About the People
About 150,000 Otammari live in Northern Benin and Togo. They are famous for their masonry and their traditional homes that resemble mud castles. Most are subsistence farmers and hunters.
Illiteracy is high among this group. Many people only read French, the administrative language of Benin. Very few can read or write their heart language, Ditammari. Most cling to animism and ancestor worship and have resisted both Islam and Christianity. Each household has a family altar called the fetish, where the father of the household makes sacrifices and appeals to the spirits of the ancestors. Participation in initiation ceremonies is of the highest importance for teenage boys and girls.
The whole Bible is translated into Ditammari, but it is out of print. However, the Holy Spirit is moving among these people who have traditionally been extremely resistant to outsiders. Evangelical Christians of several denominations have noticed a dramatic change in their openness in recent years.
About the Project
AFM missionaries have been ministering to the Otammari people since Linden and Michelle St. Clair launched the project in 1996. Today, Ulrike Baur-Kouato leads the project, assisted by her husband Toussaint and three local evangelists. They are working to nurture the church in Natitingou and a growing number of groups in surrounding villages. Suzy Baldwin worked on the Otammari Project for many years and now serves on the Pendjari Project.
People-Group Facts
- Population: 150,000
- Language: Ditammari
- Religion: Animist
God was reminding me not to fear and that He was with me. So I stopped worrying, and I concentrated my attention on the praise I was offering to God. At the end of the song, I noticed that the rain had stopped while we were singing.
By:
Veronique Charbonneau
December 01 2021, 3:01 pm | Comments 0
Please pray for peace to come back into the hearts of Boniface and his family. Pray for his faith to be revived and that he will again find joy in his walk (or tricycle ride) with God.
By:
Uli Baur
December 01 2021, 2:49 pm | Comments 0
We live in a noisy world, and sometimes we wonder how we will ever be heard with our message. We don’t have a loudspeaker and don’t plan to get one. We also don’t want to wake people up, at least not literally. We don’t want to engage in a competition of who is louder and who is able to drown out all the other noises. When God met Elijah, it wasn’t in the fire, it wasn’t in the earthquake and it wasn’t in the wind. God talked to Elijah in a still small voice.
By:
Ulrike & Toussaint Baur-Kouato
July 01 2021, 2:19 pm | Comments 0
One tire became a safety seat for our cook’s baby. Comfortably seated on some old bags in the middle of the tire, the baby can watch everything without falling over.
By:
Ulrike & Toussaint Baur-Kouato
May 01 2021, 6:22 pm | Comments 0
It was our prayer that the VBS program not only serve as a fun Christmas-break event, but as a steppingstone towards building a relationship with Jesus.
By:
Tyler Ninalga
April 01 2021, 1:23 pm | Comments 0
Jesus didn’t just come to save adults and show them His love. He also cares about children.
By:
Marcus Donesky
April 01 2021, 12:07 pm | Comments 0
They immediately get to work filling a row of buckets at our water pump. Then they settle down in the shady place we built just for that purpose and start the process: soaping, soaking, rubbing, scrubbing, all the while chatting, laughing, teasing and helping each other.
By:
Ulrike & Toussaint Baur-Kouato
March 01 2021, 10:15 pm | Comments 0
Someone might very well have stolen the rooster. There are a lot of thieves around. In that case the truth would never be revealed. But there was nothing we could do about that. We left the situation in God’s hands.
By:
Ulrike & Toussaint Baur-Kouato
January 01 2021, 1:23 pm | Comments 0
