서부아프리카 무슬림 여성들에게 복음을 전하기 위한 효과적인 접촉방법- 한국인 기혼 여성 선교사의 역할의 중요성을 중심으로 -

Abstract

Generally speaking, when it comes to defining a missionary’s wife as ‘a missionary,’ it used to be the prevalent sentiment in the early 19th century in the US, the then leading country of world mission, that a wife could not be a missionary as a being independent from her husband though the couple shared missionary vision. Nonetheless, women could go to Africa as educational missionaries in the first half of the 19th century, which is ascribed to the fact that it did not conflict with the then socio-cultural ideology of ‘Cult of Domesticity.’ That is, a woman’s providing education at school was considered as expanding the qualities as a rearer in the period when the role of mother as a rearer in family was emphasized. However, this advantage failed to be fully realized at the missionary field due to a poor understanding of the mission field and to failure to work out effective missionary strategies. Therefore, specific analysis and alternatives are required to avoid repeating the same mistakes. It may safely be said that a poor understanding of the mission field arises from a lack of understanding about the target people of missionary activities. Citing American female missiologist Miriam Adeney, Ahn Shin said, “One of age-old stereotypes in the mission field is that mission for muslim males has ‘priority’ over mission for muslim females.” However, muslim women occupy the core position in the mission field in muslim areas. Foreign male missionaries have limitations in preaching the good news to muslim women in West Africa. And a group that can build the most friendly relationships with the close-minded women is female missionaries who are women like them. Therefore, female missionaries’ role is important. In addition, it was found that married female missionaries have more possibility of outreach than single female missionaries, due to the characteristics of West African folk Islam that put emphasis on family. Most of all, female missionaries say that education targeting women missionaries themselves can act as effective points of contact to form relationships. Hence, this paper suggests as effective missionary strategies which is the academic education of knowledge targeting married female missionaries for the kindergarten ministry and the health education, which is related to hygiene and health.