On April 6, I boarded a helicopter headed for the extreme southwest corner of Ethiopia, near the borders of Sudan and Kenya. This is what some have called Ethiopia’s last frontier, a vast, semi-desert wasteland occupied only by wild animals and a cluster of tribal groups. Three of them—the Nyangatom, the Taposa, and the Surma—have little or no gospel witness. These are semi-nomadic pastoralist groups who subsist on a diet of cow’s milk and blood. The word “Nyangatom” means “new guns”, a slight modification of their former name, “elephant eaters”—an adaptation prompted both by the collapse of the elephant population in the area and by the weapons which had flooded into the area from armed conflicts in Uganda, southern Sudan and communist Ethiopia. In an area long known for its cycle of cattle raids, counter-raids, killings and revenge, the Nyangatom and their Taposa allies are perhaps the most feared of the tribal groups and certainly the best armed.

I was accompanying Trent Cox, a veterinarian who leads SIM Ethiopia’s Southern Peoples team, an Ethiopian, named Muga who leads the church among the Bunna, another pastoralist group in the southwest and three others who are supporting the initiative in various ways. The aim of this trip was to find an entry point into the Nyangatom and for Trent to do a preliminary vet clinic.

Not long after the helicopter sat down in a hot, windy, uninhabited area called Mardul, three Nyangatom herders came out of the bush, toting AK-47s. Back in the early 1970s, an SIM missionary had built an airstrip and the beginnings of a mission station, only to be forced out within two years by the communist revolution. A few years later he had been standing by when his father was shot to death in Ethiopia’s Somali region. He had never returned to Mardul. We found the ruins of his house near the airstrip, a grievous reminder that nearly a generation had passed since an opportunity to reach the peoples of the area had abruptly ended.

Through a sequence of translators from Amharic to Surma to Nyangatom, Trent told the trio of Nyangatom herders that he would be treating cattle the next day. By this time, a few Surma herders had also come out of the bush from the North, evidently having stashed their weapons along the trail to avoid a confrontation with the Nyangatom; they too were encouraged to bring their cows in the next day. We pitched our tents on the airstrip and waited for morning.

The next day the Surma herders returned with a large herd of cattle. The Nyangatom herders also returned but without their cows, saying that Nyangatom cows were much wilder than Surma cows. Much of the day was spent treating Surma cattle. Disappointed that we had seen so few Nyangatom, when the vet clinic was finished, we boarded the helicopter and headed toward the Sudan border to get the lay of the land. We hadn’t gone far before we started seeing village after village of grass huts inside fences made of brush. With day pushing on, the pilot marked the GPS location of the largest village, and we decided we would return there in the morning.

The next morning we landed in a village we later learned was called Lukign. In keeping with their semi- nomadic lifestyle, the entire village had relocated to Lukign two years before from several kilometers away. The village emptied on our arrival, with mostly older men along with women and children flooding out to see the helicopter. A few of the men had clothes which came from the outside, but the women and many of the children wore very little but animal skins around their waists and astonishing stacks of colorful beaded necklaces.

Though many of the young men and boys were grazing the cattle several miles to the north, some 250 remained in the village. After things settled, the men suddenly sat down and, taking the cue, we sat down with them, as curious women and children crowded around. We started by asking what their main problems were, and they said simply, "hunger." Closely related to this were concerns about the diseases of their cows. Despite the signs of over-grazing near the village, they kept many of their cows near the village to provide milk and blood “for the old people”. There were no signs of agriculture in the area, and they told us that the nearest place to buy grain was a five day walk. At the same time, we saw few signs of malnourishment, except for one old woman whose decimated body was explained by the elders as a lack of food. After asking a number of questions, they led us into the village so that Trent could look at their cows. Most of what he saw was treatable, confirming that vet clinics might well provide an entry into the village.

Our discussion turned next to their religious beliefs and their leadership structure. The village had a main leader, named Barkali, but we only knew this because we were told as much and not because he had led the earlier discussions. We asked how they had decided to move the village, to which they replied that the whole village had gathered and decided together.

As with most animist groups in Africa they believed in a creator God but did not know him as no one had ever come to teach them about God. They said that there was a witchdoctor a couple of villages away who saw dreams and read intestines but added that they didn’t really accept him. But I doubted this a moment later when I asked if there was a particular spirit that caused them trouble. They laughed sheepishly, before admitting that there was. I pressed a bit further, “What is this spirit’s name?”

"We don’t know. The witchdoctor knows." On this score at least, we suspected that they knew more than they cared to share.

Before we left, we asked to speak to Barkali once more. Though he hadn’t mentioned it earlier, it was at this point that we discovered that Barkali spoke a smattering of Amharic. Grateful to dispense with the double translation, we sat facing one another, and I told them of Trent’s plan to return in two months time. He would bring medicines for their cows and possibly also some medicine for the people of the village. I said, "These two months must not simply be a time of getting your cows ready; this must also be a time for you to get your hearts ready as well. When we come back, we will be bringing some good news that will require your hearts to be ready.” I’m not quite sure why, but I added, "So if there is any anger or jealousy in the village, you must get rid of it before we return." He nodded his head, though I wasn’t sure if this was to say that he understood what I had said or that he would do it.

Pray

Trent goes back into Lukign from June 9-12. We have heard that there may be a few Nyangatom-speaking believers in a town 160 km to the south, fruit from work by Swedish missionaries who left long ago. Even now, Trent is working with the leadership churches in other pastoralist groups to build an effective partnership for taking the gospel into Lukign. He dreams of the gospel spreading from village to village from Lukign. My prayer is that God would turn the Nyangatom from their animism and violence and that many years from now may these four days in June be remembered as the time when the good news about Jesus brought lasting change to the Nyangatom.