A Spiritual Wilderness
The Cape Colony prior to the 1860 Revival was a spiritual wilderness.  The Dutch East India Company controlled the appointment of pastors and establishment of congregations.  Yet, in the first 150 years of Dutch rule in the Cape only five congregations had been established, all within 130km radius of Cape Town. Most of the farmers and Trekboers had no access to pastoral guidance, or opportunities for religious services. Even more seriously, although few of the people in the colony spoke Dutch anymore, the authorities deemed their vernacular, Afrikaans, to be unworthy for church services, prayers, or even for personal devotions. This led to very stilted services where the average member of the congregation struggled to understand the high Dutch of the pulpit and found it hard to express themselves in prayer through the Dutch language. The only Bible available was Dutch, which most of the population had trouble reading. Without the ability to pray from the heart, most resorted to following fixed formulas of well worn expressions.

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10 October used to be celebrated as Kruger’s Day, a public holiday in South Africa, which marked the birth of this great founding father of our nation.
 
Oom Paul was born on his grandfather's farm at Bulhoek, 10 October 1825. Paul's parents were Casper Kruger and Elsie Steyn. Drought, locusts and migrating herds of buck forced them to lead a nomadic existence in the Karoo. He was hardened by nature and schooled by the Bible. He received only three months of formal education, mostly being home schooled. He read the Bible daily.

For your edification, and for intercession, here is a small selection of remarkable written responses we have received from our literature ministry. Please do continue to lift up these people and countries in prayer and please continue to intercede for our publications that God may use them to renew minds, transform lives, change hearts and disciple nations. 

Numerous friends have asked for my assessment of the violence in Kenya. I’ve travelled frequently in Kenya since 1995 and conducted meetings, seminars and conferences there. Kenya has never been a Frontline mission field, but more a forward base for our ministry into Sudan. So I’m by no means any kind of authority on Kenya, but as a frequent traveler to that country I have a few observations.

This article is also available in PowerPoint format here.

Africa has experienced over 100 violent changes of national leadership since 1952. This has included over 80 coups, revolutions and civil wars and 25 assassinations of national leaders. Every year since 1963 (except for 1988) has seen one or more violent overthrow of governments in Africa. Uganda has experienced 6 revolutions, while Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Benin have each had 5 military coup d’etats.

As this newsletter is being written, Frontline Fellowship Mission teams are in the field involved in ministry to eight nations. While one team is conducting outreaches and Leadership Training courses in Zimbabwe, another Mission team is in South Sudan conducting Way of the Master and Evangelism Explosion Workshops for pastors, teachers, chaplains and evangelists.

Every year Africa loses 23,000 university graduates. This includes the very teachers, doctors, engineers and other qualified professionals that Africa most desperately needs. This does not include the many hundreds of thousands of others who left for training overseas and never returned. 

A World magazine article, Words and Deeds by a missionary in Malawi, quoted church leaders as saying that Africa's greatest need is discipleship. "The church has done a good job of evangelising but a poor job of discipling. Christianity here is a mile wide and an inch deep." Most of the pastors throughout Africa have no formal Bible training. Most pastors have no access to a library, and only a few books. Many do not even own a full Bible. Operation World reports that 100 million Christians in Africa do not even possess a copy of the Bible! 

Bibles for Africa
From the very beginning of Frontline Fellowship, in 1982, our highest priority has been delivering and distributing Bibles and providing Bible teaching. On my very first Mission to the persecuted Church in Mozambique, when asked what their greatest need was, their answers were uniformly: "Biblia!" They wanted Bibles. Over the last 31 years, Frontline Fellowship has delivered and distributed over 500,000 Bibles and New Testaments in 100 languages throughout Africa. Many were purchased from the Bible Society. We sponsored the printing of several Bibles, in other languages, not available from the Bible Society.