Dear Friends,

Many of you may have wondered what happened to me, since I have not written for some time. In case you didn’t receive my last message, I completed my service in Sudan in June of 2000. I spent the following twelve months in Pasadena, California, doing research for a new book project. Then at the beginning of June 2001 I moved to Ouagudougo, Burkina Faso. The PC(USA) has sent me here so that I can study French in an African setting. My goal is to complete my French studies by the beginning of May 2002, and then move to Butare, Rwanda, to teach in a small Christian college there.

Are you still with me? You might be wondering how all this came about, since the last you may have heard was that I was still in Khartoum, Sudan. Let me attempt a brief summary of events. By the middle of 2000 it was pretty clear to me that my usefulness in Sudan was coming to an end. Nile Theological College was just then acquiring two new teachers, one Australian and the other a Sudanese, who between the two of them would not only be able to take over my classes and but take on other projects of their own as well. Also, my collection of short stories of Christian life in Sudan, Children of the Sun, was scheduled to be published sometime in the summer of 2000. Because some of the stories place the Sudanese government in a bad (but accurate!) light, some members of the faculty thought that my name on the cover might compromise the school. Not wanting to use a pseudonym, this gave me another good reason for departing. So, not without regrets, I left Sudan. I miss the people and the work that I was doing there, but I’m convinced it was the right decision.

I spent the period from June 2000 to June 2001 in Pasadena working at the Huntington Library on a biography of John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, and the leader of the Puritan migration to New England in the 1630s. This may sound a bit esoteric (as some of friends have not been slow to point out), but I’m confident that the final product will speak for itself. (I hope to complete the book in Rwanda.) I also used the time to explore other employment possibilities, as an instructor in an American college, or as an instructor in one of two African colleges that seemed to have positions available. In the end I accepted a position teaching Christian history at a small Christian college in Rwanda. This was a position that Doug Welch, the PC(USA) coordinator for West Africa, had suggested to me as early as the summer of 1999.

Rwanda is a very small country (easy to miss on a map) in east central Africa, just south of the equator. It is bordered on the north by Uganda, on the east by Tanzania, on the south by Burundi, and on the west by the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). The country is green and mountainous, and sometimes called the Switzerland of Africa. It has a population of about 7.5 million (1992 est.). It is one of the poorest countries in Africa, with most of its people either producing subsistence crops or raising livestock. It is a former Belgian colony, whose official languages are Kinyarwanda and French. English is also increasingly spoken. Rwanda is generally known today as the country that experienced the most unmistakable and horrific example of genocide since the Second World War. In 1994 the majority Hutu tribe attempted to exterminate the minority Tutsi tribe, killing an estimated 800,000 people in a matter of a couple of months. I will be working at Faculté de Theologie Protestante de Butare, a Christian college (seminary) located in one of the places where the genocide was most ruthlessly carried out. The college is a nondenominational Protestant institution supported by Pentecostals, Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians. Forming Christian leaders who will work to bind up the wounds of the past through the gospel ministry is the most immediate task before the college today.

Since the language of instruction at the college is French, the PC(USA) sent me to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, to learn the African version of French before going on to Butane. Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta) is another country that you may have to rack your memories to recall. It is located in West Africa, north of the Atlantic countries of Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire. The south of the country is jungle, the north is desert, and I’m in the middle, which receives about 30 inches of rain a year, but is still a desert city. During the day the temperature is usually around 100 F, and at the moment a permanent cloud of dust seems to have settled on the city. The three major religions here are Roman Catholicism, Islam, and traditional animist systems. However, several Protestant churches have had considerable success in the city, including the Baptists and the Assemblies of God. I’ve been attending a local Baptist church, where the congregation regularly gives great life to a number of traditional Protestant hymns and praise songs, and where the service is conducted entirely in French. It’s truly a pleasure to worship there.

My time in Burkina is now about half complete, and my French is coming along fine, though I still have quite a lot to learn. I hope that you will all keep me in your prayers as I finish up my French course here and prepare to begin my new ministry in Rwanda.

May God richly bless you in the new year.

Bon fete de Noel!

Michael Parker

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 27