Africa is a continent in conflict. Animism, Communism and Islam are in conflict with Christianity. The battle is for the soul of the continent. Africa for Christ Many would be surprised, in the light of all the negative and violent reports, to hear that Africa is being saved. In 1900 there were 8 million Christians (10% of the entire population of Africa). By the year 2000 there were over 350 million (48% of the population of Africa). The growth of evangelicals has been even more spectacular. In 1900 evangelicals were 1,6 million (1.5% ). However, by 2000 there were 116 million (14.8%). The rapid church growth has been particularly impressive in Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Ethiopia and Nigeria. Islam is the greatest challenge and threat for Christianity in Africa today. There are an estimated 320 million Muslims in Africa (41% of the total population). There are approximately 160 million Muslims north of the Sahara in the seven North African, Arabic speaking countries. However, there are also another 157 million in sub-Saharan – or black – Africa.
The Muslim – Christian fault-line, stretching from Senegal across the Sahara and Sahel through Nigeria, Chad and Sudan to Ethiopia, are areas of confrontation and increasingly aggressive Islamic activities. African Christian evangelism is confronting violent Islamic Jihad across the whole of North Africa. Bitter guerrilla warfare in Algeria, terrorist attacks in Kenya, Jihad against Christians in Sudan and massacres of Christians in Northern Nigeria are only some of the flashpoints. Just yesterday a report came in of Muslim mobs burning down 13 churches in Kazaure, some 80km north of Kano, in Northern Nigeria. However, even in the face of this violent opposition, Bible believing, evangelical churches are expanding at a staggering pace. In fact the church in Africa has grown so fast that Operation World reports that 100 Million Christians in Africa do not even possess a copy of the Bible. The challenge to the Christian Church as Africa moves towards becoming a continent where Christians are the majority is the urgent need for literature and leadership training. Africa is being well evangelized, but very inadequately discipled. Most of the pastors throughout Africa have no formal Bible college training. Most of the pastors have no library at all. Some pastors have only two or three books, many do not even own a full Bible. The vision of Frontline Fellowship is to work for Reformation in Africa by producing, providing and distributing suitable literature, leadership training and love in action. Ministering to body, mind and spirit. Comprehensively fulfilling the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, teaching obedience to all things the Lord has commanded. This has involved a wide range of ministries including delivering and distributing over 240 000 Bibles and Christian books in 21 languages – just to Sudan; providing thousands of Christian textbooks for teachers, and libraries for pastors; conducting teacher training seminars, evangelism workshops, pastoral training, agricultural and relief work, delivering tons of medicines and medical equipment, training medics, chaplains, evangelists, teachers and pastors, and helping to establish Bible colleges and Christian schools. By God’s grace, in the last few months, Frontline Fellowship has passed some major milestones in each of these vital ministries. Traditionally missions have seen the school, the hospital and the church as the three pillars of missions: the school to minister to the mind, the hospital to minister to the body, and the church to minister to the soul. Bibles for the Unreached When I was a delegate at the Global Consultation On World Evangelism, a variety of unreached peoples groups were being parceled out to the various missions executives. Because we ministered in the Nuba Mountains, I was given the Krongo. On a subsequent mission to the Nuba, I discovered that the Krongo, who were listed as an unreached peoples group, were not only well evangelized, but the vast majority were Bible believing Christians organised in evangelical churches! The Krongo believers explained to me that back in the 1950’s Australian missionaries from Sudan United Mission (SUM) had worked in the Nuba Mountains and planted the Gospel seed. In 1962 they were all expelled from the country by the Muslim military dictatorship which had taken over in a violent revolution in 1958. The Churches were strong and vibrant, but they had no Bibles, hymnbooks or Christian literature in their language. Evangelists receive the Krongo New Tesatments. By God’s grace, on my next trip into the Nuba Mountains, I was able to deliver hymnbooks, catechisms and Sunday school materials, which the original SUM missionaries had translated into