Journey to the Koti People: A story from Annie Bullen

Published: August 16th, 2008

When I left school, I didn’t have many dreams and visions about what the future held for me.  In fact, I had little real idea what I wanted to do.  Even having become a Christian at the age of 16 and being very involved in church, I couldn’t see much further than a husband, a house and possibly some children.  However, I was listening to a talk the other day that credited Lou Engle with saying “it’s God who has the dreams and he wraps them around a man or woman.” 

Julian on the other hand, was much more set up for this sort of thing!  He attended Sunday school and can remember being challenged by the slide shows of visiting missionaries.  He travelled Europe as a child with his dad who was a European sales manager and has many stories of visiting homes in other countries as a result of his father’s connections.

So how do we find ourselves weeks away from leaving the UK for 3 months language training in Portugal followed by a year living with the Koti people in a remote part of northern Mozambique?   Well, I guess it’s back to that dream that God has, which he has so deeply wrapped around our hearts.  And it seems that most of God’s dreams emanate from his love for this world, for every tribe and every nation, and every individual that encompasses.  It just seems that the dream that he has given us involves the tribes and nations a bit further away, not just the ones down our street.

The work that we are going to be a part of was birthed in prayer. Following the outpouring of God in Toronto in 1994, amongst other things there developed a desire to reach the unreached people groups in the world, many of whom had never heard of the name “Jesus”.  Back in Osaka, Japan, a young church with a heart for mission, spent hours in prayer, calling for God’s heart for the world, and then for Africa, and then for this small folk-Islamic people group they had identified, called the Koti.  Now many years later there are up to 100 small bush churches, many thousands have been baptised, or “washed”, as they call it, and God continues to move in an amazing way.  Also integral to the story are an Englishman and his Dutch wife who have given 10 years of their lives to first putting the Koti language into written form and then translating several books of the bible including Luke and Jonah.

Julian will be coming alongside the group of 12 leaders, “hanging” with them, eating with them, talking through their questions, praying with them and no doubt learning a huge amount from them himself.  It is so challenging to realise how much they have already experienced of God. We go knowing that we do not have the answers or the right way of doing things.  We go armed simply with the love of God.  I will be focused on where my heart lies which is towards young people and prayer - in any country. This may include teaching some of the young people English.

The story of Mozambique has been a traumatic one over the centuries having been plundered by Arab traders and then the Portuguese who came for the ivory, gold and slaves. Mozambique is currently amongst the very poorest countries in the world with average earnings per capita in 2005 estimated at $335. It has only seen stable government since the early 90’s and continues to suffer from natural disasters such as floods and cyclones as well as dealing with the inheritance of a long civil war which left not only numerous landmines but obviously divided communities.

We will be working in Northern Mozambique based in Angoche which was once an Arab slaving port. The indigenous Koti people rely on fishing and agriculture for survival. The island communities have suffered from the consequences of global warming and rising sea levels with one of the islands called Buzu being washed away, leaving 350 people homeless. A small school on the island was destroyed and then in March of this year the area was hit by Cyclone Jokwe which took 300 homes. As well as the mentoring and training of the Koti leaders, we will also be helping target relief and development funding, and it may be that we will be able to help with the building of some further island schools.

But the main thing will be to serve as we are not there to take charge but rather to empower and see the Koti people freed to become all that God has planned. Prayer will continue to be an incredibly important part of this story and platform upon which to work from on a daily basis.

Why us?  Well, perhaps one of us is a relatively obvious candidate, but the other –I often joke that it’s God sense of humour that he looked for the most unlikely person.  But this is who I find God to be, the God who takes the ordinary, the unqualified and because he is extraordinary allows us to be and to do extraordinary things.  

For more information, to see how you can join us on our journey then visit www.kotijourney.wordpress.com
 

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