TRANSPORTATION NEEDED FOR AFRICAN MISSIONARIES

Imagine God placing a call on your life to be a missionary or pastor…Now imagine living and serving in an underdeveloped country, where resources are so greatly lacking that you do not even have means of transportation to efficiently do the work God has called you to do.

This is the reality of nearly ALL missionaries and pastors whom I had a chance to serve with recently. In November, 2021, I had the privilege to serve on a medical outreach in Benín, Africa. In 4 days, our medical team of 13 doctors and nurses, treated 2,155 people in 4 very remote villages . In addition, we had roughly 40 Africans who served with us for the week, most of whom were pastors. It takes a lot to carry out an outreach of this magnitude, but the medical outreach was only PART of the work that was being done. When our team serves on the medical outreaches, the end goal is to reach people for Christ. By offering FREE medical care to underserved communities, this opens the door to the Gospel. And by building on existing relationships with our established ministry partners in these countries, it is our goal to deepen those relationships, and create additional ministry opportunities for our partner organizations as they reach people for Christ in their local villages/communities/regions.

In working alongside so many missionaries and pastors on this outreach, it became apparent that they themselves have many needs too- in order to carry out their work of ministry and evangelism in these remote areas. Many of these pastors have planted several churches, and take a motorbike between villages, to preach multiple times, and at multiple locations each Sunday. The roads are extremely rough and take a toll on their bikes, crossing water, mud, rocks, sand, etc. And sometimes they cannot even make it to all the churches due to their bikes breaking down. Most pastors are not even earning a paid income, but rather are giving their lives to the Lord for voluntary service, and rely solely on donated support. The pastors in these remote villages who are earning a salary, may be earning just $40, $60, or $80 (US equivalent) dollars per month. This small amount of income is not even enough to cover basic living expenses for their family- for food, housing, clothing and their children’s school fees. Because they cannot meet their basic living needs, there is never money left over to apply towards transportation; thus, this severely hinders their ability to be able to carry out how they share the Gospel and carry out evangelism.

In each village that we served in, the pastors and missionaries are doing follow up with the people we met and treated: by showing the Jesus Film as an evangelism method, beginning discipleship with new believers, and hopefully planting more churches. All of this is not possible without means of transportation.

I would like to raise financial support to offer 6 pastors that we served with, the gift of transportation. Specifically, purchase 3 motorbikes, and 3 vehicles. The total cost of these will be $39,000. Without access to transportation, they cannot effectively carry out the work that was started while we served there, in addition to the

ministry efforts they were previously engaged in. Some missionaries and pastors need a motorbike because the roads to access the remote villages are impassable with a vehicle. However, 3 of the pastors require larger vehicles to be able to transport ministry teams to locations where they can share the Gospel.

Would you prayerfully join me in supporting them? Any amount will help! You can donate directly to this fund, and 100% of donations will go towards these transportation needs. Mission Partners for Christ is non-profit organization that conducts 3 medical outreaches/year in various countries in Africa. This charitable organization will coordinate the distribution of the transportation funds. Your gift will be tax deductible.

I am starting with the known transportation needs of 6 pastors who served directly with us, but I am hoping if more donations come in, that more and more pastors would be blessed by this means (I am already aware of 10 additional pastors needing motorbikes who are currently walking for all ministry/evangelism efforts). Thank you for partnering with me, as we help to carry out The Great Commission!

Quotes from a few of the pastors:

“This is a serious problem in Africa…so many pastors I work with don’t have any transportation. They use their FEET to GO and do their evangelism….sometimes we need to go into a village to do evangelism and we must go and rent a car before going…where is money to get it?” (Rental car cost $130/day USD)

“The beautiful feet of the crusaders of the Gospel are walking from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and uttermost parts of the earth. Mobility is a very vital tool in spreading the Gospel, especially in the unreached, unengaged and remote underdeveloped villages. Support of motorcycles and vehicles will go a long way to help the pastors reach more people in record time with less stress. The present peculiarities and situations of some of the countries in Africa as underdeveloped nations has made lives a lot difficult for citizens. Many roads are sandy, rocky, and swampy which make it partially motorable only for motorcycle.”

“I am the coordinator of the pastors of a region in Benín. Here the pastors have transport difficulties especially in my area because we have villages that are 49 km, 70 km, and even 100 km and need motorcycles that are in good condition, and also mini-bus vehicles for evangelism. If the motorcycle is not in good condition, it spoils quickly. If you can help us pastors, we have a lot of difficulty in terms of means for Gospel mobility.”

(pictures included here are from the recent medical outreach in Benín November 2021)