Krongo. With much excitement, the five Krongo pastors and evangelists, who were attending our Training Seminar, opened up the boxes, and immediately began to sing from the Krongo hymn book. One of them said later “You have made a thousand tongues to sing!” It was deeply humbling to see the fulfillment of the earnest prayers of faithful missionaries from four decades ago. On a recent mission trip to the Nuba Mountains, Tim was able to deliver New Testaments in the Krongo language. Along with over 1000 Bibles, New Testaments, hymn books and catechisms in the Nuba languages, Tim was also able to deliver audio visual equipment and train evangelists, including from the Krongo, in these evangelistic and teaching materials. Some of the pastors walked seven hours, one way, to attend the evangelism workshops. On a recent ministry trip to Australia, I met Christians connected with the old Sudan United Mission. They were most excited over the news of our ministry into the Nuba Mountains, as retired friends of theirs had been involved in the Bible translation projects there. I was given a copy of a book “God’s Will for the Mountains”, by Ellen Crocker. This gave a whole new background to the difficult and often dangerous missionary work we had been undertaking into the Nuba Mountains. The Coming Storm The SUM missionaries described work in the Nuba Mountains 50 years ago: “The formless road was mostly potholes and slippery mud … malaria could hit like a ton of bricks, tossing the victim into a sea of pain, of searing heat and shivering cold, for days and sometimes weeks. Survival was not to be taken for granted. The disease also had serious complications, especially the dreaded Blackwater fever … there were reports of violent riots … the Southerners had not forgotten that their future partners in government had traded in black slaves not that long ago. They did not trust the Arabs. The Northerners … didn’t just want a unified Sudan. They also wanted a uniformly Islamic nation. … If the SUM had only a few years left in Sudan, how should they invest those remaining years? Three areas stood out … first, all leadership responsibilities in the Nuba churches must be transferred to the local Christians … secondly, local leaders … must be given a thorough grounding in Scripture, so that they in turn could continue to teach and sheperd others … thirdly, the greatest need was for every Christian to have access to the Word of God. This meant that the translation of the New Testament – and preferably more – must be completed in each of the five languages used on the Nuba Mountain mission field. Bible translation and literacy work … were now given top priority.” Unfortunately, however, at this time of greatest need, due to staff shortages, the Bible school at Shwai was forced to close in 1956. “After patience - stretching negotiations with the government and seemingly endless amounts of red tape, a Bible seminary for pastors and evangelists recommenced on the same site in 1959.” The Bible translation work was “slow, painstaking work … time for mission work was in short supply. In the mid 50’s the political atmosphere in Sudan was tense and … dangerously turbulent with wide spread strikes and uprisings … political upheavals.” I also learned from these missionaries that the first ordained Nuba minister, Pastor Samwiil Jangul, had received his theological training at the Bishop Gwynne College at Mundri in Southern Sudan. The very Bible college which Frontline Fellowship is helping to restore. From the memoirs of the SUM missionaries I learnt of their ongoing trouble in gaining entry visas to Sudan and permits to “enter the closed district of the Nuba Mountains … one after another of the SUM people received eviction notices in the years 1959 – 1962 …” The Islamic government then withdrew permission for Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) to use the three airstrips in the Nuba Mountains. “As a result nearly all travel had to be done on the roads that alternated between dangerously bad and quite impassable for a large part of the year.” They reported needing extraordinary tenacity as they were forced to work “against a slow and inefficient bureaucracy.” “The Sudanese government’s first target was the mission schools. Everything from little bush schools to large secondary colleges run by a variety of expatriate missions became government schools at the stroke of a pen in 1958. Next came the mission dispensaries or clinics. The mission dispensary … was then ordered to close … the existence of the Bible School at Shwai was questioned. As the Sudanese government was now running all schools, what right had this school to train pastors and evangelists? Friday then replaced Sunday as Sudan’s day of rest. A military regime seized power in May 1958 and declared