More Than a Christian

By an Alliance missionary to West Africa

pati-more-than1For many years I had a Fulani “grandma.” I called her Pati. If she and I had been the same age, we would have been best friends—she was that cool. Over the years I picked up bits and pieces of information, understanding that for some undisclosed reason, her family had abandoned her—her children, her husband, her sisters and brothers. In this culture, to abandon an elderly mother is unheard of.

As Pati began to lose her eyesight and was unable to care for herself, she was shuffled from one home to the next. During her last two years, she spent most of her days and nights reclining on a hard, wooden chair in the corner of her nephew’s front porch. All her worldly goods were either under her chair or in a little pile next to her “home.”

Sometimes when I went to visit, I couldn’t see Pati’s toenails or fingernails because the grunge was so thick. It made me want to cry. Her clothes smelled, and her hair was matted. I would bundle up her dirty clothes (there weren’t many), lead her to my car, and take her home with me. With the help of a friend, we would bathe her, wash and braid her hair, and do her nails while her clothes were being washed. At the end of the day I would return Pati to her chair on the front porch, where she would watch the dark shadows of children playing around her feet.

When total blindness set in and I would visit, I tried to sneak up on her if she was resting under the mango tree. I would tiptoe quietly and slowly sit down on the bench next to her. Within a couple seconds, Pati would get all excited, give a little jump, grab me and say, “Biddo an arii! Biddo an arii!” (My daughter has come! My daughter has come!) She said she could smell me!

It made me happy to give Pati so much joy because I knew she didn’t have much of that. As the months passed, she got weaker, and I kept waiting for someone to come and tell me that she was sick and asking for me. But no one did. Two days after Pati was buried, I heard from a passerby that my grandma had died. It hurt that they hadn’t told me that she was sick, so that I could go be with her. Years before, my daughter had said, “Mama, don’t let Grandma die without Jesus.” But Pati never seemed to understand when I told her that Jesus loved her.

It has been two years since Grandma died. The other day, Pati’s granddaughter, Iliasou, came to visit me. Although the family had abandoned Pati, Iliasou had taken care of Pati while she was dying. She was the one who closed Pati’s eyes. Before she died, Pati told Iliasou to find me after she was buried.

Iliasou came by to visit yesterday. And so we talked. We talked about Grandma, and we talked about Jesus. And Jesus has touched Iliasou’s heart somehow in these two years. She’s no longer the same hard woman she was before. She even has a glow about her face and a soft, sweet smile that she can’t seem to stop. During our time together, Iliasou told me about a conversation her uncle and older brother had this week. They were discussing the fact that Iliasou wasn’t practicing a local tradition. Her older brother was accusing her of following those “white Christians” like Rougi (that would be me) who only take people away from God. But Uncle chimed in and said, “Rougi isn’t a Christian. She follows God.”

In this culture, “Christian” is almost a dirty word. It is a major insult to call someone a Christian. So for Uncle to say, “Rougi is NOT a Christian—she’s a God follower” was the highest complement that he could have possibly paid me.

Let’s ALL be God followers.

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