The Evangelical Church
of the Republic of Niger (EERN), a PC(USA) partner church, is
one of the oldest Protestant churches in Niger, dating back
to 1924 when missionaries of the Sudan Interior Missions came
to the country. Registered as an independent church in 1961,
it has approximately 125 congregations and preaching points
and around 7,000 members. It currently operates two primary
schools, two kindergartens, a computer training school, two
literacy centers, and two Bible schools.
Pastor Tanko is one of the few Fulani Christians in Niger.
He has been a pastor with the EERN in the market town of Magaria
for over twenty years. He can speak and read his native tongue,
Fulfude (which doesn’t yet have a completed Bible in his
dialect), and the regional trade language, Hausa (which has
a Bible translation), but not Niger’s official language,
French.
Being literate in any language is the exception in Niger, where
almost three-fourths of the population cannot read. In Pastor
Tanko’s church, the congregants could hear the gospel,
but they couldn’t read it. Pastor Tanko learned to read
and write Hausa at an EERN Bible school as a young man, and
he wanted his congregation and his community to enjoy the benefits
of literacy. So Pastor Tanko began to teach Hausa literacy and
later, Fulfude. “His courses have attracted forty-seven
community members, and once they could read about the prophet,
Jesus, eleven of them accepted Christ as their Savior,”
writes mission co-worker Thomas Johnson. Pastor Tanko’s
efforts have attracted attention from others, and he has been
able to expand this ministry as a result of their support. Now
a trainer is being sent to teach Nigerien students how to provide
literacy training at the Dogon Gao Bible School so that they
too can duplicate Pastor Tanko’s results in their church
communities. |
