Samuel Ouedraogo, a pastor from Burkina Faso, discusses his background and the work he is doing in his country. He explains that his father, also a pastor, raised him to serve those in need, and he now leads a social work organization called Word of Hope. The organization focuses on healthcare, education, and farming, with the goal of helping people have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Ouedraogo shares testimonies of lives impacted by their work and discusses the challenges of reaching people in a country with a large Muslim population and ongoing terrorist attacks. He invites listeners to get involved in helping to reach West Africa for Jesus.
Learn More About the Ministry of Sameul Ouedraogo: https://www.paroledespoir.org/
Transcript:
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have a very special friend with me, Samuel Ouedraogo from Burkina Faso. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Samuel Ouedraogo (00:12):
Thank you for having me,
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (00:13):
Brother Samuel, you are from the nation of Burkina Faso. That’s right. And you are reaching many people in the nation of Burkina Faso. Tell me a little bit about your background and how God brought you to the point where you are now.
Samuel Ouedraogo (00:30):
So thank you, Dr. King for having me here. It’s a joy for me to do this broadcasting with you. So my name is Samuel Ouedraogo and I am from Burkin Faso and I live in a capital called Ouagadougou. So background, I was born in a Christian family. My dad is a pastor, but he has a unique childhood. So while he was a child, my grandfather passed away and at that time he was in the primary school. So a few days later, the death of my grandfather, they chase him out from school. So he didn’t get any chance of finishing his primary school. So during those difficult time, the Lord called him into the ministry. So he raised us up with some tools into serving the needed one because he was one of them. So that’s how we grew up as a
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (01:37):
Family. Your father pastors a church in Burkina Faso, and it’s an Assembly of God church. And he has influence in the Assemblies of God throughout all of West Africa here. And so what do you see God doing during this time in Burkina Faso?
Samuel Ouedraogo (01:54):
So the Lord hasn’t done with Burkina Faso and he is doing great things. It’s true that my country is going through difficult time because we are under terrorist attack. So the current president usually say that we are at war against the terrorist, but that doesn’t stop us preaching the word of God. So in my country right now, we have three different ways of showing the love of Christ, of preaching the word of God. The first one is door to door evangelism. The second is crusades in those cities where there is not some issues. And the third one is through social work. And this is what we’re doing. So we have, of course, my dad is a pastor of the Assembly of God, and while he was pastoring the Lord gave him the vision of studying a social work called Para Depo. And within Para Depo, we are able to reach thousands of children, thousand of people for the Kingdom of God.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (03:03):
And so you are helping to lead this social work and you work in several different areas. Tell me about the work that you do.
Samuel Ouedraogo (03:14):
Yeah, so after my studies in the United States, while I was there, I wanted to finish quick my studies so I can go back and help my dad with the ministry because he was very busy with the Assembly of God because at that time he was the superintendent of the Assembly of God, of Burkina Faso and the President of the West African Assembly of God and the Vice President of the entire continent of the Assembly of God. So when I finished my studies, I went back home. So the three areas we
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (03:45):
Work. Now, your studies, you were at Oral Roberts University.
Samuel Ouedraogo (03:48):
Of course, I went to Oral Roberts University.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (03:50):
That’s the same university that I’m a graduate of. That’s, and so you came and got your learning and kept your burning as we like to say at ORU. But what were some of the things you learned during your time at ORU?
Samuel Ouedraogo (04:04):
Oh, I learned so many things. I did like Chapelle, it has brought to my spiritual life to a certain level. And also I took one class called Spirit and Empower Living, and the teacher was President Billy Wilson. And I have learned a lot about the Holy Spirit, which has helped me grow my intimacy with the Lord and also having friends, Christian friends around me. It has also helped me have a solid foundation.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (04:45):
So you went to ORU, then you came back to Kinno Faso, and you started working in the area of social work. Yes. And there’s several different areas that you’re working in. Tell me about those different areas of social work.
Samuel Ouedraogo (05:03):
Our ministry is called Word of Hope in English. And within Word of Hope, we have three different areas. So the first one is healthcare. When it comes to the healthcare, we have a big hospital in the city in the capital of Ouagadougou where we have about 100,000 a year. So the vision over there is to provide medical healthcare to the community while showing the love of Christ to the community. And within the medical center, we have a chaplain every day from 7:00 AM to seven 15, we start the day with a little of devotion and we pray for the patient. So everybody gather the doctors, the patients, and then we pray. And after that, the chaplain will go to the hospitalization rooms and pray for the patient. So we have a lot of testimonies about people who have been healed through the prayers. So that’s what we do.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (06:00):
That’s very interesting coming from Oral Roberts University, that you have that paradigm of ministry because Oral Roberts was one of the first to teach the theology that prayer in medicine should be combined. That we believe in medicine, that all healing comes from God. And God can use doctors, God can use medicine to heal people. But along with medicine, we also bring the healing power of God. And when you combine the power of medicine with the power of prayer to together, it brings healing to people. And so I think this is a very appropriate ministry for a graduate of or university to lead, to go into the hospitals, to pray for people to show the love of Christ. Yes. Okay. What’s the second?
