It’s been over three years since American missionary Michael Riddering was among dozens of Christians killed by Al Qaeda in the West African nation of Burkina Faso. But today, his ministry to the orphaned and poor there continues with the help of his family.
Riddering, who along with his wife sold all their possessions in the U.S. to run an orphanage and women’s crisis center in Burkina Faso in 2011, was killed when gunmen opened fire on a coffee shop in Ouagadougou just minutes after Riddering arrived on Jan. 16, 2016.
Riddering was driving a ministry van on his way to pick up a group of about 15 missionaries at the airport. But since their flight was late, he decided to get some coffee. Minutes after arriving at the cafe, the attack began and 28 people were killed. According to Riddering’s brother, Jeff, intelligence reports have suggested that the terrorists were scouting out that soft-target location for three weeks looking to kill “crusaders.”
“So, you got two brand new vans to come in. He walks in a bright colored shirt. And the terrorists said ‘It's go time,’” Jeff Riddering, the pastor of Gateway House of Prayer in Sunset Hills, Missouri, said.
“My sister-in-law doesn’t think of it that way, that he was specifically targeted. But one thing we do know is that Christians were targeted.”
Riddering left behind his four children and wife, Amy Boyle-Riddering. Boyle-Riddering and her children are still in Burkina Faso running that same orphanage and women’s crisis center, which is funded by the charity Sheltering Wings.
Sheltering Wings is a Missouri-based nonprofit that provides humanitarian care and partners with local churches in Africa to send missionaries to unreached communities in their region.
The orphanage in the northern part of the country serves hundreds of children. But in total, Sheltering Wings helps over 1,000 orphans nationwide. Most of those orphans are living with extended relatives but are sponsored by Sheltering Wings.
In addition, the children are given a free Christian education through schools built by Sheltering Wings and its partners.
“[Our sponsorship programs] make it so [the children] don’t become a burden to their extended family but even a blessing,” Jeff Riddering explained. “People have the entire courtyard with food and different things like that. It becomes a blessing and almost an honor to be an orphan in the courtyard because Sheltering Wings comes in every month. Because of that child, they bless the entire courtyard.”
A courtyard in Burkina Faso is a way to describe a group of homes that are associated with the same family. In many cases, since it is a Muslim nation, a courtyard encompasses a man, his multiple wives, their offspring, and other relatives.
The women’s crisis center that is also operated by Boyle-Riddering and Sheltering Wings assists women who may have been kicked out of their courtyards for somehow bringing shame to the family. Some examples include having sex out of wedlock or even being raped. When the women and her children are kicked out of the courtyard, they have no place to go.
But at the Sheltering Wings women’s crisis center, the women can receive job training and are eligible to receive microloans to help them get on their feet.
“We also have a ministry to the widows there,” Riddering explained. “Maybe they are elderly women no longer being cared for by their extended family.”
Sheltering Wings also partners with well-drilling organizations to help bring clean water to impoverished communities.
As for Jeff Riddering, he lives in St. Louis. But in August, he too will sell his possessions and move to Burkina Faso. Part of the reason is to be closer to his brother’s family but also to launch another ministry that will further the Gospel in the country.
This decision has weighed on Riddering’s heart since he saw his slain brother in a dream several months after his passing.
“I saw him coming through these double doors. He comes up to me and I say, ‘Michael, how can you be here? You are dead,’” Riddering recalled. “He kind of smiled and said, ‘Jeff continue my ministry.’ It was only four words.”
Riddering’s new ministry will be called My Brother’s Keeper. The ministry will assist the national Assemblies of God denomination in accomplishing its vision. Since Sheltering Wings began its work in Burkina Faso, the Assemblies of God denomination has been instrumental in helping the nonprofit accomplish its vision.
Now, Riddering says, its time to help the church achieve its goals.
“Without them, we couldn’t have done it,” Riddering said. “The workforce is African. All the school teachers, they are all African. All the Christians there are from the Assemblies of God denomination.”
“There are over 200 churches that are Assemblies of God churches. What we have is an opportunity to help the Assemblies of God accomplish their mission,” he added. “We want to facilitate their vision to become missionaries themselves, not missionaries outside of Burkina Faso but to the unreached people in Burkina Faso.”
Riddering said that he will be working to raise funding to help plant between 10 to 15 new churches in Burkina Faso this year.
"There are a lot of missionaries there, some have been targeted," Riddering said of the threat of terrorism. "But if God is asking me to go, then I will not be afraid."
According to Riddering, Assemblies of God missionaries go to Kenya for training. When they graduate, the church will send the pastor and his family to a remote area of the country that “hasn’t even heard of the Gospel.”
“The reason why we went to Burkina Faso is not that it is a fruitful area but that I feel like we were called to this area,” Riddering said. “What we are seeing right now is a revival type thing that is on the cusp of happening.”
My Brother’s Keeper is also the title of Riddering’s book My Brother’s Keeper: The Surprising Story of a Modern-Day Martyr. The book tells the story of Michael Riddering’s unlikely transformation from an alcoholic yacht broker to a missionary in a desert African nation.
Riddering recalled the day that his brother called him on the phone to tell him about a conversation he had with Jesus.
“His life radically changed at that point. His children, his wife and all the people in the church, they just couldn’t even recognize him,” Riddeering said. “He was just anti-social but then all of a sudden he has home groups at his house and he gets baptized. The pastor thought it was such a moving moment, they made him the person that did the rest of the baptisms for the church. He became the youth pastor of the church. He oversaw the food distribution stuff. One time, he joked about it. ‘Ill do anything God wants. I will move to Africa.’”
The move to Africa came about seven years after Riddering was saved, his brother explained.
“When he was there, he helped tens of thousands of people make decisions for Christ,” Riddering said of his brother. “He was only there for five years before he was killed.”
But today, Michael Riddering’s adopted daughter is following in her father’s footsteps.
“The last trip I was on she came up to me and said, ‘Uncle Jeff, my girlfriend here lives in a small village of about 200 people.’ We would like to go in that village,’” Jeff Riddering remembers. “I got 2 vans and loaded them up and brought them over to this village. In four hours, they said, of about 200 people, 111 made decisions for Christ and 56 said they were interested but couldn’t make a decision at that time. That doesn’t happen in America yet. In some ways, I believe that it will.”
