KOYAKA PEOPLE GROUP 

 Highland Drive has engaged this people group for a special focus by our Global Evangelism Department.    In 2002, a mission trip was made to visit the Koyaka.   Since that time, one Sunday a year has been designated as Koyaka Sunday with special activities and prayer to promote praying by our church family throughout the year.

 The Koyaka  live in north-central Cote d’Ivoire. They are subsistence farmers who raise rice, yams, manioc, and some cotton. Most villages do not have running water, and some are without electricity. Crops are cultivated by a small short-handled hoe or oxen-pulled plows. Villagers are cut off from others by bad dirt roads in rainy season, lack of electricity, poor transportation systems, virtually no industry apart from cotton to provide employment, and a difference in culture.

 The Koyaka combine a world religion with traditional African practices such as fetish worship. Ninety-seven percent follow the world religion, and there are few known converts to Christianity. One practice is the worship or fear of the mask. At certain times, persons are seen wearing a mask in the village or town. The belief is that any women seeing the mask, especially women who are not from the region, will die. Fear of the mask and spirits keep the Koyaka from knowing the freedom that Christ can give. There are presently no Scriptures translated into the Koyaka language