Church Planting Program Changes

One of the main tasks that has kept me busy since arriving is helping the Association of Christian Churches in Ivory Coast (AECCI in french) to get reorganized and rejuvenated.  An important element in church planting here is for fellow christians (especially fellow pastors and leaders) from different Christian churches to come together for mutual prayer and encouragement.  The sense of belonging to a community is essential in the African worldview.  The crisis stemming from the election took its toll on many of the Christian churches.  People lacked money and resources and coupled with security issues, they were not able to freely travel.  Many of our village churches felt disconnected, discouraged and some had a sense of abandonment.  


I made a point to visit at least a couple churches in each region to get reconnected with our church leaders (currently there are 20 Christian churches).  We tried to deal with a few small disagreements and nagging issues that developed during our family's time out of the country.    Following various meetings, including the appointment of the national leadership for the next three years, a spirit of unity and common vision was restored.  Our Meningitis vaccination campaign had a lot to do with healing the sense of abandonment.  We are looking forward to following God's leading among us.


A few changes came out of these meetings that will help us long-term.  We have moved from a top-heavy leadership structure to a greater focus on groups of churches collaborating in local ministry.  Decisions will be made according to the felt needs of the community instead of those at the top, who are removed from their situation.  


The old structure, during times of crisis, handicapped the local churches which considered themselves dependent upon the national leaders.  When the national leaders had difficulty visiting and communicating with one another and the various churches, the churches often waited to hear from them.  When they didn't, they quickly became discouraged.  While we have tried to establish autonomous churches with local leadership, the reality is there exists a real need for them to be networked and working together to accomplish the Lord's work.  The question before us was how to keep churches connected, have a national identity (which is also important to them) and yet have the decision-making and the ministry more focused on the local level.


We retained the basic national leadership structure and these leaders will be focused on helping discover a common vision for our churches and overseeing the larger projects (i.e. the church planting project in the Beoumi region, national convention).  We are hosting a leaders retreat, lead by the Association leaders, where we will devote our time studying God's word and praying together, seeking His will for our lives and His church in Ivory Coast.  During the retreat, church leaders living in the smaller regions (also called church clusters) will meet to discuss how the Spirit of God is leading them within their regions.  We want the work to be focused on God leading us individually and yet collectively.  We desire our plans to be Spirit-driven and Bible-based applied both locally and nationally.  We hope to grow within while reaching out into new areas.


The hope is that these church clusters will help fulfill the need for connection and shared responsibility while giving a greater sense of ownership for the decisions being made.  These decisions will come more directly from felt needs and God's leading on how to minister to those needs.  The Association will help organize the various activities whether they be CHE based (Community Health Evangelism), leadership training or evangelism.  Our goal is to simplify things and have people follow God's leading instead of someone else's plan.

Nestor Assamoi

Besides helping them work through the reorganization process, the mission has also taken back the oversight of the leadership training program.  We have hired one of our graduates from the leadership training program, Nestor Assamoi, who also serves as the Associate Pastor here in the Abengourou Christian Church.  I am excited to be working with Nestor.  He did a great job continuing to oversee the leadership training program in his local area despite the crisis during this past year.  So be praying for Nestor and I as we try to reorganize and jumpstart the program.


So I would ask you all to be praying for the following requests:


-Our Leaders Retreat taking place this month March 14-16.  Pray that God's Spirit and His word would move in us and guide us in our decisions.
-Nestor and I as he adjusts to his new position and the small modifications being made to improve the leadership training program.
-Good collaboration among the church clusters in their planning and organization.

Meningitis Vaccination Campaign

Short video of various people receiving life-saving vaccines.

Many of you are already aware of our vaccination campaign against Meningitis that we started the first of December.  In the end of November, we had two church members and five HIV+ patients from our clinic die from Meningitis.  The local hospital reported about ten cases during the same time period.  Since it was just the beginning of the dry and dusty season (when Meningitis is most prevalent), our mission decided to act quickly and not wait until more people contracted this dangerous disease.

We were overwhelmed and incredibly blessed by the quick and large response to our appeal for support for this campaign.  Within just the first week, we were able to raise over $7,500 through over 100 online donations simply through spreading the word through Facebook and word-of-mouth.  We ended up surpassing our original goal of $10,000 to provide vaccinations for 3,000 people.  By the end of February (today), we have vaccinated over 5,000 people and have had zero (0) new cases of Meningitis among our patients and church members!  Thank you all for your efforts in spreading the word and giving to save many lives.


Within the first couple of weeks we vaccinated all our mission staff and families, along with most of our HIV+ patients (who are especially vulnerable to Meningitis).  We expanded the campaign to include the churches we work with in our community development programs here in Abengourou.  We also did vaccinations in all of the communities where we currently have churches.  Almost all of these communities and churches were overwhelmed with gratitude for the assistance provided.  Most of these communities are still struggling with the aftermath of last year's conflict stemming from the election.  Many felt as if they had been ignored or forgotten.  There was a renewed sense of rejuvenation and hope within them.  


We truly say thank you to everyone who participated in the vaccination campaign with your prayers, donations or just sharing about the need here in Abengourou.  While cases in Abengourou have decreased (only a small handful at the local hospital since the campaign started) other regions have been reporting serious outbreaks as well.  People who work for the public health system have said that our quick action has made a huge impact in our area.  Thanks for being a part of saving lives.