This Fulani man became the “leader” for all the new Fulani Christians within Shomog. Leader was strong in his faith and committed to Christ and the stories within Scripture that were told to him.
Leader and another Believer left for Lagos, Nigeria to look for work. While the two men were down there Leader got sick and didn’t have the funds for medical care. They thought it best to begin their trip home because he wasn’t getting better. They were almost home in Hausa2’s village when Leader died leaving his pregnant wife and four children behind.
When someone here passes away the people bury them right away in the town or on the road where they died. But the Hausa people in Hausa2’s village refused to allow Leader to be buried in their village. They said that he was a dog because of his faith in Christ and a Fulani so he didn’t deserve to have a proper burial. At that point a few men from Shomog took him back to his home to be buried there.
Soon after Leader’s death the 16+ Shomog Believers began doubting their faith. The men and women alike said that they didn’t want to follow anymore because of the way Leader was ridiculed after his death. They realized how they were viewed in the eyes of others and didn’t want to be treated like that. They also said that since the girls weren’t giving them food and items they weren’t getting anything out of it. The villagers ask that Sarah and Jessica not come back to the village ever again.
Heartbroken the girls honored the desire of those in Shomog until the end of their term last year. They returned to tell them goodbye and let them all know that they wouldn’t be back.
The people in Shomog gave them the cold shoulder and they were not welcomed by anyone. Anyone except one Muslim man and a lone widow that had grown to love Jessica and Sarah. Brokenhearted and suffering over the death of her husband the widow welcomed Jessica and Sarah with open arms.
With prayerful hearts for the people of Shomog, Sarah and Jessica left Niger not knowing if they would even see any of those people again.
Yesterday, the five of us piled in Melissa’s vehicle and headed to Shomog. We had spent a good amount of time on Sunday morning in prayer for this trip and then again on the road out there. What would we find? How would we be treated? Would we be spoken to or run out of the village that Sarah and Jessica had invested so much of their Niger lives in?
As we pulled up a few people from all over came and welcomed us with beautiful smiles and kind welcoming words. One of our first greeters was a little old lady that didn’t even reach my shoulder. Then we were welcomed by identical twin sisters in their 70’s or 80’s.
Jessica was then taken by the hand to a nearby hut where an old blind man used to live. When Jessica and Sarah had first come to Shomog the old man could see but developed such bad cataracts that by the time the girls left he could see nothing at all. The people informed her that they had taken him to the hospital and he had been given surgery and could see! Sure enough, the old blind man was walking around when we got there he greeted Jessica with a warm handshake and big smile.
The people were friendly and open but Jessica wanted to find out if they were following Christ or Islam. She was hesitant to ask in front of any others so she kept quiet until we got back in the car with one of the previous Believers. He was going to take us to the field that his two wives were working it so that Jessica could see them.
She leaned forward from the backseat and ask the man, “Who’s road are you following now?” His reply was, “I’m not worshipping anyone in any form and neither are the others.” Shocked, Jessica asked, “As if there is no God at all?” He sat silent for just a moment and answered with “Yes. We left the road of Issa”.
“Why?” Was all Jessica could think to ask at that point. The Fulani man then answered, “because we didn’t like it and we wanted to walk away.”
The conversation ended then and I sat back and went over all of it in my mind again and again. What would make people walk away from something like that? Their faith appeared to be so strong at one time, so would the death of Leader cause them to back away and let go of the only thing that was stable in their lives?

We all left with heavy hearts over their lack of faith, but had a reason to smile because of their warm welcome. There are no missionaries at all living in Tuss at this point. Mike and his family will be back in January or February. Please pray for the people of Shomog that they will turn back to Christ and desire to walk down His road as Leader did.