A young woman in Burkina Faso whose village was destroyed in a religious-extremist attack has found healing, community and a new livelihood through a local Alliance church, according to an account published this week by the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA USA). The story was written by an Alliance international worker serving in West Africa, who writes under the pseudonym Esther, and it traces how the woman she calls Alima — a name changed for her safety — rebuilt her life after losing everything.
In much of West Africa, a person's identity is inseparable from their village: the ancestral home, the family farm and the relatives who share the common bowl. The C&MA, one of North America's historic evangelical denominations and the largest member of the Alliance World Fellowship, has long-standing mission and church-planting work across the region. Burkina Faso in particular has seen more than one million children displaced by extremist violence, and Alliance workers and congregations are among those responding on the ground.
Alima lost both parents as a young girl but still had her extended family. In February 2023 a friend invited her to an Alliance church in a neighbouring village, and she became a Christian. While she was away, armed extremists stormed her village and ordered everyone to leave; with no news of her relatives, she fled to a city with other girls, found the Alliance church led by a pastoral couple, Isaac and Justine, and began attending. The trauma soon overwhelmed her — unable to eat, she fell seriously ill and became paralysed, and medical tests found nothing wrong.
Church members rallied around her: Justine stayed at her bedside for three days, the missionary's team prayed with her weekly at the hospital, and after she recovered, Isaac and Justine took her into their home. The church arranged a scholarship to Ebenezer Sewing School and enrolled her in night classes; she passed her sewing examination and is now helping to teach new students. Reflecting on the transformation, Esther echoes Psalm 30's image of mourning turned to dancing, and notes that such individual care cannot be offered to every one of the region's displaced children — but that the church remains committed to walking alongside people like Alima.
Source: Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA USA) — cmalliance.org/the-girl-who-lost-her-village/
