Traveling in West Africa by public transportation requires patience and endurance. Patience because you often must wait up to seven hours before the vehicle fills with passengers, and endurance because you often have to endure many hours of travel in very uncomfortable conditions. All AFM missionaries in Africa know what I am talking about. Having seven people packed into your five-seat taxi is quite common here, even for long distances. Small public transports are not meant to provide enjoyable travel but to reach a destination.

I have spent three of the past five years traveling through 31 provinces in Burkina Faso enduring sun, rain, wind, dust and all kind of situations, but already our traveling experiences in Benin have exposed me to circumstances I’d never experienced before.
The hardship starts with waiting for the vehicle to load. Most drivers won’t depart until all the seats are occupied, and this depends on the whim of the passengers. There is no scheduled departure time, just a vague idea of when the vehicle might be full and ready to leave the station. They will tell you, “We are going very soon. We just need two more passengers.” When two more passengers board and there is still no departure, they’ll tell you, “We just need three more passengers.” It’s a dance of two steps forward and three steps backward.

In Benin, we quickly came to understand that the number of seats in a taxi had little to do with how many passengers it was expected to carry. At one point, Elmire, Eliora and I found ourselves squeezed into a taxi with five other passengers. With the driver, that was nine people in a five-seat car. And it was a seven-hour trip of over 450 kilometers! Three passengers were crammed into the front beside the driver, leaving him only barely able to operate the vehicle. There were five people in the back, along with bags and buckets. As if that wasn’t humorous enough, the windshield was laden with a considerable quantity of fresh meat, and the trunk was packed with about 20 small goats and topped with more baggage and some chickens. I don’t need to describe how uncomfortable we were on that trip. Nobody had a seat belt, and we worried what would happen to our daughter if there was an accident. We gritted our teeth and counted every kilometer.

A month later, with that painful experience still fresh in my memory, I had to travel to Burkina Faso to pick up some of our belongings. I was very nervous at the idea of doing that trip. I couldn’t have imagined it at the time, but it proved even worse. I have to confess that I nearly gave up on the way. The trip began with the standard overload I had gotten to know in Benin—eight adults in a five-seat car. Then, in Tanguieta, I transferred to a seven-seat minivan that eventually departed with a load of 19 people. The trip was a real nightmare scenario. I became very nervous and irritated, especially when the driver would stop at random intervals and get out of the van, leaving the rest of us packed inside and baking under the hot sun.

To complete the experience, toward the end of my trip there were two occasions were I waited for over 12 hours while the vehicle loaded. The second time, we waited from 4 p.m. until 9 the following morning—17 hours in the car sitting, eating, sleeping, and not moving an inch. I did not have much choice because of the 13 pieces of luggage I had with me. I was angry, disappointed, exhausted and almost sick. But thank God, He is a living God. He knows when to ease our tension and bring joy and fun into our sadness and discontent.

As we drove, I napped out of sheer exhaustion and to escape my discomfort and irritation. I awoke to find we’d stopped at a customs checkpoint. The three customs officers were impressed with the quantity of the load in the small car, and my baggage was the type that attracted their attention. I got out and started talking with the officers, explaining my luggage and work. To my surprise, the chief officer showed little interest in my luggage. Instead, he was very interested in what I do. His questions woke me up, and before I knew it, we’d spent 20 minutes talking about religion. The other passengers gathered around thinking I was in trouble, so they also got to listen in on my brief lecture. The officers asked for some Bibles, and I promised to get some for them. I gave each of them a refrigerator magnet with our family’s picture and information on it and left with joy and amazement. What a God we serve! I was being a Jonah in that car—angry, disappointed and sleeping while God wanted me to share Him in that circumstance with my fellow passengers. I pray I’ll always be conscious of that holy calling (2 Tim. 1:9).

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