Christian Leaders for Africa Newsletter

July, 2008

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Look at the Missionaries Coming Out of Africa
By Paul Heidebrecht

We’re starting to get used to the idea that Africa is no longer our mission field but instead is becoming a continent sending missionaries around the world. So what can we expect of these African missionaries? What unreached people groups will they evangelize and how will they do it? One way to glimpse this rising missionary force is to meet the students of Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology who are in the Missions department. These are men and women preparing to be career missionaries.

This past May I had a chance to sit and talk with some who are currently enrolled and several who have graduated and are on their mission fields. I was immediately impressed with their strong sense of call to obey the Great Commission and their willingness to go to very difficult places for the sake of the Gospel. They seemed particularly attracted to unreached tribes and communities in Africa which often are also primarily Muslim and therefore potentially hostile to Christian missionaries. I was pleased to discover indigenous African mission agencies ready to send out these men and women. Local churches are starting to challenge their people to consider the missionary call and to support these missionaries financially. Patrick and Violet have lived in several African countries among unreached people groups and trained believers to take over the missions they began. Some of their methods are familiar. Radio may be the most effective way to reach the populations of Africa. Only a small minority have access to television but everyone listens to the radio.

Refugee camps and slums are great places to meet people who have fled Muslim-dominated countries. A ministry of compassion paves the way for the Gospel. Likewise, prisons provide opportunities to speak with men and women who might otherwise be unapproachable.
The great challenge for African missionaries is to deal with both an increasingly aggressive Islam and the deeply entrenched animist religions of African cultures. The Missions faculty at NEGST specialize in Islamic Studies and try to help their students become wise and discerning missionaries among Muslim people groups.

As I listened to these men and women speak, I wondered if they are not exactly the kind of missionaries we need for the century ahead. They are moving into villages and neighborhoods of unbelievers with considerable cultural awareness. They don’t have any of the baggage Westerners carry when they enter Muslim contexts in most parts of the world. Harun and Judy have settled in a remote village of northern Kenya where theybear witness to Muslim neighbors and nurture a fledgling church. Furthermore, they enter their mission fields with strong relational commitments and skill. Hospitality and appreciation of local customs and a desire to serve the community characterize their mission strategy.

Perhaps most striking to me was the ways they are funding themselves as missionaries. The usual support-raising approach of Western missions doesn’t work well in African societies where most people live near or below the poverty line. Tentmaking is not only necessary but also very helpful because it allows these missionaries to enter a community without arousing suspicion and resistance. Far better to be a teacher or government worker than an outsider representing a different religion. Spouses are often the main breadwinners for a missionary family.

Esayas spends his time among immigrant and refugee groupsin Nairobi while he continues his studies. And, like many African pastors, African missionaries accept upfront that the missionary call is also a call to simple living, if not poverty itself. This means a missionary can expect protests from his or her own family. They will truly live by faith and with daily perseverance.
And for those entering Muslim communities, there is also the expectation that they will actually encounter some persecution. Muslim leaders will not tolerate their presence in many communities. Converts to Christ from Islam will be ostracized and even attacked by family members.

There are 247 Muslim people groups in the world (with populations over 100,000) that have no significant Christian presence in them. I suspect we will need these African missionaries to enter these communities and plant churches. I’m optimistic that some of these African missionaries will be supported by North American churches and that someday we will view them as our missionaries. That’s why I keep urging you and others to invest in the students at NEGST because it’s all about the next generation of African missionaries.

In Christ,

Paul Heidebrecht

Christian Leaders for Africa
P.O. Box 1642
Indianapolis, IN 46206

clafrica@sbcglobal.net

P.S. Contributions to the NEGST scholarship fund can be sent to the address above.