Kayes, Mali
Providing Care for the Wandering
When Luke Society Director Indielou Dougnon’s grandfather accepted Jesus, it was neither an easy decision, nor one that he took lightly. As part of the Dogon tribe in southeast Mali, his heritage was steeped in animism, a traditional religion which includes fetishes, curses and hexes. Change was not welcome, and he soon saw all of his friends and family turn against him. Even his three wives left him. In his commitment to Christianity, he burned all of his animistic belongings, which meant nearly everything. “It was very difficult for him,” said Indielou.
God’s faithfulness through the generations is evident in the Dougnon family. Indielou is a third generation Christian, and he is working to pass it on to whomever he meets. And with the help of the Luke Society, he is meeting many people that need to know the Lord.
Mali is located in West Africa and is about twice the size of Texas. There are 11 million people living in Mali, and the median age is 16. The average life expectancy is 45 for males and 48 for females. A United Nations report has listed Mali as the fourth least livable country in the world for 2003. One reason for this notorious status is because Mali has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world at 119 infant deaths per 1,000. Mali is also on the UN’s list of least developed countries based on a Gross Domestic Product below $900 per capita, a low quality of life and its economic vulnerability. An even more devastating statistic in Mali’s profile is that only one percent of the population is Christian.
Indielou feels God has called him to help those people who make up the statistics mentioned in the United Nations reports. Teaching health education to community members is reducing the number of deaths from the prevalent infectious and parasitic diseases. Providing vaccinations to infants far from the government programs’ reach is fighting the infant mortality rate. And those who receive help from Indielou also hear about Jesus’ love for them.
Indielou’s work is focused on the Kayes region in western Mali. He is working among the Fulani, Soninke and Black Moor tribes. These nomadic tribes live in small communities scattered throughout the sahel, a grassy area stretching along the southern part of the Sahara desert, usually many miles from each other. There are no roads, and whatever paths have been worn into the sun-baked soil are destroyed during the rainy season. In order to reach the villages, Indielou must ask villagers to guide him to the next community. They seem to know at which tree to make a right turn and which bush to stay left of.
Indielou is one of the very few medical resources in this area, and he is making an impact among these predominantly Muslim people groups. As a Christian, the Muslim believers are cautious of Indielou’s intentions. He has made it known that he will provide medical care to anyone regardless of their tribal or religious background. Missionaries with Christian Reformed World Missions in the Kayes region have partnered with Indielou to help support his mission. They have witnessed to Indielou’s impact, “He is God’s winsome ambassador of healing in that that remote area which has never heard of the love of Jesus.".
Indielou focuses his ministry on traveling to small villages, giving vaccinations to women and children who otherwise wouldn’t get them. He travels by motorcycle with a thermal cooler on the back, carrying vaccinations to those living far into the desert. The cooler on the back of his motorcycle keeps live vaccinations cool until they are injected. He is providing vaccinations for measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus, tuberculosis, yellow fever, hepatitis B and polio.
The government of Mali has made an effort to distribute vaccines, but its efforts are not reaching the needy people living in the hamlets. In order for Malians to get government vaccinations, they must travel to a government clinic in the larger cities. For those living in distant hamlets with no means of transportation, this is nearly impossible. To add to this frustration, the government has also recently made changes in their vaccination policies. Vaccinations previously were given from birth to five years of age. Now, vaccinations are only given to children from birth to 11 months. This shortens the time span for parents to bring their children into the city.
Many of the people Indielou works with are refugees from Mauritania. “They have no health care system, and they are traditionally nomadic, so children’s inoculation programs are virtually unknown to them,” said a CRWM missionary. Malian government rules say those wanting to be vaccinated have to stay in the same place for eighteen months to get the whole series of shots. Since the Fulani are nomadic, Indielou goes where they are. “That's exemplary ministry to nomads,” the missionary says.
Although the vaccinations are helping to diminish the number of those infected with diseases, Indielou continues to stresses health education as a primary factor in his work. “Health education plays a very important role in public health because many diseases exist because of lack of information, lack of faith and lack of sanitation and hygiene,” Indielou says. “Teaching people about diseases will enable us, the Luke Society and the population, to prevent more sicknesses. Health education enables people to be involved in the process of being healthy: sanitation, cleansing all areas, drinking good water and knowing the importance of prenatal consultation.”
Being a Christian in this predominantly Muslim area presents interesting challenges for Indielou’s ministry. “For this population, the Bible and Jesus are considered as past history and we must not come back to it,” said Indielou. “People don’t believe Jesus is God’s Son. They don’t believe that His blood cleaned our sins. The population has a sort of satisfaction with Islam.”
The CRWM missionaries say they share Indielou’s assessment of the people. “Muslims have a certain negative idea of the word ‘Christian’ based on what they’ve been taught and based on what they know of the history of Muslim/Christian relations,” said Michelson. “They do, however, have a positive view of Jesus.” For this reason, the handful of Christians north of Kayes goes by the name of “followers of Jesus.” Jesus is seen by Muslims as a prophet who had great healing power. “Somehow it seems appropriate to me, then, that the Luke Society’s Indielou Dougnon is a well-known healer and follower of Jesus,” they said.
Indielou takes encouragement in the influence his medical care is having on the people. “As a follower of Christ, I notice that the Muslim population appreciates our presence and our work among them,” Indielou says. “The Muslim people are very grateful about the sincerity, honesty and good behavior of Christians. This population trusts Christians.”
In the region north of Kayes, there are only six or seven believers. “Unity isn’t just a theory up here,” one of the CRWM missionaries explains. Indielou makes an effort to identify with the few Christians. He spends a good amount of time training Haasel, the village chief of Aasum, to be a health educator. “Indielou is a great encouragement to those believers who are very isolated from other followers of Jesus,” says the CRWM missionary.
Recently, Luke Society supporters raised money for Indielou to build a central clinic. “We will use the clinic to help this population to improve the living conditions and the level of health by offering health care on behalf of Jesus by sharing the compassion and the love that Christ has put in our hearts for the sick people,” said Indielou. “I feel really good about having a good building to better help the population that suffers.” The clinic will be located in Aité, a Soninke village located north of Kayes, close to the Mauritanian border. Most of the 2,000 residents of the village are of the Soninke tribe, and nearly 1,500 people live in the area surrounding Aité. All of them are Muslims.
Indielou is looking forward to opening the clinic to these different tribes who have otherwise not had clinical health care available to them. “All the patients and anybody who needs our help to improve their health conditions can use the clinic,” said Indielou. “There will be neither discrimination nor segregation.”
The commitment that Indielou’s grandfather made three generations ago is now reaching across Mali. And Indielou is grateful for his Christian heritage. “I have learned through this ministry that the Lord is love and assists us in all our activities,” he said. “Whatever problems we face, the Lord is ready to help us. He is the God of faithfulness.”
*Statistics about Mali were gathered from the CIA World Factbook, the US Census Bureau International Database, and the 2003 Human Development Report, United Nations.
Laura Eisenga