Statistics
People name: Kpele
Country: Guinea
Language:
Evangelical: .3%
Population: 300,000
 
Contact Person:
The Christian and Missionary Alliance
P.O. Box 35000
Colorado Springs, CO 80935
E-Mail:
smithf@cmalliance.org

Prayer Profile:
The Kpele of Guinea

The Kpele (also known as Guerze) of Guinea are primarily farmers. They are one of three large animistic people groups in the forest region of Guinea that the CMA has been working with from its entrance into the country. These people resisted the Islamization of the nation in the 18th and 19th century and clung to their animistic beliefs that have controlled their lives for generations.

The majority of Kpele are farmers and plantation operators. slash and burn methods of farming are commonly practiced for rice and peanut cultivation. Plantations of coffee, cola nuts, cocoa and palm nuts provide exports to the rest of the world. Cola nuts are necessary throughout West Africa as a cultural symbol of sincerity, joy and acceptance in various types of contractual agreements, including marriages and land purchases.

The animistic beliefs of the Kpele are expressed in a secret society called by their former colonists "the sacred forest" but known in the Kpele language as "the evil forest" In the past all children spent up to seven years in this society learning a trade to live by along with methods of warfare and spirit manipulation. When one is initiated into the evil forest, he goes through a scarification process that is called "being born again of the devil". The scars are said to be Satan's teeth marks as one is born through Satan's mouth.

Through they are still classified as an unreached people group, there is an active growing church planted among the Kpele. They struggle with cultural pressures to send their children into the evil forest, though there has been increasing strength demonstrated in the church to resist these pressures.

Cova, a young educated Toma, converted at Kankan, brought the missionary to Macenta to reach his people and stayed to become the first evangelist to is tribe. He remained faithful to the end, though he experienced much hardship. He was responsible for taking the gospel to the neighboring tribe Kpele. He first preached the gospel in Koule in 1934, and soon after CMA missionaries took up residence in Koule and Nzerekore, the center of the Kpele people.

The strategy to reach this people group includes encouraging the already established churches in the Nzerekore and Yomou districts to evangelize and plant new churches throughout these districts and also even into neighboring unreached tribal groups. When Sekou Toure forced missionaries out of Guinea in 1967, mission presence among the Kpele people ceased to exist. Now however, the Harner family, Ann McEwen and Lizette Lavoie work among the Kpele people in evangelism and discipleship.

In 1997 the Kpele received the New Testament in their own language. This was a tremendous time for rejoicing. A team of Ann McEwen and several nationals are presently working on translating the Old Testament. The Kpele have approximately 8000 believers and about 25 national pastors who have completed their training at the Telekoro Bible Institute.