The Journey to Becoming a Missionary in West Africa
I grew up during a period in the Mennonite church when there was great emphasis placed on missions and service. It was preached and taught like it was everyone's responsibility to be involved in missions/service as a normal expression of one's faith. I really appreciate that emphasis. I hope it is still that way.
In 1959 when I was still
18 I started my two years of alternate service and went with MCC to Morocco in
North Africa. That was my introduction to Africa. I enjoying that time very
much and especially living cross-culturally. From that experience I knew the
Lord wanted me back in Africa once I had my education completed.
But getting back to
Africa didn't happen nearly as soon as I thought it would. It took 40 years,
but I finally made it. And I am very happy to be here.
I came back over in Jan.
2000 as a volunteer with YWAM on their medical ship. It was docked at the time
in Banjul, Gambia. After 3 months with YWAM I started living in Gambia thinking
I would be helping at one of the churches in the port city. I was involved at
one of the churches but a specific ministry never did develop there.
I also discovered that in
the villages where I was doing agricultural assistance there we clusters of
animistic peoples in additional to the majority Muslim population.
It wasn't long till I
became aware of their spiritual hunger and soon we had fellowships in three of
four villages. People were attracted to Jesus once they began to understand him
as God's Messiah and they began to get a vision for how he could transform
their lives into what God created us to be. I started with unbelievers who knew
virtually nothing about Jesus. It was an interesting and rewarding process to
be helping people in their early steps of faith development from Satanic
darkness into God's light and salvation.
When I was preparing to
come to Africa in 1999 I contacted several Mennonite mission agencies to see if
I would be able to partner with them and I got a polite, but firm, 'no' from
all of them. So, I said, well, ok, I will go on my own, because there was no
doubt in my mind this is what God had scheduled for my life at that time.
I came to Africa as a
self-supported, independent missionary. At least I had the emotional and prayer
support of my family and a few other friends.
In about 2003-04 I became
a member at New Holland MC and during one of my visits in the U.S. about that
time, I contacted EMM again and had a good visit with Clair Good. Together with
the encouragement of Ron Zook and Clair I made application for an EMM
appointment together with affiliation of the Gambia mission work with EMM.
I went from EMM candidate
to appointed missionary, a process that normally takes at least a year, in a
matter of 3 short months! And that included EMM's assumption of oversight for
the Gambia mission. All that officially happened on Jan. 1, 2005.
What I really appreciate
about EMM is that they are unapologietically Anabaptist and that we are equally
concerned about all aspects life and salvation, be it physical or spiritual.
In 2005, through the
connection of our primary people group, the Balanta, we carried the mission to
Guinea Bissau, their homeland. Our ministry here started in Sept. 2005. I moved
to G.B. permanently in April, 2006. EMM was able to recruit other missionaries
to continue the work in Gambia, while I transferred to Guinea Bissau.
Here also we started
ministry in a center village with outreach into several nearby villages.
Today, 13 years after
landing in Gambia, this is where we are at and where we are going:
1. We have started the
process of developing Afrian leaders for the church and they are gradually
taking over responsibilities. We still have a ways to go in that process but
good progress is being made.
2. We are in the process
of establishing the Mennonite Church West Africa as an official body with
membership in Mennonite World Conference.
3. We have a fascinating
wholistic ministry including ministry in medicine, early childhood education,
agriculture and job creation.
4. We have a wonderfully
supportive constituency Stateside, actively involved in providing prayer and
interest support, finances and personnel resources.
5. I sense that during
the past few months we have turned something of a corner. There are many more
people coming as seekers after Jesus. People who are honestly looking for
something better than the darkness and lostness of animism, Islam and nominal
Christianity.
6. We are also in a
season of transition in which God is bringing fresh recruits to carry on the
work, taking the mission into the future as a fully fledged and maturing circle
of Anabaptist congregations for West Africa.
My mind goes back to
2001, when one of my African friends, a man faltering in his faith said to me:
"God is going to use you for a mighty work here in West Africa". Sad
to say, I chuckled at his prophetic statement, not yet fully on board with God
vision for this work. But today, as I eagerly look forward to retirement, I am
grateful and humbled that God has used my small lunch to bless so many.
Beryl Forrester,
November, 2012
1 comment:
Good morning, how are you?
My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Guinea Bissau? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Guinea Bissau in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez
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