Dahra, Senegal
Weekly Market Central to Ministry Success
Some of the crowd is clustered into groups, huddled around animals they have chosen to sell. Others are wandering among the animals, looking with skeptical glances. Their turbans and robes add color to the drab, sandy landscape. It is noisy as business deals are discussed and stray animals are called back. There are goats, chickens and cattle for sale. A booth of freshly slaughtered meat creates a stench. Women sit under makeshift shelters, seeking shade and selling containers of fresh milk, spices and homemade crafts. This is the Dahra market, where it is rumored two billion CFA (four million dollars) are exchanged every week. This is the weekly event that puts Dahra, Senegal, on the map.
After seeing the market, Dr. Ousmane Soh was convinced that Dahra was the right place to begin his medical ministry. He was eager to provide services to his native people, the Fulani, although as a nomadic herding group, they are difficult to track. But with the market, Dr. Soh had discovered a place where the Fulani consistently gather.
The clinic where Dr. Soh works and lives is painted bright yellow and red. A large dirt courtyard will one day host a veranda with shady places to sit. The clinic has an exam room and a place for inpatient care. Bags of saline hang from nails on the wall, their IV lines connected to two patients suffering from malaria and dehydration. The hallway’s benches are crowded, and the guard, Alarba, knows who is next in line to see the doctor. Fatimata, the assistant nurse, attends to patients.
It has only been a year since Dr. Soh decided to start his medical work in Dahra. In that short amount of time, he has gained valuable friendships. One friend, Lelle, has allowed Dr. Soh to set up the clinic on his property and asked him to set his own price. Dr. Soh has also gained the trust of the assistant mayor, who has requested to the local government that Dr. Soh be given land somewhere in Dahra for free.
The local director of a local radio station has also befriended Dr. Soh. The radio station first began broadcasting in December, 2005, and it reaches 30 miles. Popular and local music is played on the station, and Dr. Soh has been given some air time as well. For 15 minutes once a week, a program called “The Way of Righteousness” plays on the waves surrounding Dahra. The next week, the program is repeated. Dr. Soh is praying people will hear the program sponsored by the Luke Society clinic and will come to ask him questions. This prayer has already been answered a few times, and Dr. Soh hopes it will be answered many more times.
When asked how many Christians Dr. Soh is aware of in the Dahra area, he says, “I think maybe seven or eight.” There is no church in Dahra, so he travels to nearby Linguere to worship at the home of one of the few Christians. The place of worship is a cement slab with thick sticks supporting a thatched roof. Most of the worshippers sit on woven mats and sing out of thin songbooks. The pastor comes from a distant city and does not speak the local language. Dr. Soh listens intently to the pastor, and then translates for the rest of the believers.
Islam is the dominant religion of Senegal, and the religion is so historical to the Fulani and other tribes that the family ties to the religion are what make conversion so difficult. Converting to Christianity from Islam means risking the entire loss of family. Men could lose their status in the family, as well as their herd or inheritance. Women could be divorced, cutting all ties with both families.
Although conversions are few and far between, it is happening. A few people have come forward to Dr. Soh, accepting Jesus as their Savior. One woman saw the Jesus Film in her native language, Woloff. She also listened to evangelical tapes. “After I heard the Truth, I believed the Truth and asked Jesus into my heart,” she said. It has been nearly two years since she has professed her Christianity. “I was lost before I listened to those tapes. I know it is true, and I will follow it forever,” she says. The woman is a widow with six young children. Her family is trying to force her into marriage, but the man is Muslim. He wants her to convert back to Islam, so she is resisting her family’s push into marriage. “My family won’t accept the fact that I have accepted Jesus. I am a woman, so they just say I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Thankfully, the woman’s family has not kicked her out of the family, but they have made it clear that they are very upset with her.
When Dr. Soh’s two older brothers heard that Ousmane had become a Christian, they visited him at his home. “They asked me where east was, and I didn’t know,” Ousmane says. “They asked me why I don’t pray, and I told them, ‘I do pray, but not like you do.’ They asked me why I changed, and I told them of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of all people, even their prophets.” Dr. Soh explained to them how Jesus lived a perfect life and died on the cross for the sins of the people, and that the only way to eternal life was through Him. “Then my oldest brother asked me, ‘Your father and mother have died and were not Christians. Where are they now?’ I told my brother that it was unfortunate that our parents died without hearing the Good News - that they are not in heaven.” Dr. Soh would not let his brothers go without a challenge. He told them, “You have had the opportunity to hear about Jesus, and you need to change your life.”
Even if the conversions are slow in coming, there are doors opening for Dr. Soh to share the Gospel. Recently, he was called out of the clinic to visit a sick elderly woman. She was lying in a dark hut on a mat on the floor. Her breathing was labored and she groaned with every breath. After examining the woman, Dr. Soh realized that she was near death. The family asked, “Is there nothing you can do?” Dr. Soh realized the Holy Spirit was working among them, and he asked the sick woman to pray out loud that Jesus would come into her heart. When the woman continued with her labored breathing, a family member urgently repeated the phrase, saying the name of Jesus as if it was familiar to her. Although Dr. Soh could not help the dying woman, he walked away from the situation encouraged by the family’s openness to Jesus.
"In Islam, the words ‘church’ and ‘Jesus Christ’ are very threatening,” Dr. Soh says. “They see these Christian words as an influence of the West. But when they see me every day, the way I act, I became less threatening to them.” Dr. Soh realizes this process takes a significant amount of time, so he has learned to be patient in sharing the Good News. He knows he needs to gain the trust of the Muslim people before he asks them outright to accept Jesus as their Savior. In no way is he quiet about his faith, however. Those that enter the clinic know it is run by a Christian physician and that Dr. Soh may ask to pray with them after their consultation.
After being in Dahra for a year now, Dr. Soh has not only earned the trust of many Muslims, he has also gained their respect as a quality physician. People have become frustrated with the quality of care in the government hospitals. “There is a real lack of doctors in the hospitals,” Dr. Soh explains. “For a surgery that would take two days, many people have to wait two years. They will change your appointment date or the doctor will be gone. There are many excuses. An ultrasound could take a month. The only other option is the private clinics, but they are very expensive.”
Although Dr. Soh does not have access to the machines to perform in-depth consultations, many have stopped traveling to the larger cities for medical care. “We have had patients come from over 80 kilometers (50 miles) away,” Dr. Soh says. “We’ve even seen some patients from Dakar who have business to do in Dahra. They tell me that it’s easier to have an appointment with me than a physician in Dakar.”
Because the Dahra Market takes place on Sunday and Monday, the clinic is open Saturday through Wednesday. “Our peak days are Sunday and Monday,” Dr. Soh explains. “On these days, cars from very far away are all coming to Dahra.” When there is an illness in a rural village, they will send people to the roads to stop a car. Since the traffic is heaviest on Saturdays and Sundays to get to the market, most of the rural sick people are coming into Dahra on those days.
Dr. Soh became a Christian and felt called to provide medical care to the underserved in his country when he was finishing his medical studies in Libya. He says, “When I received my calling to go back to Senegal, I felt weak and I kept asking God how I could do it. He gave me Matthew 28:18-20, which says, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ The joy is in the last part of those verses, that He is with me always. It is my job to be here, to be with these people and help them. God will do the rest.”
Laura Eisenga