Countering the curse
Faith & Religion
Post Date:
August 13, 2026
Issue Date:
September 1, 2026
Countering the curse
RELIGION | A missionary family plants the first church on Gambia’s haunted island
Illustration by Krieg Barrie (Source: Olalekan Raji; imageBROKER / Peter Schickert / Getty Images)
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Seven-year-old Bethel Adeniyi loves to dig up half-buried shells on the seashore. “It looks like a fossil,” she exclaims every time she runs across one.
“They learned fossils last week in biology class,” her mother, Omolola Adeniyi, explains. Omolola teaches science at SBEC International School where Bethel is in third grade. The family has just alighted from a makeshift iron-and-wooden raft that carries motorbikes and people over a creek, for about 7 cents each. It’s the end of a journey that took them across the Atlantic Ocean on a 35-minute ferry journey from the capital, Banjul.
It’s a sunny Sunday morning, and perfect for a worship service on Jinack Island, where Babatunde Adeniyi, 47, and his missionary family from Nigeria have planted a church—the first Christian congregation on the island.
Jinack Island is a cluster of villages in the North Bank Region of Gambia, along its border with Senegal. Referred to by tour operators as “Paradise” or “Treasure Island,” Jinack is a curved strip of lowlands about 6 miles in length, strewn with tamarisk scrub trees and acacia. In winter, dolphins often play off its shores.
Church planting around this part of Gambia is noteworthy, particularly because of Jinack’s reputation in the region. About 99% of the island’s 2,000 residents are Muslim, and in March, Jinack featured in a New York Times article about a local legendary curse that prevents authorities from making arrests and has turned the villages into a haven for illegal immigration, narcotics trade, and smuggling.
Most of the residents grow cannabis even though that’s illegal in Gambia. In past altercations with authorities, Jinack’s residents have argued that the island’s sandy soil makes it nearly impossible to grow traditional cash crops like rice and groundnuts, leaving them no choice but to rely on cannabis for their economic survival.
The Adeniyi family wants to rewrite Jinack’s reputation. Babatunde and his wife Omolola, their 11-year-old son Bezaleel, and his sister Bethel, along with Elizabeth Demba, an interpreter who speaks five languages, started the church under a cashew tree. In a makeshift straw encampment, 12 converts worship on colorful mats spread in the sand. Demba is a Karoninka, the famous West African tribe of storytelling “griots.”
The mission team hopes to change the people’s belief in their town’s foreboding history—a major obstacle in a community that has relied on illegal trades for sustenance. Since earlier this year, the island’s leaders have shown more willingness to cooperate with authorities in finding alternatives and legal means of livelihood for the residents.
A group of children gathers in the church encampment for the service. Photo by Olalekan Raji
Therese Sambou, a portly middle-aged local convert who fervently gathers the women for fellowship every Sunday, is excited about the prospects of the Jinack church.
“We thank God for making Jinack a land of blessings, too,” she tells me.
Therese and Ibrahimah Jatta, another local convert, are striving to convince the community’s leaders to sell them a piece of land where they can erect a church building. So far, only a few leaders have agreed.
At about 10:30 a.m., Therese bustles into the church encampment wearing a black-red-and-orange-patterned dress, shooing a group of children ahead of her. She informs us the adults are on their way after being detained by a town hall meeting. After a brief wait, two lanky young men in T-shirts and jeans shuffle in, removing their shoes at the entrance. They are followed by a young woman in a black dress and cap. Soon, the space fills up. The service begins with songs in the local Wolof language. Bezaleel reads some Bible verses, and Elizabeth interprets the short sermon in English to the locals sitting on the floor.
Adeniyi and his family left Sokoto, in northern Nigeria, in December 2022 after 12 years of mission work. They arrived in Gambia after a daunting nine-day road trip across Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal. The couple told me they chose the country because it’s secular but has a high percentage of Muslims.
We thank God for making Jinack a land of blessings, too.
Funding is one of the greatest challenges the Adeniyis and Demba face as they seek to build a more permanent structure for their church before next year’s rains arrive. Another hurdle is biblical literacy. None of the church members can read or write.
“We want to start by getting Wolof Bible translations, and then teach them to read it to better understand the gospel,” Adeniyi explains.
After the service, Ibrahimah Jatta’s wife Anna invites us to their house for a dinner of bread, potatoes, and fried oysters. Then we have to rush off before the tides take over the narrow strip of road that connects the island.
The team hopes the church could serve as a place for residents and migrants to reconnect with the area and find opportunities to get out of the cycle of isolation, poverty, and systemic neglect.
“We discovered this place while taking prayer walks across the country, then we came and screened an open-air film about Jesus, and six people came out for an altar call,” Adeniyi tells me. The family started the church in March, just as The New York Times published its piece about Jinack.
“That got me really stirred in my spirit,” Adeniyi says. “I would really love to see Jinack renowned globally for good things.”
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Olalekan Raji is a World Journalism Institute graduate and lives in Banjul, The Gambia.