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Profile of the Ayizo People
History and IMB Personnel
Jeff and Renee Hale
Jeff and Barbara Singerman
Bill and Margie Belli
Challenges and Spiritual Environment
Challenges
Spritual Environment
How we seek to reach the Ayizo
Prayer
To Show Christ's Love
To Start Work By Invitation Only
Plant Indigenous Churches Through Storying
Give Them God's Word
Apprenticeship in Storying
Literacy Training
Volunteers
Benin is situated on the western edge of the continent of Africa with its beaches lining the treacherous, historical, slave coast. Roughly the size of the state of Tennessee, this former communist nation's population of 6,000,000 speaks 53 languages and is ranked among the most impoverished and unevangelized nations of the world.
An hour's drive toward the lush interior takes you into the heart of the Ayizo people. In small, poverty stricken villages separated by rough dirt roads or foot paths cut into the foliage, live 325,000 Ayizo. Without electricity, running water or the simplest sanitary measures, these hardworking men and women labor long hours under the punishing African sun to carve out a comfortless life.
Malnutrition, malaria, hepatitis, polio, leprosy, tuberculosis, cholera, and typhoid victimize the population. Unwilling to make the desperate sacrifices necessary to purchase health from nurses and pharmacies, most people gather traditional herbal medicines from trees or dig them from the soil to provide relief from disease. Many die. In fear that the newly departed spirit will attack family members with life threatening sicknesses, expensive ceremonies are lavished upon the dead.
Birthdays are never recognized, but the anniversaries of one's death are diligently celebrated.
Homes are built of the soil walked upon by their ancestors. Dirt floors and mud walls covered with thatch or tin comprise the majority of the simple houses. They sleep on straw mats but often move to the ground outside the sun-baked walls on hot nights.
Of necessity turning to the soil to sustain life, their short-handled hoes slice through the heavy clay soil to cut back the savage weeds in an attempt to coax cassava, peanuts, corn and pineapples from the land. Their subsistence farming barely feeds their families and rarely provides the extras needed for constant financial emergencies brought on by sickness and death.
Those apprenticed to a trade struggle to find enough clients to keep their tiny shops from closing. Their centuries old methods produce only the necessities of life. Public education is offered at minimal fees, but most lack the financial resources to acquire more than an elementary education. The difficulties of life in Benin result in a national average income of only $400 a year.
Polygamy rules the tight knit family structure, which is the heart of the Ayizo culture. The family's greatest treasure is children. Children hold the source of security for aging adults.
The culture requires women to feed and clothe their children, thus forcing them into the market places to sell.
Everything in Ayizo life shares a strong invisible bond, which exists as the basis for all they do. The heart of the Ayizo culture is the family, but the heartbeat is Voodoo. Benin is the birthplace of Voodoo.
Voodoo symbols guard fields from theft. Baskets of offerings stand at the crossroads to satisfy the spirit of sickness' appetite. The forger brings his hammer down upon the knife he is forming, next to his idol to the iron god. Whatever is not understood is worshipped. Thunder, pythons, smallpox, twins, and ancestors are among the spirits to be revered. Villages have idols, families have idols, individuals have idols and each requires blood sacrifices. The hunger of these false gods is never satisfied. The costly sacrifices result in perpetual poverty. The reality of Jesus' words, "The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy" is evidenced in the daily lives of the Ayizo.
Drowning in a raging sea of darkness, the Ayizo live in demonic bondage. They are impoverished spiritually, emotionally and physically, beyond hope, and consumed by fear.
The Holy Spirit is at work dispelling the darkness with the True Light.
When missionaries were called in 1996 to minister among the Ayizo, four Baptist churches had been established. A survey to evaluate the spiritual hunger of the people was quickly abandoned. The missionaries were overwhelmed. Every village visited pleaded with them to come back and tell them about Jesus. Now, Ayizo Christians teamed with missionaries are witnessing an evangelical explosion.
The establishing of relationships, the work of prayer, and responding to villages' invitations have formed the foundations to ministry among the Ayizo. One old man recently spoke these words that are the cry of the people, "We know there is a God, we know He has a plan for our lives, but we don't know who He is."
