By God's amazing enablement, we have seen great
progress. Yet we still have much to do. Right now
Bruno and I are in the beginning stages or our work.
Below is some of what God has been doing recently in our
work.
Updated end of April
2010
Youth
Mobilization
The purpose of the Future Leaders Program is to
train up a generation of future leaders who will know and
apply the Word of God. The means for
accomplishing this is the scholarship program that we started,
which enables youth from poor families to go to high school in
exchange for them attending discipleship classes and doing
development work that benefits their communities. The progress
that we have seen in this domain of ministry is as
follows:
The
program was created and has gotten off to a good start, with
51 youth chosen as recipients of the
scholarship this past
school year, and 52 who have been chosen for this school year.
Since the beginning we have seen many of the
students come to faith in Christ and many more growing
spiritually as a result of our work. We have seen several of them save money to buy
their own Bibles and start to study the Word of God on their
own. Some of them have come to us to for advice when
facing various challenges at school, and we have seen God work
through these challenges to draw them closer to
Himself.
The
field work and development projects that we did with the youth
to raise money for next year's scholarship program have not
produced the income that we hoped they would. Part of
this has been due to thieves, and to cattle getting into our
field and destroying crops. However, while these
hindrances have been a discouragement to us at times, we have
also learned much through them. The projects have
produced at least some income, and we now know better how to
protect our projects next year.
Life-On-Life
Discipleship
The purpose of this part of our work is to help
believers grow in their faith and become strong so that they
can mentor others in their faith and be a light for Christ in
their communities. The means for
accomplishing this goal is building friendships and doing life
with men who wish to grow in their faith. The progress that we
have seen in this domain of ministry is as
follows:
1) I have prayerfully chosen three men, whom I
believe God desires me to especially invest in over the course
of the next few years.
2) God has given each of these men a desire to grow
in Him, and we have had many times of fellowship
together.
3) Assan, who became a Christian last summer, is
passionately pursuing a deeper relationship with Jesus.
He is especially growing in his prayer life, learning what it
means to talk to God as our Father.
Church Planting
The purpose of this part of our work is to
mobilize, train, and enable local Cameroonian churches to
plant indigenous communities of believers among people groups
and villages that do not yet have any ongoing relevant
Christian witness. The means for
accomplishing this purpose is talking to local church leaders
and casting vision. The progress that we
have seen in this domain of ministry is as follows:
-
Networking: We met with church leaders from
over 30 different congregations (of the denominations
that work in our area). We discussed with them how they
can be involved in reaching the nearest unreached tribe, which
up until then had no ongoing Christian
witness.
- Praying to
the Lord of the Harvest: We encouraged the
church leaders to start prayer groups in their congregations,
prayer groups that would be regular in praying for the
unreached people (whose name we can't give online) to be
reached with the Good News. We helped start about a
dozen such prayer groups, which continue to function
within their respective local churches.
-Who will go for
us? - In early
December of 2009 we had a meeting of church leaders in which
we asked them to identify people within their congregations,
and especially within the prayer groups, who may be qualified
to become missionaries - to be sent to live as Christian
examples among the ___________ people. After getting a
list of names, we began visiting the different churches and
meeting with these missionary candidates. Right now we
have about 30 people, who were willing to go to live
among the __________ people and show them who Jesus is through
their lives, as well as words.
- Training.
We then planned and prepared a training program for
these missionary candidates, who are presently being
their work among the unreached tribe. We set
up a mini-Bible School, right in Yimbere (the small village in
which we were based). The professors were all
volunteers, and we wrote our own curriculum. Its was a
lot of work, but God brought all the details together and we
are excited to see what God will do through this school in the
future. Our first group of Cameroonian missionaries
graduated on Nov. 12th, 2010. They are now
beginning to move to the villages of the unreached
tribe. Soon this unreached tribe will have indigenous
believers amongst it.
This year we hope to build a Missionary
Training Center, so that next year we can repeat the same
process with a larger group. Our goal is to mobilize and
train over 100 Cameroonian missionaries by the end of 2014,
and to see them sent off by their local congregations to live
and minister among the remaining unreached tribes of
Cameroon. By God's Grace, this goal can become a
reality.
Email:
theunreached@gmail.com
Our mailing address:
B.P. 22 Bankim Par Foumban, Région de l’Ouest, Cameroon W.
Africa
Phone:
011-237-7733-4508