Main YWAM Page, or to YWAM CommunicationsMISSIONARIES IN A Muslim country where a single conversion is a major success are desperately trying to respond to an unlikely opportunity for the gospel - an entire community's request for someone to go and teach them about Jesus.
Although there are only a handful of Christians in Niger, the 100 or so Fulani families at Wer Isenet - a remote desert settlement 500 miles from the capital, Niamey - want to have their own Bible school to learn more about Christ.
The appeal came to Youth With A Mission leader Jeff Woodke, after a member of the nominally Islamic group became a Christian while visiting Niamey on business and told his family and friends about how his life had changed.
Woodke admitted to being skeptical until he made a two-day trek out to Wer Isenet - which, ironically, means "I don't know" in the nomadic Tuareg's Tamasheq language - to check out the story.
"I was amazed when I found out that it was true," he said. "The only thing that wasn't accurate was that I had been told that many of the families were Christians. Actually only a few were, but many wanted to become Christians. It was quite remarkable."
The families are part of the Woodabe Fulani, of whom there are some 700,000 in Niger with just a few Christians. Semi-nomadic, they have traditionally been fiercely resistant to Christianity over the centuries.
The group's new and unexpected openness is in part due to social changes and a recent "general awakening", said Woodke. "In the past they simply moved away from any problems - the bush was vast and wide open. But new farmers push further into the pastoral zone every year and the Woodabe are finding they cannot run from the world any more".
God is at work in the African nation, too, he said. "Missionaries have been working among the Woodabe for many years laying down the spiritual foundation for the awakening now at hand. Now from their patient sewing, we are about to reap a harvest."
Now Woodke is urgently looking for workers to go and live among the Wer Isenet families. "We need them yesterday," he said. "People who are willing to live in a pioneer situation, willing to learn a new language and a new culture and stay on until the ministry is established - which could be four or five years."
Since the approach, Woodke has also been contacted by two other Woodabe groups, one also expressing interest in learning more about the Bible, and the other requesting development help. "Anyone who knows anything about the Woodabe sees this as a miracle."
Woodke founded YWAM's work in Niger in 1989, undertaking a well-digging and development project among a Tuareg group in Abalak, about 70 miles from Wer Isenet.
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