American Baptist Churches of Pennsylvania and Delaware

ABCOPAD IN AFRICA

 

Would you help us grow a relationship with this new IM partner?
God is using Good News Soldiers to grow the Kingdom of God in West Africa!

Over the course of the last five years First Baptist Church of Kennett Square has grown in relationship with the Good News Baptist Church (GNBC) of Lomé, Togo and their evangelical outreach organization, the Good News Soldiers (GNS). God has grown what began as the occasional sharing of prayer requests over instant messenger into GNS being recognized as an official NGO in Togo, and, very recently, a recognized partner of International Ministries (IM). It is in the context of this brand-new relationship with IM that the following proposal is made.

Good News Soldiers is a network of churches and volunteers in Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. Their ministry takes the good news of the Gospel to small villages throughout these countries in a number of ways, including:

  • running vacation Bible schools
  • discipling local leadership
  • childhood education
  • teaching people to make soap from available materials for their own hygiene and for sale to support their families
  • distributing soap and masks in Togo during the COVID-19 pandemic

All of the activities of the ministry are funded through the donations of volunteers throughout West Africa.

 

To support these ministries, the people they minister to, and the churches in their network,
we propose the following to the churches of ABCOPAD:

  • Collect gently used musical instruments and sound equipment to fan the flames of musical worship in West Africa
    • new musical instruments are extremely expensive locally
    • many churches worship without instruments or pay very high rental fees to rent them for Sunday morning.
    • many churches are open air and quality music is a major draw to those who would not normally attend worship
  • Collect gently used technology (e.g. laptop and desktop computers, printers, and unlocked mobile phones) to support outreach and education
    • much of the developing world accesses the internet through mobile phones
    • these ministries and their people are very active on Facebook and other social media platforms and providing quality content through these platforms is much simpler on a computer, as opposed to a smartphone
  • Collect money to:
    • offset the cost of a 20-foot shipping container to leave from the port of Philadelphia and arrive at the port of Lomé (GNS headquarters and a convenient point of disbursal), roughly $2,250.

Over the next several months, items from across Pennsylvania and Delaware will be gathered at FBC, Kennett Square, and prepared for shipping to West Africa. Already, a number of congregations in Central Union Association have expressed their support, but churches across the region are invited and encouraged to join this great service project. [Note: Churches in northern and western Pennsylvania should contact Mark Mahserjian-Smith (EMAIL] to coordinate shipping to FBC, Kennett Square.]

For more information, contact:
Chris Wells [EMAIL]  or
Pastor Dan Nicewonger [EMAIL]
FBC, Kennett Square, PA

For more about FBC, Kennett Square and Good News Soldiers, Click HERE

For more about the Good News Soldiers, Click HERE.