Please donate to this African church

As promised, I finally made contact with a friend of mine who not so long ago served as a missionary in Togo, Africa. As you know from my many recent posts and updates, Togo has been very hard hit by the massive flooding that struck sub-Saharan Africa recently. I asked my friend (Wes) if he knew of a specific church that might need some help. He does...

The church is in a town of about 10,000 (as near as I can tell from websites translated from French!) called Amou Oblo. Here's what Wes had to say about them:

The Baptist Bible Church at Amou Oblo was started in the early 1990's by a young man who was saved at the Kempton Memorial Hospital by Justin our hospital evangelist. He soon went back to his home town and began to witness to others and, as a result, a small group of believers were formed. A local pastor began to meet with them, and as is the case too many times, this man was teaching heresy. Soon the other believers realized they needed to stop this teaching and find a new pastor to lead them. In 1996, the small group approached the church planters at ABWE and requested a pastor to come and continue the work there. ABWE at that point had just started a Bible Institute and were training many possible candidates, but that would be 3-4 years away. In the mean time, Justin began making the 1 Hour trip to Sunday Morning Services and Wednesday Evening Prayer Meetings. We [Wes and his wife] began working with Amou-Oblo upon our arrival in 1999. We took Justin each week to teach Sunday School and Preach Sunday and Wednesday. We began to train teachers for children's Sunday school, began a new Christian's class, and baptismal class for those interested in taking that next step. The church really started to grow through evangelism and outreach. By the time we left in 2002 [to return to the US], the church was averaging 75 on Sunday Mornings.

Currently Pastor Bamas has taken the work. He is a graduate of the Bible Institute and a great man of God. He has started 2 new churches [in Yaokope and Patatoukou] along with Amou-Oblo and travels 30 miles to these new churches on Sunday as well.

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This church is situated in an area hit hard by the flooding, and they need our help. I just saw a news headline that wondered out loud why no one in the international community seems to care much about this particular crisis. Remember, folks - we're talking about over 1.5 million people who have been made homeless by this flooding. Think about it. Take the population of the following US cities: Lynchburg, Fort Wayne, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, and Baltimore (cities I know many of you are familiar with) and you still don't have 1.5 million. Image all of those people flooded out of their homes...

If you have any money you can spare, please contact me via this email account and let me know. I'm going to pool our efforts and pass them along to Wes, so that he can be sure they get to the church there in Amou Oblo. My kids have been wanting to know how they can help these destitute people, and this will be a tangible way for them to be involved. What better way to teach our kids about compassion, love, and the importance of the Gospel?

Please, let me know as soon as possible what you'll be able to share. I prayerfully await your emails...

Hatushili

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re: Africa updated 9-29-07

UPDATE: In the interest of saving some space on the original post, I'm doing the present Africa update on this post. You can still find the original (older) updates here.

Togo is reporting that the start of school is being delayed as a result of the recent flooding. Though it sounds like they weren't ready to start anyway, these kinds of changes in schedule can really disrupt local families.

Also, since Togo is one of the poorest of all African nations, it came as no surprise that they issued an international call for help recently. There are estimated to be at least 20,000 homeless. As I mentioned earlier, I believe we'll have an opportunity to directly aid a church in Togo in the near future...

Here's another general update news report I stumbled across, mentioning a number of African nations.

Finally, at long last there are some pictures of the flooding circulating the internet.

More to come...

Hatushili

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More African hardships (updated 9-22-07)

As if the continent of Africa hasn't had enough trouble in the last ... basically, forever, here's more bad news.

It seems that most of sub-Saharan Africa has been absolutely hammered by rain in recent days, leading to unparalleled flooding and a whole host of other problems.

...The rains and floods inflicted extensive damage on a northern region that was traditionally Ghana's major food basket, growing rice, maize, millet and sorghum. "This flood is unprecedented; thousands of acres of farmland have been destroyed, including livestock," Amoo [of Ghana's National Disaster Management Organization] said. Barns and silos ... stored food ... Infrastructure like bridges and roads have all been destroyed," he added.

Please pray for these desperate people.

Hatushili

click below to read updates as they become available...


update 9-18-07: I've discovered a new website of some use in tracking this catastrophe: AllAfrica.com. There are two links from that site that provide updated information on the situation.

For the area around Ghana (Western), click here.

For the area around Uganda (Eastern), click here.

The BBC also has a good update here.

Please pray specifically for protection from disease, a major concern in the coming weeks. Consider this:

He [the Ugandan State Minister for Disaster Preparedness] said the humanitarian situation in the areas is unimaginably unbearable adding that although there is no outbreak of disease yet, six to eight weeks after the floods have recessed, will be the "most critical" and "troublesome period in terms of health."

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update 9-19-07:

Benin - the tiny little country next to Togo (not exactly a large country itself) has joined the growing group of nations declaring their need for help.

Also, whereas reports from the day before had 600,000 displaced people, the UN is now reporting in excess of one million...

On a more positive note, here's a list of work that Christian Aid is doing, sorted by country.

Please continue to pray.

