Source: Christian Aid, April 26, 2018<\/p>\n
A six-year-old girl had mysteriously died and Bwaba tribal leaders [performed] a divination ritual to determine what had provoked local spirits to commit such an outrage. A shadow fell on [90-year-old] Adama [whom] they accused of employing witchcraft to bring a deadly disease on the girl.<\/p>\n
The traditions of the animist village called for him to be expelled for two years to verify his guilt; if he managed to survive in the wilds, he would be declared innocent and could return.<\/p>\n
For more than a month he managed to survive on leaves and grass along with meat that a daring granddaughter snuck to him, and for shelter, he\u2019d attached a blanket to tree branches. But the solitude, the elements and the psychological trauma soon took their toll. Gaunt and broken, he was cursing some rocks when indigenous missionaries spied him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe learned about the love of God\u2026 and decided to follow that God of love who gave his life for the salvation of humanity,\u201d the [ministry] director said. \u201cAll our missionary training centers were praying God would completely restore his dignity. Two months later, the villagers discovered the real reasons for the death of the girl, and that it had nothing to do with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Village leaders admitted they were mistaken in putting blind trust in occult practices and invited Adama to return. He began leading a house church, and three village leaders put their faith in Christ.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were baptized four months ago,\u201d the director said. \u201cThe leaders of the village decided to abandon the divination practices, which had made so many victims. Now four families, including the family of the village chief, praise the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00bb Full story with picture<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00bb You might want to take a look at a photo essay about animism in nearby Ghana, Power in the Blood: Animal Sacrifice in West Africa<\/a> (International Mission Board). The images are compelling and not too graphic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Christian Aid, April 26, 2018 A six-year-old girl had mysteriously died and Bwaba tribal leaders [performed] a divination ritual to determine what had provoked local spirits to commit such an outrage. A shadow fell on [90-year-old] Adama [whom] they accused of employing witchcraft to bring a deadly disease on the girl. The traditions of … Continue reading BURKINA FASO: Patriarch Banned from Village, Comes to Christ<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7888,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7887\/revisions\/7888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}