"What's New" Archived Updates
The following are the last thirty homepage updates for WAP
Voodoo Chief in Togo Accepts Christ
I arrived in Atakpame on June 11, 2009 and have since been in my station. Atakpame is the fifth largest city in Togo by population of 65,000. It is a city in the plateau region of Togo. We started our church planting activities in a suburb called Agonou and Atchrimi which is about 6 km from Atakpame. The Ife and Fon people are predominant and are voodoo worshippers. In carrying out the vision and goals of Presbyterian Community of Togo, we begin to share the gospel with people who formerly are Voodoo worshippers. Within a month 18 people surrendered their lives to Christ and each time we meet for fellowship our new convert will bring their relatives to the meeting to the point where the chief of the town one night decided to attend our meeting by curiosity. That night the chief of the town gave his life to Christ and decided to leave behind the ancestors worship to follow the living God. Since then our number grow from 18 to 50 within 3 months period. We suspect by God's grace, the number will reach 100 or more by the end of March 2010. When our Church planter asked what caused these voodoo worshippers to join our Christian fellowship in such number, they told us that the women of the town are now very happy because their husbands no longer abuse them. They also said that contrary to what they have heard, anyone who refuses to worship voodoo will face the curse of the God of thunder and the whole family will struck dead, yet none of these happened, therefore they believe that communal curses are being broken and overcome by the power of the gospel. Instead of using charms and fetishes on their farms now these new believers are praying for the living God to bless them in Christ’s name. The chief of the town is now a believer and as young Christian and also a community leader has a new attitude of humility and pray in Chest’s name.
Published on 11/19/2009 by Jim Weaver
Recent Visit to Senegal and Togo
On Thursday, January 29th, members of the Executive Steering Committee of the West African Partnerhship returned from a two week trip to Senegal and Togo. While in these countries we visited various church planting works and met with national leaders to discuss the progress of the work. In both countries God is raising up an army of devoted pastors, church planters, and apprentices who are putting everything on the line to bring the gospel to their people, to see churches firmly established, and to see communities transformed. The needs and challenges that these men face are great and include intense poverty, health problems, church building needs, spiritual oppression, and growing needs in the area of pastoral education. We return with a renewed commitment to recruit prayer warriors for these men and their works. We also hope to raise "transitional funds" through the SPARK Initiative to support these national church planting movements following a model of interdependency and partnership until more of these financial needs can be met through local micro-enterprise and community develpment endeavors which are underway.
Published on 02/04/2009 by Jim Weaver
Kingdom Partnerships in West Africa
Why invest in a partnership relationship with West African national leaders today?
This is the question many pastors, church leaders, missions committees, missions strategists, and even missionaries are currently asking. Well, for us the answer is clear. Because God is doing a new thing in West Africa! Henry Blackaby explains in his book Experiencing God that “God's desire is to get us from where we are to where He is working. When God reveals to you where He is working, that becomes His invitation to join Him. When God reveals his work to you, that is His timing to begin to respond to Him.”
Today, we are witnessing and experiencing a tremendous evidence of God working among West African countries. Many strategists and missionaries are describing the current evidence of God o be pouring out His blessing on West African church. For instance, many believe that the centers of the world-wide church have shifted to the South and the East, as Philip Jenkins argues in his book The Next Christendom. He writes, “While Christianity declines in Europe and struggles in the U.S.A, the growth of church planting is taking place across the global south and is impacting the role of Western missions significantly.” A prominent West African church leader in Togo agrees with Philip Jenkins, but he warns against any sense of inevitability about the next Christendom. There is a spiritual battle being fought out here in West Africa, and we need your prayers and partnership to accomplish our calling, which is to train and equip new Christian leaders for the church in West Africa. The West Africa partnership (WAP) believes that the model for missions has shifted from that of traditional Western thinking. In the past, missions meant foreign missionaries taking the gospel to the unreached peoples of the world. This often meant years of assimilating into new cultures, thousands of dollars in long-term support, and prolonged language and cultural barriers for the non-native missionaries. We believe that that model is no longer effective and that God is working across West Africa in a new and more effective way. We want to join Him! The West Africa Partnership also follows in the footsteps of those who believe that the success of missions is found in Western missionaries and their churches coming alongside West African national church planters, pastors and other leaders native to their countries to provide training for these leaders so that working cooperatively the gospel can be taken to the least-reached peoples of their lands. This way, the traditional barriers that past missionaries faced are nearly eliminated – and the gospel can go forth like never before. This kind of partnership role of churches in America is truly significant in terms of impacting all missionary efforts across West Africa. This is why we believe the partnership model is one of the best investment decisions any American church can make to support world missions today.