With eagerness the people gather to hear the message brought by the Christians to the village. Sometimes they gather under a large shade tree or in a thatched roofed building. Sitting on benches or logs they listen eagerly to the lessons that teach the characteristics of the True God through Old Testament stories. They learn how sin entered the world and how God set up a sacrificial system for sin, a system they easily understand through their own practices. Then they meet Jesus. Those who embrace His sacrificial death for their sin are radically changed. They, then become the evangelists, zealously telling their family and friends about the Savior, Jesus Christ.
The goal of ministry among the Ayizo is that each comes to know Jesus Christ and becomes intimately acquainted with His Word.
All the Christians among the Ayizo are first generation Christians. Not one trained pastor exists among them. Leadership training events are now being offered in every zone. These are aimed at maturing Christian leaders, but have also resulted in bringing in many from cult groups who are seeking the Truth.
As the Ayizo are caught in an illiteracy rate of 80%, a desire to learn their own language is gathering momentum. They are coming to realize the great necessity of every Christian learning to read so each can be personally in God's Word.
It is harvest time, yet the conflicts the Ayizo encounter in surrendering to Christ are awesome. Fathers threaten daughters with death for following Biblical principles. Families persecute family members for abandoning the Voodoo traditions and dishonoring their ancestors.
The spiritual battle is intense. Only through your prayers can these obstacles be victoriously overcome and the entire Ayizo people won to Christ.
The opportunities for you to serve are boundless! Evangelism, prayer walking, medical clinics, teaching literacy, or providing leadership training are ways in which you can participate.
God says, "I have called you to open eyes that are blind to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness."
History and IMB personnel
Jeff and Renee Hale worked among the Ayizo from Dec. 1992 to Dec. 1994, then furloughed until May 1995. From May 1995 they worked until Dec. 1997, then furloughed until Jan. 1999.
Jeff and Barbara Singerman came to work among the Ayizo from Nov. 1996 to May 1997, left for furlough and returned Jan. 1998.
Bill and Margie Belli arrived May 1997 and will leave in May of 1999.
1. Jeff and Renee Hale
Jeff and Renee Hale, came to Benin in Dec. 1992, in response to the invitation issued by the Benin Baptist Union and the Benin Baptist mission. They settled in Allada, not only because of its central location for their music ministry among Benin Baptist Churches, but for the purpose of beginning new churches in the Allada area. They originally thought they were planting themselves among the Fon, but after living among the people and getting to know the culture, they realized they were in the middle of the Ayizo. Apart from several SIM and Pentecostal churches scattered among the Ayizo, one fairly large Assemblies of God congregation in Allada, and a pervasive Catholic influence, Jeff and Renee found the Ayizo had a hunger for Biblical Truth, and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Until their arrival, no evangelical missions agency had a career missionary presence in Allada.
Jeff and Renee’s work with the Ayizo began with a Bible study on the porch of their home in 1993, which was the beginning of the Allada church. A Bible study in a Beninese home started the Ouegbo church. Each of these groups became storying groups, which then matured into churches. These churches then gave birth to two new groups, Niaouli and Azoue Cada.
The Baptist Center of Allada was operated from 1993 to 1995, and provided training in the storying method, reading and study resources for students, English classes and Bible study courses by correspondence. It served as the secondary location of the Allada Baptist preaching point, before it moved onto its own land and constituted as a church.
The churches in the Allada region, sensing a need for fellowship and networking in order to evangelize the area, formed the Lama Association in 1997.
Leadership training was an important part of the associational activities, as churches in the area learned to reach out into their own communities with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
2. Jeff and Barbara Singerman
Jeff and Barbara Singerman arrived in Allada in November, 1996, specifically as church planters to the Ayizo. Jeff came to Benin in 1991 as a youth worker, to work on the university campus, in the Baptist churches and in schools. Once Benin Christian brothers began taking over the majority of the youth work responsibilities, in 1996, Jeff and Barbara sensed God’s leading to move from the city of Cotonou to live among a World A people group. At that same time the Lord moved across the hearts of each missionary within the Benin Baptist Mission, to focus on Benin’s people groups, and to pray over each of them, individually. Jeff and Barbara shared, “Our hearts were broken over the many people groups of Benin in need of Jesus. We were willing to go, but where? To which one group?”