martial law … frustrations of that kind were the rule rather than the exception …” I had to smile and frequently shake my head in amazement as I read these reports from missionaries to the Nuba Mountains nearly 50 years ago. Some things, such as the slow and inefficient bureaucracy, transportation complications, prohibition of flights, government interference, political instability, fevers and malaria, seemed to have little changed. On the other hand, the missionaries did have access to a telephone “a mere 24 kilometers away and it frequently worked!” Will They Stand? An interesting conversation was recorded with the British ambassador. “What will happen after you leave? Do you have churches out there? Will the Christians stand for their faith? Do they have any guts?” The Ambassador questioned Australian missionary William Lunn. (This conversation is recorded in Malcolm Forsberg’s book “Last Days on the Nile”.) William responded with vigor: “I have no fear for the church, they are organized … the Christians are strong … they will stand.” Indeed, recent history has borne out the faith of these dedicated missionaries. The Nuba Christians have shown themselves strong. They have stood firm. An island of Christianity in an ocean of Islam. The Nuba Christians have endured some of the very worst persecution. The vast majority of villages in the Nuba mountains have been burned down. Most of the churches have been destroyed. Most of their crops have been destroyed. Much of their livestock have been looted. Even wells have been poisoned. Hundreds of Christian men have been crucified in the Nuba Mountains. The National Islamic Front government of Sudan has declared Jihad against the Nuba and have conducted a scorched earth campaign against the Nuba Mountains. Yet, even in the face of this relentless cruelty and vicious persecution, the Christians in the Nuba Mountains have multiplied, winning their neighbors and even some of their enemies to Christ. The last days of the SUM missionaries in the Nuba Mountains were turbulent. Police officers, guns in hand, ransacked the missionaries’ homes, searching for radio transmitters, confiscating property, and “leaving a dreadful mess behind”. The years of “the heat and stress were taking their toll.” Helen Bond and Peg Astbury worked on the Otoro New Testament at Kauda. Keith and Betty Black completed the Moro New Testament and Leah Jenkins worked on the Heiban translation. In their race to complete the Bible translations before the Muslim Government evicted them, the translation work was constantly interrupted by tearful Nubans coming to say farewell. New laws were passed “which seemed extremely repressive of any Christian activity”. Government orders came through that all missionary buildings had to be “completely emptied” and the keys handed over to policemen. None of the mission property was allowed to be handed over to the local churches “because no such body as the church exists”, according to the Muslim Government. Neither would the authorities allow money from the SUM account or the missionary’s private account to be taken out of the country. The final chapter of the book reports that there were “about 200 baptized believers on the SUM field” when they reluctantly had to leave. Now there are over one and a half million! “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” Psalm 126: 5-6 Teamwork We are greatly indebted to these faithful missionary pioneers who ploughed the hard ground, planted the Gospel seed and watered it with many tears, sacrifices and prayers. The vibrant and dynamic Christian churches in the Nuba Mountains today can praise God for faithful men and women who labored to ensure that they had the Word of God faithfully translated into their own languages. It is our great privilege in Frontline Fellowship to have delivered many of these New Testaments, hymn books, Sunday school materials and catechisms in Otoro, Heiban, Moro, Krongo and Kwalib. All of these were translated by the SUM missionaries before they were expelled from the country in 1962. However, with the violent persecution and scorched earth campaign directed against the Nuba, in recent years, soon no copies remained in the Nuba. Behind Enemy Lines Tim and I have walked across the Nuba Mountains delivering thousands of Bibles and New Testaments, hymn books, catechisms and school books, showing the Jesus film and God’s Story in Arabic, to tens of thousands of Nubans, training pastors and evangelists, and equipping them with Gospel Recordings Messengers and God’s Story audio visual equipment. Scorpions, malaria and sunstroke have been occupational hazards while ministering in the Nuba Mountains. On one trip a poisonous little scorpion stung me on my left arm. In no time at all my arm became inflamed and began to feel somewhat