Working for Reformation in Africa

Africa is a continent in conflict. Animism, Communism and Islam are in conflict with Christianity. The battle is for the soul of the continent.

Africa for Christ
Many would be surprised, in the light of all the negative and violent reports, to hear that Africa is being saved. In 1900 there were 8 million Christians (10% of the entire population of Africa). By the year 2000 there were over 350 million (48% of the population of Africa).

MUGABE CLAMPS DOWN ON PRAYER

The ZANU-PF government of Zimbabwe has turned on churches and pastors in a campaign to clamp down on prayers for justice.

Over the last months, various church prayer meetings have been dispersed by police. Government officials claimed that these prayer meetings had been “convened without (their) permission” and “in violation of the security laws.”

Rev. Sony Chimbuya, of the Church of Christ in Masivingo, and a former senior official of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, was summonsed by plain clothes police and interrogated as to why he was praying “anti-government prayers.”

Christians Can Change This World!

If God can change you, then God can use you to change some part of this world.

That our fallen world needs changing is beyond question. When our newspapers and films glamourise immorality, undermine traditional family values and encourage selfishness, greed and lust; when criminals escape justice by legal technicalities; when half of the world suffers under totalitarian dictatorships and persecution; when pornography, perversion, abortions, terrorism and the occult are increasing - then we know that this world needs to be changed.

EFFECTIVE UGANDAN AIDS 'VACCINE' IGNORED BY MOST

"As AIDS sweeps across Africa, Uganda remains a lone success story, as millions of Ugandans have embraced traditional sexual morality," according to a report from the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute. Many Ugandans embrace sexual abstinence outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage in order to avoid infection.

Nevertheless the international AIDS community has been reluctant to promote this strategy elsewhere, continuing, instead, to place its faith in condoms. The report says that according to a US Agency for International Development (USAID) study of Uganda, "HIV prevalence peaked at around 15 percent in 1991, and had fallen to 5 percent as of 2001. This dramatic decline in prevalence is unique worldwide." USAID believes "The most important determinant of the
reduction in HIV incidence in Uganda appears to be a decrease in multiple sexual partnerships and networks." USAID concludes that "the effect of HIV prevention in Uganda, particularly partner reduction, during the past decade appears to have had a similar impact as a potential medical vaccine of 80 percent efficacy ..."
(Abstinence) -Christian News from CFT

AIDS Awareness for children and youth [Zimbabwe]

Imagine reaching thousands of young people with the message of AIDS prevention, using creative and meaningful methods! This can be done through opportunities inside and outside schools and has the potential to develop into individual counseling, discipleship and home health visitation work.
This position ties in with strategy in that the AIDS pandemic is, first and foremost, a desperate area of human need with devastating emotional, medical and social outcomes. It is vital to bring the message of AIDS prevention to those who have not yet embarked upon a life-style of sexual promiscuity: a life-style that is fuelling the pandemic. Additional objectives will include evangelistic opportunities as the only true solution to the AIDS problem if found in a holy/pure life in Christ.

For more information about all of SIM's HIV/AIDS ministries, please visit www.hopeforaids.org. PRF Number: 1794

West African Missionaries Carry the Gospel Further

Have you ever played ball with an inflatable globe? It is a strange experience. We are used to seeing a globe on a stand. In the West we expect to see the world with ‘our’ countries at the top, in the key position. Tossing and juggling the inflatable globe, however, may mean that you catch the world unawares. Africa may be in the middle or India at the ‘top’ or Latin America in the main position.

Think now about historical patterns of Christian faith and mission. If you draw lines on the globe to show the movement of missionaries in the past, there would be a fairly simple pattern of arrows from sending countries in North America and Western Europe to countries of the ‘South.’ Today, however, the flow of missions is becoming much more complex.

The fruit of Western mission activity over the past 100 years is thriving local churches in many countries with believers who desire to spread the gospel even further. This may mean to neighbouring tribes and language groups in their country, or to countries far away. From a position of relative youth and few resources, these churches have seen needs and are responding in faith by sending missionaries to communities beyond themselves.

These complex new patterns of mission activity were revealed in exciting ways in a conference held last November 2003 in Ethiopia. Here, 22 delegates met for Evangel Fellowship International: a gathering of leaders from churches relating to and often founded by SIM. They came from countries across Africa as well as India, Pakistan and Paraguay. They represented a ‘family’ of 20,000 local churches and over 50 million believers. All are evangelical in nature and many are now sending their own missionaries. Each delegate reported on the state of the church in their country.

As the delegates from West Africa shared their reports, they gave a tantalising overview of the new patterns of mission activity emerging from their part of our world.

Looking from west to east along the coast of West Africa, an extraordinary picture is unfurling. A movement of the Spirit of God is calling out people from local indigenous churches to spread the Gospel even further. This is despite recent civil unrest in many countries and its resulting poverty.

