Hands-on missions in Africa

Posted: 1/18/08

Andrew Bentley, a member of Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, examines a young resident of the Ministry of Mercy orphanage in Otutulu, Nigeria.	Cathy Steenhoek from Pella, Iowa, works with a boy during a Buckner International mission trip to Kenya.	Nancy Stretch, a nurse practitioner from Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, examines a child in Busia, Kenya. Wilshire has an ongoing partnership in Busia through Buckner.

Hands-on missions in Africa

When needs become names and epidemics emerge as faces

By John Hall 

Texas Baptist Communications

USTIN—When she made her first trip to Congo, situations Laura Seay was studying in books became real to her. And soon, it grabbed her heart as the country became part of her life.

As a University of Texas doctoral student, Seay is studying the infrastructure of Congo. Each day, Seay—a member of First Baptist Church in Austin—looks for signs of hope and places where Baptists can aid people in need. Most often, she finds them in churches that have begun shouldering the load of providing social services such as medical care.

Jon Cannon, a member of First Baptist Church in Amarillo, comforts a baby after the child receives an injection at a medical clinic at the Baptist Children’s Center in Nairobi, Kenya, a ministry of Buckner International. (Photo/Courtesy of Jeff Raines)

“I have been in some danger in the Congo, and I have seen horrible, unspeakable atrocities, suffering and poverty that’s 10 times worse than what you witness elsewhere in the developing world,” she said.

“It’s impossible to come away from encounters with 6-year-old victims of gang rape or mothers who are starving to death and not be affected by the situation. The pain of what people endure is unbearable sometimes, and I’m only a witness to it. The temptation is always to turn away, say a prayer of thanksgiving that it’s not me, and move on with life. 

“But it wouldn’t be right to turn away from these realities. All those Scriptures about taking up our crosses and going out of our way to help those in need point to the idea that the life of a disciple of Christ isn’t always going to be easy. The paradox, of course, is that by taking up these burdens, we’re set free to love without condition and to sacrifice everything, maybe even our own comfort and safety—and maybe our lives—to follow God’s call.”

In recent years, Africa’s needs have been thrust toward the forefront of social consciousness, and Baptists have taken note. The Baptist General Convention of Texas has a partnership with the Nigerian Baptist Convention. Texas Baptist Men and Virginia Baptists have missions partnerships with Baptists in South Africa.

At least five BGCT-affiliated institutions—Baptist Child & Family Services, Baylor Health-care System, Baylor University, Buckner International and Wayland Baptist University—have ministries in Africa.

The Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger supports a variety of efforts across Africa, as does the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Global Missions Offering and the Southern Baptist International Mission Board’s Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.

A 12-church network is ministering in Ethiopia. A network of churches, including Texas Baptist congregations, is working across denominational lines to serve in North Africa. Several associations have taken mission trips to Africa, and some plan to develop longer partnerships.

Like Seay, many of the groups serving in Africa are drawn to render aid in a continent dominated by political, economic and social strife. Where Buckner serves in Kenya, about 40 percent of the people have AIDS. Five African countries continue to top the list of worst human-rights offenders. In Nigeria, Baptists have focused on assisting the Baptist hospital and seminary.

“They have such overwhelming needs that we can’t ignore,” said Steve Akin, minister of missions at First Baptist Church in Athens, which is serving in Ethiopia. “We’ve ignored it too long.”

The needs draw Baptists to Africa, but the people they encounter keep them involved there, participants agreed. A volunteer is no longer helping orphans with AIDS, but loving a child she is holding in her arms. A doctor isn’t just providing medical attention in a needy area; he is saving the life of a man from what in the West is an easily curable disease. Causes become families, needs turn into names, and epidemics emerge as faces.

“I can hardly begin to explain the attachment our congregation has developed for 50 Kenyan orphans, whom most of us never have met,” said Mark Wingfield, associate pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas. “We have sent Christmas presents, clothes and medical supplies. In addition to the initial commitment to build the child development center, we have added a kitchen and a medical clinic.

“Vaccines and other essential medicines are available through the government in Kenya, but Busia is one of those places where the government had no distribution point. Our clinic is becoming that distribution point. With help from an individual donor and the BGCT, a water well was installed near the child development center. This one water well has changed the lives of everyone who has access to it.”

Baptists who serve in Africa often say they are blessed by the experience.

“For me, it was worshipping with the people, just the vibrancy of the churches there, the Christian witness there in the midst of great need,” said Jeff Raines, associate pastor of First Baptist Church in Amarillo, which had a partnership in Uganda and now has one in Kenya.

The emotional connections have fueled multi-year partnerships between Texas Baptists and African Christians. And the ministry appears to be making a difference as part of a concerted evangelical effort in the continent. A recent Christianity Today article noted Christianity is growing faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world. Christians now make up 46 percent of the continent’s population and outnumber Africa’s Muslims.

But despite more than $600 billion in aid sent to Africa in the last 50 years, living conditions remain difficult in most areas. Africa’s estimated income per person is less than 5 percent of that in the United States. The continent continues battling genocide, AIDS and divisions based on politics, ethnicity and economics.

Bryan Houser, Amarillo Area Baptist Association director of missions and former missionary in Africa, doesn’t expect the statistics to change much. While people talk about Africa as a whole, it is a diverse continent with complicated, multi-faceted issues that are difficult to solve—too big for one church.

Fortunately, God isn’t calling one congregation to change a continent by itself, Houser said. God calls churches to minister and share the gospel in specific ways in specific places. If a congregation is obedient, the life of a person, a family and maybe even a community will be changed.

“The needs of Africa will swallow you up very, very quickly,” Houser said.

“You’ll never make a dent in the problems in Africa. What you can do is make a difference locally in a few people’s lives.”