The week before Easter, Stephanie Biggs travelled to a country in West Africa* to work with OM’s partner in the Sahel Region. In the midst of a very hot season, skilled and experienced musicians came from around the country to participate in an arts seminar. The musicians were mostly Hausa mixed with some Fulani women, all of whom were Jesus followers who knew the value of traditional music. The Hausa people are usually culturally and religiously Muslim, and our partners in the Sahel see the importance of traditional arts in helping people hear the gospel message in a non-confrontational way.

The seminar focused on helping the musicians see the importance of creating songs and dance that communicate the gospel through the arts as well as ideas on how to do this. They had morning and afternoon sessions for five days that were taught in French and translated into Hausa. The participants were engaged in the topics and asked many good questions that led to deep discussion – sometimes requiring the team to help divert them back to the next topic to be discussed!

A vision for this area is to write, refine, and record some songs in order to establish a Christian radio station. This West African country* is somewhat hostile to Christianity, but not as much as other places, and a Christian radio station could be a good way to reach people with the gospel. Some of the workshop participants also wrote some songs, even though this was not the workshop's goal, but that was an exciting development.
 
Several workshop participants created and presented action plans at the end of their time, outlining what they could do with the content they learned. Inspiro was also able to build a good relationship with those working with OM Sahel, and we are excited to see how we can partner with them in the future.

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray that God opens doors for these partnerships to move forward.
• Pray for people’s perseverance in this region, as it has been and will continue to be hot for some time.
• Pray that God would continue to show the local musicians the value of the local arts and create opportunities for them to share about Jesus through their art forms.

We cannot wait to see how God continues to work in this area of West Africa!
 
*Name not included for security reasons