Now that we are reunited as a family, Jackson has been able to share with me what happened in Cameroon. I am sure you would love to hear the details as well!
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In January 25 pastors showed up for the first African Bible Safari Conference and by the third day there were more than 50 pastors and church leaders represented. They were receiving teaching on the End Bible Poverty Now in Africa Campaign that targets the 800 Bible less languages in Africa.
The pastors were unaware that in their own backyard (Cameroon) there are 108 languages with NO portion of scripture at all available in their heart language. This certainly caught their attention. Not only do we need to see the gospel penetrate into those people groups, but we also need to teach them what to do with the bible once they have it. It is the foundation for all of life which includes principles for every sphere of society.
A great majority of Christians in Africa believe that if you are serious about your faith, you have to go to bible school and become a pastor. That is why people leave the sphere of business and government to go and do a training like that. When we presented the 7 Spheres of Influence to disciple a nation to these pastors and church leaders they were blown away and in small groups discussed what they were going to do to champion the people in their congregation whom God has equipped to work in those spheres of society. They had creative ideas such as- why don’t we change our small groups/house churches around themes- so those called to the sphere of business form a study group, those called into education form a study group etc. They were also trained in evangelism with the Jesus Film equipment that was donated (see picture above one of the teams with a Jesus Film BackPack).
As Jackson left these pastors worked on evangelism outreaches and implementing some of the ideas they had thought of during the seminar.
The senior bishops and church leaders started putting together the next round of training for which we will return in April.
An Application for the sphere of Family
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The Bible says a lot about family. About caring for orphans and widows. In Cameroon the team who had come with Jackson met Delphine. A 28 year old lady who was raised with a broken background. She was sponsored by the church to become a nurse and when she finally got an income, she used her salary to purchase a land and build a small home. She immediately started taking in children from the streets in similar situations like she was. She has about 12 living with her now. This is so unusual in the culture, the team knew immediately they wanted to launch the skill training for this group of orphans. Delphine gave them a home, African Bible Safari wants to give them a future.
For the past 2 months our fiends have been giving tailoring, crocheting and baking trainings so they are able to have a skill they could earn a living with.
The African Bible Safari aims to launch projects like these as an application of what is taught. We are so excited to partner with Delphine as she is already doing this herself, we can come alongside her.
If you are interested in giving skill based training to orphans like these, or want to know more about how to support this project financially, contact us!
Photo: the children Delphine took in her home
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