West Africa Partnership Theological Institute (WATI), Dakar Senegal.
A holistic, gospel-centered framework for training. No more “inch deep, mile wide” Christianity.
Not only is the partnership model for national leadership development a good strategy for
successful planting of new churches, it is also a critical strategy for enabling existing churches to see long-term results of the spiritual harvest. In countries like Togo, Senegal and Ivory Coast, where the West Africa Partnership is now laboring, we do see evidence of the evangelistic efforts by many church planters and pastors bearing fruit. However, in the midst of these evangelistic successes, there is concern that without adequate training in pastoral leadership skills, the new Christians and their infant churches will not have the spiritual depth to translate initial church planting efforts into established, self-supporting, churches. That is why the West Africa Partnership has established the West Africa Theological Institute. We want West African evangelists and church planters adequately trained to establish new churches, but we also to ensure we produce church pastors equipped with a level of theological training enabling them to lead their congregations faithfully into the future – and thereby to be able to impact their cultures and communities for the long term.
A passion to reach Senegal, Togo, and Ivory Coast with the Gospel of Grace
The partnership is currently working in three countries with 60 existing churches totaling 4,560
members, and with 50 church planters and pastors. In addition there are currently 22 leaders attending WATI. The uniqueness of our effort lies in the fact that most of the church members and their leaders have come out of an Islamic background.
Communities impacted and transformed
It is true that though we do face daunting challenges every day, we also witness personal and
community transformation by the work of the Gospel of grace. In recent years several Muslim
communities have even asked that church planters be sent to their areas because of the transformation observed in neighboring villages with new communities of Christian believers! Muslim village leaders are attracted to gospel of grace for the manifested, for example, in husbands no longer abusing their wives and children, but instead treating them with love and respect; new Christians are observed sharing possessions to help others in their villages, not a common practice!
Individual transformation
New attitudes of humility are developing among Christ’s followers. In Togo, the chief and other
leaders of the village of Tovegan as Tanyigbe, who traditionally would not participate in physical labor have more recently joined our church planter and other Christians working to clean their village. We have witnessed: people who had never cooperated with each other begin communal farming; alcohol abusers stop drinking and begin earning honest incomes; violent Islamic fanatics become gentle and kind as the Gospel transforms their character; the list goes on. God is doing amazing things in our midst. This is true in Senegal, Togo and Ivory Coast.
Looking ahead: Meeting the Partnership goals and challenges in the coming years (2009-2014)
The geographical scope of the West Africa Partnership is West Africa, including nine countries
with a combined population of 130 million and home to 30 major tribes. Most of these fall within the zone of the ‘10/40 Window’. In over 70% of this West African geographic territory Islam is the
predominant religion. We are currently involved with the Presbyterian Church of Senegal, People of the Book of Ivory Coast, and the Presbyterian Community of Togo. Our goals by 2014 are for these three denominations to be challenged by the grace of God to plant 125 new churches, train and ordain 75 church planters and pastors, and establish 2 presbyteries in each country. This goal is reachable if we lift up our eyes to see the fields ripe for the harvest. We ask you to join us!
Fostering a network relationship between The U.S. and West Africa churches and Leaders
In May, the West Africa Partnership held a summit meeting at Westminster Reformed
Presbyteian church in Suffolk, Virginia, where we met with church leaders, pastors, missions
committee directors, and other friends of the Partnership. The purpose of the summit was to bring awareness of the WAP vision to the audience and to share the Partnership’s future goals with them. Among the speaker was Dr. Steve Childers of GCA, Rev. Nathaniel Adawonu from Togo, Rev. Mamadou Diop from Senegal. Rev. Calvin Jett, WAP Church Relations Coordinator, and many others.
In October we are expecting Pastor Siriki Traore, President of People of the Book of Ivory
Coast, and Rev. Moses Buamah, National Director of New Harvest Missions International – Togo &
Ghana, to come the States and travel with Rev. Calvin Jett and Rev. Nathaniel Adawonu to visit
churches who may be interested in joining the Partnership.
May God continue to grant us a united vision, a passion to reach the lost, and boldness to see
Christ lifted up in glory among the nations. Together let us transform the hearts and minds of the people of west Africa as we bring hope, light and truth to them.
For the West Africa Partnership:
Rev. Nathaniel Adawonu
Chairman, SPARC/WAP
(Strategic Partnership of African Reformed Churches)
Published on 09/30/2008 by Nathaniel Adawonu
West Africa Partnership Launches Website
The West Africa Partnership welcomes you to our new website. Our hope is that this site will make the vision of the West Africa Partnership more accessible to partners around the world. Please visit this site regularly for updates from key national leaders and partners.
Published on 09/10/2008 by Jim Weaver
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