This mission activity is taking place in the context of great population growth. Many countries in West Africa will nearly double their population over the next twenty years. Over 40% of the region’s population is under fifteen years of age. The current life expectancy is only around 50 years. Numbers of people with HIV/AIDS are rising and are well over 5% of the population. Nigeria is the largest country in West Africa with 120 million people while Togo has only five million.

As you mentally juggle your inflatable globe, consider for a while the countries of West Africa from Nigeria in the east via Benin, Togo, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Cote D’Ivoire to Liberia in the west and marvel at what God is doing.

Nigeria
The Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) led by Rev. Cornelius Olowola is growing throughout Nigeria, especially in the central regions. Currently there are more than 6000 congregations with an estimated attendance of over six million. Many churches have a strong missionary vision and are seeking to reach Muslims and other unreached groups. Even churches in the strong Islamic centres are growing steadily. The Evangelical Missionary Society (EMS) of ECWA has over one thousand missionary families working in Nigeria, Chad, Togo, Benin, USA and UK.

Benin
Pastor Gabriel Doko from the Union des Eglises Evangéliques du Bénin (UEEB) explained that people in south of his country are more open to gospel than those in the north. Discussions are underway with the Nigerian church to send missionaries from Hausa areas in Nigeria to reach Hausa-speaking people across the border in northern Benin. Last year the Benin church sent evangelists to Malami (a northern Hausa-speaking area) and are hoping to send more to the area near the Togo border this year.

Togo
The Eglise Evangélique Indépendante du Togo (EEIT) has just 12 churches, mainly in rural areas. It was established among the Lokpa people by tribal relatives of the UEEB church across the border in Benin. The Togo church is struggling to move forward but its cooperation with the church in Benin has meant that a Togo delegate was able to attend the conference. The Nigerian church has recently sent missionaries to both Togo and Benin.

Ghana
Rev. Stephen Antwi reported on the Bible Church of Africa (BCA) which grew out of SIM’s work among unreached tribes in northern Ghana. The church is growing and now has 120 churches and 140 developing churches. Believers in these churches now support twelve missionaries through the missionary arm of the BCA, the Evangelical Missionary Alliance. Three more are doing Bible training for future service.

The missionaries have organised trips to the neighbouring countries of Burkina Faso, Togo and Cote D’Ivoire and more are planned. The church is working among various tribal and language groups doing innovative work in prisons, distributing tracts in schools and universities, and setting up mobile cinemas to show the JESUS film.

Burkina Faso
The president of the church which relates to SIM in Burkina Faso is Amidou Douna, a tall gentle French-speaking man. SIM has been working in the country for 70 years and the church, Eglise Evangélique, has nearly 50,000 members in 500 communities.

In spite of the fact that Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world, the Burkinabe church began doing its own mission work in 1997. Currently 13 missionary couples work in neighbouring countries like Benin and with different tribal groups within their own country. The first Bible translation in the Gourma language of Burkina Faso is nearly complete and will be printed this year. In recognition of the need for more professional training, this small and growing church is about to open its own school for missionaries. They are expecting six couples to be the first pupils.

Several hundred thousand farm workers migrate south every year from Burkina Faso to Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana. This is just part of the regular movement of people between the countries of West Africa which provides opportunities for missions.
(Burkina Faso Country Profile)

Cote D’Ivoire
Pastor Ibrahim Coulibaly comes from Cote D’Ivoire, one of the most prosperous of the West African countries, but this did not protect it from political turmoil. In 1999, the first military coup in Cote d'Ivoire's history overthrew the government. Civil disruption and movement of people around the country has caused financial problems and physical uncertainty for the Christian believers. Despite the unrest, the capital city of Abidjan is one of the fastest growing cities in the world. As the migrants, many of them Moslems, adjust to their new surroundings, there is great potential for outreach. Missionaries are arriving in Abidjan from Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria to encourage the local Christians.

Meanwhile Oajene, a city in the northeast of the country whose population is 90% Moslem, is another area needy for evangelism and mission since many migrants come here for work from neighbouring countries of Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso.

Liberia
Pastor Boakai Yamah reported on Liberia. The past 15 years have seen terrible civil war and unrest. The country’s infrastructure has been destroyed as warring groups battle in the streets and resort to mob rule. The war has claimed up to 200,000 lives. Around a quarter of the population have become refugees in the neighbouring countries. As a result the Evangelical Church Union of Liberia (ECUL) has been dispersed. Currently, four churches operate in refugee camps outside Liberia. As the society is gradually rebuilt, these believers in exile will return home in need of healing. Even in the midst of this, the church has sent two missionaries to districts in the northwest where they are involved in the urgent tasks of evangelism and training of church leaders. A SIM missionary from Korea is in Liberia developing training programmes for ministers of the church.

So, next time you get to juggle an inflatable globe, look again more closely at West Africa. See in your mind’s eye the complex network of mission activity that is taking place within and between these countries. Thank God for the vision and determination of the local churches and pray that they may be bold in their task of taking the Gospel to their part of the whole world.