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update 9-22-07

Apparently I'm not the only one that thinks this disaster is getting too little attention. A blogger working with Reuters contends here that the British newspapers are largely ignoring it, too.

In more bad news, the UN has now increased the estimate of displaced people to 1.5 million.

Some good news - apparently relief is starting to arrive, especially in Ghana (which has arguably been the worst-hit).

I've been in contacts with a friend who knows people in Togo. If it works out, I may well be asking you to help me contribute funds to help these people. Stay tuned...

Hatushili

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Freedom From Religion

Interestingly, I read an article about Tibet and the Chinese persecution of Buddhists the other day. It was an old article - a year old magazine at work. It talked about how the Chinese government hopes to break the spiritual hold that Buddhism has on Tibet by eventually selecting the next Dalai Lama (when the presently 72 year old Dalai Lama dies).

According to Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is reincarnated as a child shortly after he dies. The Buddhist community therefore spends the next few years or so identifying/finding this child. I believe this tradition goes back 600 years or so.

Anyway, in a move that should be frightening to anyone with an innate sense of religious freedom, China is about to enact a very strange law...

This MSNBC article points out that China is now regulating where a person can be reincarnated! Under the new law, you cannot be reincarnated within China (which technically includes Tibet) without government pre-approval. I know this sounds comic ... and sad. But on another level it's just the natural extension of a regime that wants its people to have freedom from religion.

If given the chance, don't you think the ACLU (and plenty of others) would do the same sort of thing here in America?

Anyway, pray for Tibet and China. Talk about a spiritually dark and blind country! Our church family supports missionaries in China (though not Tibet), and they've recently come home for a brief stay. They tell strong stories about the power of the Evil One over there. We must be diligent to pray that the love of Christ might grip hearts and the power of the Spirit might give needed grace that these people might become followers of Jesus. Nothing short of God's name/glory is at stake.

And on a human suffering level, this new law is potentially cataclysmic. When the current Dalai Lama dies, the Chinese government will undoubtedly set up their own puppet Dalai. But the traditional Buddhists will also undoubtedly select their own Dalai. This, in the opinion of many experts, may well lead to massive revolts and vast human suffering.

Who knows?, perhaps all of that is somehow in the LORD's plans for His glory, so certainly I pray that His will be done. But if there's any way to avert this potential catastrophe, we should all be praying for peace.

Hatushili

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Men on the Edge

I had the same conversation with both a fellow seminary student and the Dean of the seminary today. The subject was one very near and dear to my heart, because it specifically involves people like me.

By now you are perhaps wondering what quirky attribute I'm talking about...

No - not an attribute; a position in history. At the risk of sounding grandiose, I am increasingly convinced that God has specifically raised up a generation of pastors and leaders who have one foot in modernity and the other in postmodernity. I find myself one of those people.

Truth be told, I'm more postmodern than modern. But I was churched in a modern environment, and most of my education has been decidedly modern as well. Yet I can't escape the fact that the gears in my head turn in ways different than modernity. This is not the place to discuss exactly what that means, but I just wanted to give a bit of context to what I'm about to say.

Those in the world of emerging church, postmodernity, Brian McLaren, etc... sometimes act as if modernity is the root of all evil. They often give one the impression that we need a revolution in the way we do church. I agree - sort of.

Those in the world of traditional church, modernity, John McArthur, etc... sometimes act as if postmodernity is the root of all evil. They often give on the impression that we need to suppress this attack against the way we do church. I agree - sort of.

Both camps make some valid points. [Incidentally, if you have no idea what I'm talking about at this point, this post isn't really a good place to start chewing on the subject.] More to the point of this post, both camps will continue to exist for some time yet. While I do think that postmodernity will be the vast majority in the next few generations (and for many generations to come after that), the fact remains that for right now both groups of people exist simultaneously.

Think of the situation as cross-cultural, if that helps. Moderns and postmoderns share much in common here in America, but there are serious differences in very important areas of thought. So - just like a missionary overseas has to learn another culture as well as his own - what we need is people versed in both cultures that can shepherd God's people in this time in between - in between the time now and the time postmodernity will be the norm.

I know of such men. I share classrooms and lecture halls with some of them. I am one of them.

In His infinite wisdom, God has created people like me: steeped in modernity, yet wired for postmodernity. Don't get me wrong - I'm not claiming any sort of special status for myself. I'm not saying I'm better than anybody else. I just find it too coincidental to be coincidental that God has made people like me and then gifted and called them to vocational ministry.

I've got lots of thoughts on how this cross-cultural modern/postmodern ministry can actually take place, but those are thoughts for another day. Right now I just wanted to expose you guys to the concept:

Maybe God has placed specific men in this time and place to shepherd both His modern and His postmodern children as one loving flock.

Maybe those that insist on a revolutionary break are wrong-headed. Maybe those that see the inevitable tidal wave of postmodernity as a fundamental threat to Christianity are wrong-headed. Maybe there is a sense in which we can get along. Not with the ministry models we've gotten used to, I think. But maybe, just maybe it's possible.

Hatushili

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