paralyzed. We were so far from any possible medical care, and had absolutely no medicines to counteract the effect of the scorpion’s poison. We prayed. And, by God’s grace, within the day, my arm began to heal up. Killing scorpions before going to bed became somewhat routine. Tim still has the record. He managed to kill 7 scorpions around his sleeping bag in one night. The question is how he managed to sleep after that! Just before Thanksgiving, Tim was about to fly into the Nuba Mountains. As he saw a flock of turkeys, he began to think of the Thanksgiving holiday feasts that would be served at home, in America. “I want roasted turkey” was Tim’s desire. However, as Tim later wrote: “Little did I know that I was the turkey to be roasted!” “The Nuba Mountains have always been one of the most hostile areas to work within Sudan ... the place is completely surrounded by Government of Sudan forces … flying there is always done at the risk of being shot down. Clearly the Lord was with me as the aircraft arrived safely after a rough landing on a crooked runway. On the far end of the airstrip were the remains of a crashed plane, indicating that not everyone was as blessed as us. “Although the landing was good, this mission trip started off on the wrong foot. The people I’d radioed to meet me at the airstrip didn’t arrive. After the pilot helped me offload the Bibles and other Christian books he was quickly on his way. So I remained alone in the middle of the Nuba Mountains in 115°F heat with a ton of Bibles and no one to meet me. So I waited …” Temperatures soared. Tim developed sunstroke. He started vomiting and had severe dysentery. He lost so much fluid that he became very weakened. By God’s grace, Tim managed to walk to a Joint Military Commission (JMC) compound where he was able to receive medical care. The military doctor that examined him reported that had he remained in the sun even a few minutes longer, he would have had convulsions, become comatose and died. Tim received intensive care for two days, lapsing into and out of consciousness and often vomiting. By God’s grace, he regained sufficient strength by the Sunday to begin literature distribution and the training of evangelists. To distribute the remainder of his cargo, Tim had to get across a 65km plain controlled by the Arabs. He began looking around for some camels to hire to transport the Bibles across the desert. Then, by God’s grace, he was offered a flight in the Joint Military Commission helicopter! He managed to get half a ton of Bibles onto the Soviet Mi 8 Helicopter (without them realizing what they were transporting!). Tim then had a serious shock when they landed in the middle of a Government of Sudan garrison! He knew that if the Arab soldiers realized that he was a Christian missionary and found out what he was transporting, his head would “literally have been in a basket!” However, by God’s grace, Tim and his Scriptural contraband remained undetected and the JMC helicopter continued on its flight landing him and his precious cargo not too far from the churches he had come to visit. As Tim reported after this trip: “Somebody must have been praying – or I wouldn’t be alive now!” One Nuba evangelist, who had been entrusted with our 16mm Jesus film equipment, reported having screened the Jesus film in Arabic to over 29000 people before the machine broke down. The 16mm projector has now been repaired for the next Nuba film evangelism marathon. On a subsequent mission trip to the Nuba Mountains, Tim managed to conduct a Muslim Evangelism Workshop and train evangelists in new God’s Story audio visual equipment. Heavy rains and other complications delayed Tim’s exit from the Nuba Mountains. But even this delay was used by the Lord for good as it led to him meeting the Governor of the Nuba Mountains. At one point he was stranded at an airstrip for two days. On another occasion, after being stranded for some time, Tim sought to hitchhike a lift on a UN aircraft, but when they discovered that he was a Christian missionary, they refused to give him a lift out. The UN, in our experience, is UNfriendly, UNcooperative, UNreasonable and UNregenerate. On returning, Tim learned that there had been three aircraft crashes in the area in the previous three months. He also reported that the educational needs were great. In the one region where he ministered there were only five primary schools. There were also only about 2 textbooks available per school. The Lord willing, we are planning to deliver sufficient Christian textbooks and stationery to equip these and many other schools in the Nuba Mountains. When I first flew into the Nuba Mountains, blackboards, chalk, textbooks and stationery materials for schools were part of our four tonnes of cargo. At that time there was only an estimated 