Vast Needs - Huge Opportunities

Mike McClaflin, Africa regional director

We are almost overwhelmed as we look at Africa's needs in the 21 st century. Throughout this vast landmass are signs of incredible human despair. Disease is rampant - death is everywhere. Every week civil unrest of some sort takes place somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.

Outright war and genocide are part of recent history. In 1994, more than 800,000 people in Rwanda were slaughtered in 100 days -- one of the worst cases of human tragedy recorded. Tens of thousands have been slaughtered in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo during the last several years in one of the most underreported civil conflicts raging today.

Poverty plagues many. Probably more people in Africa can be labeled poor than in any other place on earth. Refugees abound. It is said that 70 percent of the world's refugees reside in Africa. Our workers also contend with the difficulty of internally displaced people. Within just one country - Liberia - several hundred thousand were driven from their homes. They have not crossed borders, but they find themselves located in camps around the capital city and other places within the nation because their homes were destroyed.

The HIV/AIDS crisis is sweeping across Africa. No other continent is as affected with such an enormous HIV/AIDS death rate. As a result, orphans are everywhere.

Human maltreatment of other humans continues to occur. The situation in Darfur, Sudan, where thousands are suffering because of civil war, is just one example.

Because of this, the eyes of the world look increasingly toward Africa. Money pours in from sympathetic sources. At times there seems to be no lack of financing to try to stem the tide of human despair. One could call this the "trauma of Africa."

The media focus on Africa causes many people to look more closely at this area of the world. We become weary of contemplating the catastrophes that seems to spread across this land on a daily basis.

There is, however, another reality emerging in Africa that fails to capture the attention of the world press with as much sensation as the trauma of epidemics, death, disease, hunger and homelessness.

Christianity is spreading across Africa.

After 70 years of ministering on the continent, the Assemblies of God fellowship is coming of age. By 1990 approximately 2 million believers attended Assemblies of God churches throughout sub-Saharan Africa. In the last 15 years, those 2 million have grown to 13 million believers. The 9,000 pastors in 1990 have multiplied to beyond 30,000. The 11,000 churches that dotted the landscape in 1990 have increased to nearly 40,000.

As we stand back and contemplate what our Fellowship is doing, we have a great sense that God has planted His foot in Africa and that the church is rising up to be the ultimate solution for the ills of this beautiful land.

This emerging church has become a present-day reality. We continue to thank God for the missiology of Pentecostal pioneers who insisted that we go throughout the world and establish indigenous - self-supporting, self-propagating and self-governing - churches as answers in local communities for both the spiritual and, when necessary, physical needs of individuals. In his book, The Strategy of the Spirit, author Everett Wilson indicated that it indeed is the strategy of the Spirit to tie the solutions of mankind to churches that are havens of spiritual and physical rest. This is increasingly the case in Africa. Churches are becoming epicenters of relief, help and hope.

In the Assemblies of God fellowship in Africa today, national churches are springing up everywhere. The growing number of churches has created a positive crisis. We need trained pastors and leaders to march alongside these churches and lead them into being disciplined, affirmed and established in the Kingdom.

Huge opportunities present themselves as a result of this growth. Workers are needed at all ministry levels to come alongside national churches and lend a helping hand in training, construction and compassion projects. The need is growing for people to wrap their arms around the desperate, dying and spiritually lost and help build the church.

This vast continent of Africa has both huge needs and huge opportunities. Revival is flowing across the land like a tsunami. This can easily be called the greatest day of the church. The Cross will be triumphant.

As we approach this Missions Summit, Africa steps forward to present a challenge to any who desire to help. The opportunities for students to sense the need and present their lives for a short period of ministry can bring incalculable benefit to both the African church and those who hear the voice of the Spirit and volunteer their time and talents. Ministries such as these also help participants step beyond themselves and their own comfort level to sense the heart of God as He endeavors to bring a lost world into His realm.