During Ramadan, we are praying each day for different groups in the Muslim world. We would love for you follow along with us on the blog and on social media @the_global_mission. Here is today’s story.
The Dendi in northern Benin
Benin in West Africa is not a Muslim country, but the Dendi in the north of the country are 99.93 % Muslim. They number about 310,000 people. Among them are only very few Christians. There is no church where Dendi is spoken.
Most Dendi follow a form of folk Islam, mixing elements of orthodox Islam with their traditional rites and religious practices. The Marabouts, religious teachers or holy men, teach Islam as well as ancient customs and are healers and contact persons to the spirit world.
The rural steppe areas of Northern Benin are home for most Dendi. The structures of families and villages are very fundamental for their life in this region, making it unthinkable for seekers to break out of this system in order to follow Christ. That’s why finding ways to spread the Gospel and establish fellowships of believers within these structures is so important.
The New Testament and some audio and video materials are available in the Dendi language, but most are unaware of their availability. In the summer of 2024, 140 evangelists swarmed the city of Djougou, where tens of thousands of Dendi live. With many of them from neighboring people groups, they worked in different quarters of the city every day for three weeks. They wanted to find houses of peace, preach Christ to the people there and leave one of 2,000 SD-cards with audio files of Biblical books.
How Can We Pray?
- Pray that the distributed SD cards would be listened to again and again and would cause people to believe in the Messiah.
- That the Dendi would see that Jesus has power over the spirit world.
- Pray that 1000 Dendi would be baptized and 100 home churches established.
