The vision of the Maasai Christians was incredible! They had absolutely no desire to "fluff" their church buildings with expensive decorations and furnishings. Instead, they wanted to start more churches. On my first day there, the pastor of Ilkushin Baptist Church, a sweeym godly man named George Oneipu, took me out in front of his humble church and identified three hills in the distance in three different directions. He told me, through a translator, that it was their desire to see a new church on each of those hills. Indeed, it was their vision that you would never be able to stand upon a hill in Maasailand without being able to see many churches in every direction!
Perhaps too often we worry about intruding on the territory of nearby churches, or "cannibalizing" our own congregations.
GT [Global Trends?—rl] 2015 estimated that the interplay of demographics and disease —as well as poor governance—would be the major determinants of Africa's increasing international marginalization in 2015. Developments over the past three years have only reinforced rather than diminished that finding. The relentless progression of AIDS continues, with HIV seropositivity rates in the most severely affected countries holding steady or in many cases mounting, while the two most populous countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Nigeria and Ethiopia experience major increases in HIV prevalence. Most African states will miss out on the economic growth engendered elsewhere by globalization and by scientific and technological advances. Only a few countries will do better, while a handful of states will have hardly any relevance to the lives of their citizens.
All the more reason to stand for Africa.
More from the NIC report:
Sub-Saharan Africa will continue to be particularly at risk for major new or worsening humanitarian emergencies stemming from conflict. Genocidal conflicts aimed at annihilating all or part of a racial, religious, or ethnic group, and conflicts caused by other crimes against humanity—such as forced, large-scale expulsions of populations—are particularly likely to generate migration and massive, intractable humanitarian needs.
Rather than pine on about finals and the pits of despair, I'll give some perspective to my life and tell you about Mark and me going to southern Sudan this summer.
Their trip had some of the same goals I'd like to see for our next trip: pastor training, medical care, etc.
Swaziland is a tribal homeland, one of the last monarchies in the world, nestled in the thumb-and-forefinger of South Africa's northeast border. It is notable for having the highest rate of HIV/AIDS incidence in the world: over 40% of the population is infected, with higher incidence in the 25-35 year old range. Over 45% of pregnant women are HIV-positive.
With HIV/AIDS killing off this middle generation, a substantial proportion (almost one-fifth) of Swaziland's children are (or will be) orphans. (In one rural school we visited, we were told that of the 500 students, 300 were orphans.)
With this in mind, we planned, prayed, prepared, and packed over the last six months. (Some of us purchased stuff, too...more on that later, perhaps.) I'm back-dating the entries in this blog (written after the trip, which is why there are some non-concordant verb tenses here) to the events described.
Our goal was to proclaim the surprising goodness of Jesus in actions and words:
Technorati Tag: africa mission trip