15% of the people in the Nuba Mountains who could read and write. Now, by God’s grace, literacy in the Nuba Mountains has increased to over 30%. As the schools continue to grow, so too will the literacy rate. However, to reach the majority of the people in the Nuba Mountains, who are illiterate, we still need to make use of film evangelism and audiovisual equipment such as the Gospel Recordings (Bible Media) Messengers and the God’s Story VCD Kits. Smuggling for the Starving “Under the cover of darkness, I proceeded carefully down the road to my destination in Zimbabwe. As I approached yet another roadblock, I slowed my pickup truck to a halt. I was hoping that the police officer would just wave me through as the previous roadblocks had done, but not this time. He began looking around with his flashlight. ‘What’s this in the back?’ He asked as his light shone on the bag behind my seat. I turned around to look. When I saw what he was looking at, I knew I was in trouble. “The contraband had been carefully concealed but the bumpy road had shifted things around. Now it was exposed, and I could see no way out of this mess I was now in. ‘Oh that’s just beans,’ I said, pretending that it was no big deal to have 50 kg of beans in Zimbabwe. ‘Pull over here to the side,’ he responded. As I pulled to the side, about a million thoughts passed through my mind, but not one of them was positive. “One wouldn’t think that carrying 400 kg of food could get a person into so much trouble, but in a country with a Communist dictator like Robert Mugabe, even the absurd is possible. Zimbabwe, although once a great country with vast wealth and resources, is now a complete wreck. Even the most basic necessities of life, such as food or fuel, are scarcely found. “As I drove through the countryside, I could see the many commercial farms that used to be highly productive, now only vast fields of weeds and grass. Mugabe’s thugs have seized most of the farms for themselves, leaving a trail of human rights abuses in the process. Now that the farms have been confiscated, they are no longer producing anything. This has begun a famine that is expected to get worse than the one in Ethiopia back in the 1980’s. This famine is being caused deliberately by ZANU-PF (Robert Mugabe’s party) to starve out their opposition, many of whom are Christians. “With many already starving, we devised a plan to help meet this need through our Box with Love project. Love boxes are filled with basic necessities like non-perishable food and soap. A number of churches and individuals from all over South Africa have donated boxes. Getting the boxes together was a great blessing, yet delivering those boxes into the right hands would be a real witness of God’s power. “There are two ways to get food into Zimbabwe to meet the needs of the people. There is the legal way, by which one can go through all the official channels with the correct paperwork and bribes, etc. However, using this way, the food goes to the very government that is responsible for the famine and the people really in need are neglected. The official route doesn’t actually solve anything. Then there is our way, which unfortunately is illegal. This involves smuggling the food across the border and through the many roadblocks undetected. “Either of these methods is dangerous because the country has become so lawless. Shortly before this trip, an American man working for a secular NGO bringing in food through “the right channels” was murdered, at one of the roadblocks. We could easily have our food confiscated, be locked up, tortured or even killed for our activities. The price of compassion can be very high in Zimbabwe. “From the very outset of my first trip into the country, God’s blessings were evident. With only a few tire punctures and car problems, our trip went well. We got through the border and four roadblocks without serious problems. The fact that gasoline wasn’t available created a logistical challenge, yet even in this, God made His provision known. “Upon arriving at our destination, we were warmly welcomed by our friends who were incredibly grateful for what God had used us to bring them. On this trip, we successfully delivered 65 love boxes, numerous books, and over 10,000 Gospel booklets for distribution. I also equipped two evangelists with the Gospel Recordings Messenger kits and one pastor with an audio visual kit. The Gospel Recordings Messengers at work in the Nuba Mountains. These tough hand cranked tape recorders with colorful flip charts are often called: “the man in the box who speaks my language.” “On the way out of the country, we were stopped at one of the roadblocks and thoroughly harassed by the police. But now we had delivered everything and the vehicle was empty - so we made a safe exit. In this I could