In April 1996, after hearing of the responsiveness of the Ayizo from Jeff Hale, and how greatly he needed help, Jeff went on an investigative survey of the Ayizo villages, with a young man living in the area, Cyriaque. Cyriaque had a great job as a lab technician in Cotonou, when he heard the words of Jesus preached in one of our Baptist churches that Jesus Christ said “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel.” Mark 16:15 He literally sold everything he had and traveled into a number of the Ayizo villages to teach them about Jesus. When Jeff met him, he hadn’t started any churches, but his message of Christ had made a lasting impression on the hearts of many people.
While Jeff and Cyriaque went into the Ayizo region, Barbara and their children prayed together that God would give Jeff a specific invitation to come work among the Ayizo, if that’s where God wanted them.
Together Jeff and Cyriaque visited eight villages. In one village, Dodji Bata, the people gathered in the shade of a large tree. Jeff shared from Psalm 1 and exhorted them to walk on God’s path. One old man, hunched over with age, with rotting teeth, and homemade pipe perched between his lips, pointed a Jeff and asked, “How can we know how to walk on God’s path unless YOU come back and teach us?”
The invitation was issued!
The Singerman family responded to His invitation and moved to live among the Ayizo.
3. Bill and Margie Belli
Bill and Margie Belli, church planter apprentices, responded to the request written by the Hales and Singermans to work specifically with the Ayizo, in May 1997. Bill immediately immersed himself in the Ayizo language. With a desire to plant indigenous churches through storying and a heavy burden for those bound in Voodoo as initiates and adepts, he reached out. Bill showed them Christ’s love in working beside them in the fields, hauling wood, clearing land along with numerous other activities, just to be with them. The people have responded. His thirst to understand the culture and world view causes him to ask incessant questions of his Ayizo friends.
The Bellis changed responsibilities in 2001 and are now working to reach the 7 million Gbe people that live in Benin, Togo, and Ghana.
1. Challenges:
The Ayizo people, a group of approximately 325,000 people, live in area roughly 100 by 100 kilometers (3600 square miles). Evangelistic churches have sprouted along the only paved road that cuts through the center of their region. But in the bush the people have lived without clear knowledge of Christ. For centuries their faith has been centered in their ugly idol gods of Voodoo, among them the worship of pythons, lightning, the night stalker (Zangbeto), the undead (Kovito) and ancestors. Each exacts a heavy price of slavery to fear and tradition. They impoverish a penniless people with their demands of blood sacrifices. Children are dedicated to serve the idols and spend their lives sacrificing and dancing at deaths and celebrations with the spirit of the idol possessing them. Mud compounds with thatched or tin roofs are guarded by multiple idols, while symbols of the gods they worship hang boldly on houses. Many who turn from the ancestral beliefs suffer abuse, verbally, and sometimes, physically, along with estrangement from their family group. The families fear reprisal from an ancestral spirit when someone from their family turns to Christ.
Catholicism has been in the area for 400 years. Its influence is widespread but syncretistic. There is a Catholic monastery, several large churches, and many little Catholic congregations. Many cult groups, which pervert the Truth of the Scripture, are found among the Ayizo, as well as a growing Jehovah’s Witness presence. All of these produce confusion and misunderstanding of the Truth to the extent that the Voodoo worshippers invoke the Trinity when they perform their ceremonies.
2. Spiritual Environment:
The Ayizo people live in a constant awareness of the spirit world, and are open to hear about any new god. They are also culturally courteous to strangers and curious about the presence of a white person who is attempting to speak their language. Their hunger to know the Truth is real. Invitations from villages, for us to tell them about Jesus, continue to come at an amazing rate. In the first two months of this year eleven villages have issued invitations to us.
A. PRAYER
The primary strategy-methodology for reaching the Ayizo has been PRAYER. While the Singerman's were on furlough from May 1997-Jan. 1998, and the Hale's furlough from Dec. 1997-Jan. 1999, both couples made it their purpose to enlist prayer warriors for the Ayizo. Each experienced tremendous responsiveness in the churches to the challenge to pray. Through the establishment of Web pages, monthly prayer e-mails, the continuation of snail mail newsletters, and the calling by God of a stateside prayer advocate for the Ayizo, God is moving people to pray. We have committed ourselves to communicating with those who write, and to maintaining communication, for we believe if people hear what is happening here in Benin, how God is moving among the Ayizo, and the challenges we encounter in sharing Christ with them, they are motivated to pray, or to pray even more fervently.
