August 2011-July 2012
Ministry Area: Medical & Community Health
Objective: To make basic health care and a holistic Christian lifestyle available to the villages where we have ministry.
1. The clinic at Catel will be open daily for medicine and consultations. Our staffing will vary, depending on who is available. By December 2011 we hope to have a full time medical professional. At times throughout the period there will be visiting medical professionals who will be assisting short-term. We are recruiting a second full time professional (RN).
2. By Jan. 1, 2012 we hope to have a full time coordinator for the CHE program. This is a health and wholeness training program whereby trainers from Catel are sent out to train teams in villages where we have outreach ministries.
3. During October 2011 Tening Mane will begin a two year nurse’s training program in Ziguinchor. When he completes that training he will return to manage the Health ministry of the mission. We are seeking a $4,000 scholarship fund for each of the two years of Tening’s training. This will enable us to pay his registration, tuition, housing and support for his family. If you are able to help with this fund please send checks to EMM, P.O. Box 458, Salunga, Pa. 17538. Checks should be marked: Tening Mane Scholarship Fund, Guinea Bissau.
4. The former cashew building will be remodeled into a clinic. The clinic will serve as a center for health care for Catel and surrounding villages. We will be in collaboration with the government clinics in Ingore and Sao Domingo and the G.B. Health Ministry. The building is completed but will need some remodeling which will be done by visiting masons.
Ministry Area: Church Development
Objective: To continue establishing a self-sustaining Anabaptist oriented movement to Jesus/church in the West Africa region including Gambia, Casamance and Guinea Bissau.
1. In the coming months we will continue toward the goal of equipping the Catel church council to take full responsibility for the church on January 1, 2013. Good progress is being made in developing their gifts in the areas of administration, pastoring, youth ministry and teaching. Everyone on the Council is actively engaged in evangelism and outreach into the surrounding communities. The missionaries continue to be actively engaged in discipling and mentoring the leadership team. That will not stop on January 1, 2013 but missionaries will serve as advisors, encouragers and counselors to their work.
2. There are about 7 villages where the Catel ‘mother church’ has outreach and evangelism within in our region. In these villages we are moving in the direction of raising up leadership within the village with the goal of establishing sustainable congregations in those villages. The leaders we have discipled in Catel are now responsible to disciple others in the villages where they are giving leadership. Already some of these village leaders are reaching out to neighboring villages.
3. During the period we anticipate an annual conference together with the Mennonite congregations in Gambia.
4. Work will be completed on the Kabio church which will provide a mission center for the cluster of villages in that outreach area, 25 miles east of Catel.
5. Various improvements will be made on the mission house making it easier to host visiting long and short term groups.
Ministry Area: Agricultural Development
Objective: To increase the amount, the diversity and the nutritional value of crops.
1. We continue to experiment with new crops. We are currently doing a field test on 23 varieties of red sweet potatoes.
2. We have significant plantings of moringa and chaya which will be marketed as income producing for the mission.
3. We have long-term plantings of Molina, oil-palm and citrus that are still in their first years but eventually will be income producing for the mission. A drip irrigation system is being installed for the citrus.
4. We have started a program of aiding compounds to have a “compound garden”, that is a fenced area where several families belonging to a compound can have garden space adjacent to their compound.
5. In recent months we have started a poultry raising project including partnerships with Catel men. We expect to continue this and probably add laying hens to the inventory.
Ministry Area: Early Childhood and Adult Education
Objective: To significantly reduce the incidence of illiteracy among children beginning with the preschool level and among adults, especially women.
1. Starting in February 2011 we have operated a preschool with technical and financial assistance from the U.S. We expect to continue the school starting in October, 2011. Our teachers will participate in training for preschool teachers in Bissau. Among our visitors in the coming months we expect further technical assistance.
2. We are looking for an opportunity to train a literacy teacher. Many people, especially women would love to be able to read and write. We have made some efforts in this regard but we do need a trained adult literacy teacher.
Beryl Forrester,
EMM West Africa Co-Director
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