September 2012 Update

What’s Going on at the Mennonite Mission in Guinea Bissau?

These are the ministries which occupy most of our time, energy & funds:

1. Church planting, community evangelism, discipling new believers and inviting people to become disciples of Jesus Christ.

Activities:

· Bible studies

            · Mentoring & discipleship training

· Friendships

· Church services in villages

· YES team will live in village as church planting team

Goals:

· Develop village fellowships of Jesus followers who will open the windows of faith to others.

· Encourage people to take steps of faith towards Jesus

· Help people find healing and hope in a setting of profound social & spiritual brokenness.

· Model new ways in family life, gender relations and social responsibility.

· To replace demonology and ancestor domination with a loving relationship with God and the people of God.

2. Pre-school educational opportunities for 4-6 year olds.

Activities:

· We have held pre-school in the meetinghouse for two years with quite good results.

· This year we have entered into a cooperative arrangement with the public school system.

· The public school system in Catel is seriously broken. The public district director is working with us to get the situation headed the other direction. This is an awesome open door for ministry and witness in the community.

· Few children in Catel can read or write as a result of school inadequacies.

· Lia Viega is the prime mover and shaker in this program.

Goals:

· Provide the Catel children the opportunity for an education and literacy.

· Teach Christian values and create a desire to know and follow Jesus.

· Train local teachers in their classroom and instructional skills.

· Bring in a primary school expert from the U.S. to help us in this ministry.

3. Agricultural development.

Activities:

· Pork and poultry enterprise development with local farmers.

· Demonstration garden especially for women.

· Introduction of new and improved varieties of edible plants e.g. sweet potato varieties, chaya and moringa.

· Demonstration plantings of citrus fruit trees, lumber trees and palm oil trees.

· Andrew Stutzman and Adrianne Huber are the primary staff for this program.

Goals:

· Improve nutritional opportunities. Promote food security.

· Encourage agricultural plantings and ventures among the locals. Help people catch a vision for the agricultural potential of this country.

4. Community health and well-being.

Activities:

· Professionally staffed clinic is open 5 days per week in Catel.

· Liaison with G. B. Ministry of Health and nearby health facilities

· Community Health Education (CHE) is being promoted in several villages with a focus on prevention and community well-being.

· We are in the process of training an African nurse to take charge of this ministry.

· We have an on-going staff of long and short term medical professionals helping with the clinic. Current expat. staff includes Terianne Edwards, RN and Dr. Jonathan Yoder, MD. More are in the pipeline.

Goals:

· To make medical care available to Catel and surrounding communities as an alternative to witchcraft and shamanism.

· Intervene medically on behalf of the marginalized (esp. children) who are often allowed to suffer and die without medical attention.

· Make disease prevention and healthful living a priority for our communities.

· Demonstrate and teach spiritual aspects of how God created us to live healthfully.

Developing cashew processing and other enterprises capitalizing on local resources.

Activities:

· We have organized a partnership of four village men to operate a cashew processing plant.

· We are retooling our cashew processing project to include electrically powered shellers.

· Some of our women have had training in tie & dye and wish to begin that as a women’s enterprise.

Goals:

· To create value added enterprises that will help create employment in the village.

· To transform local materials into marketable products.

Some of the Challenges we deal with daily in the Guinea Bissau Mission:

· A worldview oriented to survival, dependency, low self esteem and fatalism. These are the stock in trade of this society. No magic words or clever development theories will make them suddenly go away. We buck them all the time, every day of the week. The good news is that I think we are making some progress. But it is slow.

· While there are some good things to be said about social responsibility in this culture, the news is mostly bad. Particularly family life. When you compare typical family life in our villages to the Biblical model and standards, the chasm is deep and wide. Even getting Christians to up-grade to the Biblical model is a slow process even when they fully agree that they want the Biblical model.

· Getting people, even Believers to take full responsibility for themselves and their families is tough. It is so much easier to shift the responsibility for one’s social, spiritual and economic well-being to a ‘patron’, someone who is better endowed than you are. We deal with this as we attempt to establish job creating enterprises, educational improvements, healthy living and village church plants.

Some Significant events heralding changes during the next twelve months:

· Andrew Stutzman departs in July, 2013 after four years of faithful service and leadership.

· Beryl’s retirement in July, 2013. However, I will be available to assist with the transition and orientation of the new missionaries. I will be moving to my retirement cottage about 30 miles away in Bourofaye, Senegal.

· We are anticipating the arrival of two long-term missionary families.

· We are hoping to establish self sustaining congregations with local leaders in at least two villages.

· We expect to make the cashew processing facility a thriving, profitable business.

· There will be a number of short term workers including YES volunteers and medical professionals during this period.

· We expect to see the Mennonite congregations in Gambia, Senegal and Guinea Bissau formed into a conference and be accepted as Mennonite World Conf. associate members.

Beryl Forrester

Sept. 2012