see what the Lord had protected us from on the way in. “During the next mission trip into Zimbabwe things got interesting. The border and the first couple of roadblocks went fine, but when I was asked to pull to the side of the road at the last roadblock I became concerned. The policeman who asked me to pull to the side remained, while a man in civilian clothes approached my vehicle and began to interrogate me. I remember being warned by friends before entering the country that the officials dressed in civilian clothes are the worst hands to fall into. They are either CIO (Mugabe’s version of the KGB) or so called “war veterans” with every kind of evil in their heart. My guess was that this guy was CIO. “After answering a few questions, I handed him a letter with my excuse for being in the country. He left and then came back. ‘God bless, please pray for us,’ he said as he handed back my letter, letting me go. I was shocked. I don’t know what the Lord had done in this man’s heart, but it was a miracle and I was on my way! I successfully arrived in the middle of the night to another warm welcome. We offloaded everything while it was still dark.” “For I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in...Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” Matthew 25:36,40 Prayer Prohibited As bizarre as it may seem that one has to smuggle food into a country facing mass starvation, the government of Zimbabwe is now even warning churches not to pray! The ZANU-PF government of Zimbabwe has turned on churches and pastors in a campaign to clamp down on prayers for justice. Various church prayer meetings have been dispersed by police. Government officials claimed that these prayer meetings had been “convened without (their) permission” and “in violation of the security laws.” Rev. Sony Chimbuya, of the Church of Christ in Masivingo, and a former senior official of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, was summonsed by plain clothes police and interrogated as to why he was praying “anti-government prayers.” Rev. Chimbuya reported to the Daily News: “I was ordered not to pray prayers which are political. They even told me that I should write down my prayers for them to scrutinize. They took my Curriculum Vitae and warned me to be careful with my prayers!” Rev. Chimbuya said that he was not a political activist, but a preacher. “ I just believe in peace and unity in the country.” One daily newspaper commented in a front page article: “Zimbabweans who have long lost hope in the government’s ability to extricate them from abject poverty and see their only salvation in praying hard for their country, now find themselves with little space to do this.” State Sponsored Terrorism Zimbabwe has been suffering under an increasingly oppressive government, which has mobilised mobs to invade and loot thousands of white owned commercial farms. Robert Mugabe, the Marxist dictator of Zimbabwe, has publicly proclaimed: “Farmers are enemies of the state!”; “We have degrees in violence!”; “What Hitler did to the Jews I will do to the whites – ten fold!” Robert Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe in 1980, after a vicious civil war, as part of a political settlement organised by the British Foreign Office and the US State Department. Although the British and US governments publicly guaranteed the rule of law and private ownership of property, particularly farms, Mugabe’s government has grown increasingly lawless, even ignoring rulings by the Zimbabwe Supreme Court. Shortly after taking power, Mugabe’s North-Korean trained 5th Brigade went on the rampage, killing tens of thousands of Matabele tribesmen. The Zimbabwe National Army has also been involved in foreign wars, propping up the unpopular Marxist dictatorship in Mozambique in the 1980’s and the un-elected Marxist regime in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. National Suicide Mugabe’s ZANU-PF have been involved in an increasingly violent campaign against all those who are considered unsupportive of the Marxist government of Zimbabwe. Thousands have been assaulted and arrested, often without charge. Many have been murdered. Over 5000 farms have been confiscated from white commercial farmers, with widespread looting and destruction of property by ZANU-PF “war veterans” and youth militia. Ndebele victims of Mugabe’s ZANU (PF) in Zimbabwe The one independent radio station was blown up. The independent Daily News offices were also attacked and blown up. Judges who have made rulings against ZANU-PF have been attacked by mobs, even assaulted in their chambers in court. Supreme Court justices who opposed Mugabe’s campaign of lawlessness have been forced to resign upon public threat of death. Pastors have been arrested for prayer. And hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans are starving in a man-made famine. What Hope for Africa? Zimbabwe and Sudan are examples of what is wrong in Africa. Lawlessness, tribalism, racism, one party dictatorships, Marxism, Islamic Jihad, envy, covetousness, hatred, theft and murder. We can see the problems. But where can we find the solutions? Is there any hope for Africa? Reformation and Revival This is where our mission’s vision comes in. We are committed to working for Biblical Reformation and praying for spiritual revival in Africa. God’s Word, the Bible, has all the solutions for the problems of Africa. That is why we launched our new book: Biblical Principles for Africa at Parliament in Cape Town. This compact, 100 page book is designed to be a powerful discipleship tool – for government officials, businessmen, pastors, teachers, journalists and citizens throughout the 23 nations of Africa which have English as their official language. Our first print run was an ambitious 10000 copies. Thousands have already been sold and thousands more have been distributed freely to key political, economic and spiritual leaders – as far afield as Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Training Leaders In addition we have continually revised and expanded our Biblical Worldview Manual, Reformation Conference Manual and Great Commission Course Manuals. We run dozens of such leadership training courses for thousands of Christian leaders throughout Africa. To those who cannot come to our courses we offer the manuals and audio tape sets. When we find exceptional students, pastors, or evangelists, we try to arrange sponsorship so that they can come to some of our more intensive training programmes such as the Summit and Great Commission Course in Cape Town. Frontline Fellowship has also established a Bible College in Eastern Zambia. By God’s grace the first group of pastors to complete the three-year programme at Covenant College were graduated at the end of October. Providing Literature Along with assisting various Bible Colleges with textbooks and guest lecturers, Frontline Fellowship is also seeking to provide Libraries for Pastors. Most pastors in Africa have no formal Bible College training and access to precious few books. As we continue to go out and conduct leadership training seminars in neglected areas we also want to supply quality Christian books. When we are able to, we provide every pastor at our seminars with a complimentary book. Also we give books as prizes for those who attain the highest marks in our Bible Exam, or other tests. And we award those who show the greatest proficiency in Bible memorization during our Bible Drill. Ammunition and Air Support The hunger for Christian literature in Africa is intense. Africans love to read – but most have no access to good Christian books. We are doing our best to rectify that. If you can help organise book donations or sponsorships we will ensure that these books are prayerfully and strategically entrusted to those who will most appreciate and study them. Literature is the spiritual ammunition of missions. And prayer provides air support and spiritual artillery. Please keep praying for our missionaries and those amongst whom we minister as we seek to be faithful to the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ - whilst under relentless and vicious attacks. Wheels Under the Word In Sudan we have also sought to multiply the effectiveness of trained pastors and evangelists by donating bicycles. This Bibles and Bikes programme aims to enable pastors to cover more ground and reach and teach more people by providing simple, and relatively inexpensive, transport. By God’s grace we have so far provided over 70 bicycles to pastors, chaplains, teachers and evangelists in Sudan. Textbooks for Teachers All over Africa we see mosques and madrassah being built. Muslim nations, such as Saudi Arabia, are pouring hundreds of millions of petrodollars into financing the building of Islamic schools. Islamic propagation societies are active throughout Africa aggressively seeking to buy converts to Islam by offering free schooling, free uniforms, free shoes, free textbooks, free school lunches and free university scholarships to Middle Eastern Universities. In response we are conducting Muslim Evangelism Workshops and assisting Christian Community Schools with quality Christian textbooks, and Teacher Training Seminars. We have also compiled a Christian Teachers Manual. We need more Christian teacher trainers and many thousands more Christian school textbooks. “For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water ... a highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called The Highway of Holiness ...” Isaiah 35: 6 - 8 Dr. Peter Hammond
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