God has used e-mail in mighty ways. Our urgent, immediate prayer requests now go out within minutes and a band of prayer warriors are simultaneously raised up to cry out before the Lord. This blanket of prayer has released God's power upon the Ayizo.
We have no doubts that what we see happening among the Ayizo is a direct
result of concentrated, warfare praying. We are deeply aware of the spiritual
battle we are in over Benin. It has been the throne of Satan for centuries.
These people have been worshipping demonic forces and have enslaved
themselves to them. As we pray for the Ayizo we rebuke (Matt. 17:15-21, Luke
4:38-39) and bind (Matt. 16:19, Matt 12:29), in Jesus name, the satanic powers
that blind them from seeing the Truth (II Cor. 4:4 “The God of this world has
blinded the eyes of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the
gospel of the glory of Christ.”), and call upon the Lord to set them free to
respond to Him. The Lord promised us in Luke 10:19 “Behold, I have given
you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of
the enemy, and nothing shall injure you.” Acts 26:18 states "I am sending you
to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the
dominion of Satan to God in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins
and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me." Our
prayer warriors have joined us in praying in this manner. God is moving!
B. TO SHOW CHRISTS LOVE
Love, manifested through servantship, and humility is a key to touching
the lives of the Ayizo. Within the culture of the Ayizo, anyone who has
authority, or knowledge, takes a position of supremacy over the others, in all
situations of life. When they experience Love through respect, through a
willingness to accept them as they are, through a desire to serve them, to
answer their questions and to try to meet their needs, they are
deeply touched. Participation in their lives, in their language, work, joys and
sorrows, and giving a witness at their ceremonies, causes them to consider
Christ.
C. TO START WORK BY INVITATION ONLY
We believe is God showing us where He is already at work. Although we may target an area for evangelism, and may show a film, unless we are invited by the people to start work, we won’t. Jeff Hale said that the only group that flopped was an attempt made in an area where there had not been an invitation.
D. PLANT INDIGENOUS CHURCHES THROUGH STORYING.
In storying through the Bible we emphasize the characteristics of God,
who Jesus is from Adam and Eve to His death and resurrection, and why
faith in Him is the only way. The Ayizo believe in many gods, and must
be led to an understanding of who Jesus is and what He has done for us.
E. GIVE THEM GOD’S WORD
1. Because of the nature of this culture, those who have knowledge keep it to themselves. They do not share it. Their ownership of knowledge gives them power over others. In African indigenous churches and cult groups, this idea reigns supreme. We are offering them God’s Word. The understanding of it is open to everyone. Questions are encouraged and answers given directly from the Bible. The people are starving for knowledge, for Truth, and are excited to have it shared with them.
2. Leadership training, in the local language, is a bi-weekly event, held in three different central localities, and is open to all. We are working with people who are 80% French illiterate. Very few know how to read and write their own language. The leadership training sessions have majored on servant leadership, giving them a Biblical foundation for their faith, and a forum for their questions. It also purposes to develop unity, offer an opportunity for fellowship, and to prepare them to start work and lead new groups.
F. APPRENTICESHIP IN STORYING
We give emerging leaders hands-on training in church-planting through storying so that they can plant churches and train others.
G. LITERACY TRAINING
The New Testament in Fon, which is a sister language to Ayizo, is available.
Due to the great similarities between Ayizo and Fon, Wycliffe has decided that it is not necessary to produce an Ayizo Bible. One of the greatest ways we can help our people is to get them into the Word.
H. VOLUNTEERS
We want volunteers to come and help through evangelistic events, prayer
walking, medical clinics, and leadership training.
What you see reflected here are necessary actions taken in an attempt to keep up with the moving of the Lord. The Holy Spirit has put all this together. It wasn’t us. The Lord has worked through us and used us, buts its His work. There is no way you can devise a model for the work of the Holy Spirit.
Because of God’s grace, not what we have done, nor the methods we’ve used, we are deeply privileged to see God moving across a people group