Samuel Ouedraogo (06:45):
So the second is education. So at the education level, we have a primary school, high school and college. So at the primary school and high school, the vision is to make leaders who have the fear of God into their heart for the entire continent of Africa. So we recruit unfortunate kids, orphans kids, displaced children, all over high country. And we take them to our boarding school in where we feed them three times a day. We educate them the word of God, and we also teach them general education. So from age of six, seven years old, by the time they leave, they have a high school degree in their hand ready to go to college.
(07:36):
And at the university level, the college level, the vision of the funder is to give the opportunity of those surrounding countries, Muslim countries, to have a place to pursue their university education within Wago. So that’s what we do when it come to the education level. And then we have farming and agriculture. But before I talk to that, I come to the farming and education. We also have a vocational training center where we teach young girls who don’t want to pursue their general studies. We give them the opportunity to be trained into sewing, hairdressing, and also cooking. And so we train them and then we send them back to their areas so they can be helpful. And while the kids are in the compound with us at the boarding school, we also teach them how to raise pigs, how to raise cows, how to feed them, how to milk the cows, and also how to do gardening. So we teach them how to do vegetables so that when they go back, they can be helpful to their communities.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (08:49):
And so you are working in the hospitals, you’re working in education, and then you’re working in farming and training people in how to raise different kinds of food. And ultimately your goal is to help people to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. And so what do you feel are ways to reach out to people in Burkin Faso? There’s a lot of challenges. Like you mentioned, there have been recent terrorist attacks in Burkin Faso. And so because of that, there’s potential danger. But in the midst of great darkness, Jesus still shines bright. So tell me a little bit, how does Jesus shine in the hearts of people? You have some testimonies of people’s lives who have been impacted.
Samuel Ouedraogo (09:42):
Yeah. Burkina Faso is a country I that I love, and it’s a special country. So as you mentioned, in the midst of darkness, we should shine because we represent Christ in the nation of Burkina Faso. Right now, we have approximately 1 million of people displaced families. So reaching those people through social work will be a good way of sharing the love of Christ and making them disciples because we have those displaced camps that we can go to and help those people don’t lose hope and let them know that Christ can be their helper and that he hasn’t done with them. And also, Burkina Faso is a Muslim country in the sense that more than half of the population is Muslim. So one of the strategy we have is door-to-door evangelism. We will go sometimes to a neighborhood and just knock the door and tell them we are here to shed the word of God.
(10:58):
If they accept, we’ll, shed the word of God. If they don’t, we ask them if they have any sick person in the house, we will pray for them. If they allow us, we pray and we leave. If they don’t, we close the door and we move to the next door. And we have major cities in Castle where crusades, high skilled crusades can be done, where we can have thousands of people gathering of people to share the word of God. So this can be a way of reaching more people in those measure cities. And as you said, we have testimonies. So the founder of Word of Hope has been putting pressure on me to recruit displaced children. And when those kids comes to the compound at the boarding school, they’re terrorized. When they hear a noise, they get panicked. So the work we have been doing is to a lot of prayer counseling and letting them know that this is a safe community. So at the end of the day, we’ll see that they have their confidence back, and that even becoming prayer warriors, praying for their parents, and also doing good at school. So we have a lot of testimonies.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (12:19):
Wow. So as people are listening and maybe they have a heart to help per Keno Faso, maybe they want to help with your hospital ministry or some of the education or social work that you’re doing, what is a good website where they can find out information about you and maybe even get involved, pray for you, even give some funds to help out the people of Burkina Faso?
Samuel Ouedraogo (12:43):
Yeah, we would love to have some help. We would love to have people, Tim, come to Kin AFA and to help us reach the unreached and make disciples for the Lord. So a good website to get to know us will be www do ppo, P-A-R-O-L-E-D-E-R-P-O-I-R mean.org.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (13:15):
Here. Spell that again.
Samuel Ouedraogo (13:16):
So www.paroledespoir.org. And I also have my email address that you can send me an email, which is O ns dot s@gmail.com.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (13:44):
Wonderful. And so I encourage you, if God puts it on your heart to be a part of the ministry in Burkina Faso, I encourage you to reach out, be a part, and get involved in what God is doing in this nation. It’s landlocked in the middle of Africa, really, the heart of West Africa. That’s
Samuel Ouedraogo (14:02):
Right.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (14:02):
But I believe that God is doing great things in Kinno
Samuel Ouedraogo (14:06):
Faa. Yes, yes, yes. So we are looking forward to having Dr. King with a team to help us reach the unreached.
Evangelist Coach Daniel King (14:14):
Yeah. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
