Pacific Rim IMB missionaries to serve in Sub-Saharan areas of Africa where explosive growth is predicted

KENYA (IMB and local reports) — Missionaries serving with Southern Baptist’s International Mission Board (IMB) in the two focal areas of Sub-Sahara Africa and the Asian Pacific Rim signed a memorandum of understanding Oct. 29 that will pave the way for missionaries from Asia to serve in the Sub-Sahara region.

Sub-Sahara Africa is the geographic designation for the land area of the continent that is fully or partially south of the Sahara Desert.

According to Global Trends, the population of the region in 2019 was 1.1 billion. “During the next five years, Sub-Saharan Africa’s population and urbanization growth rate will continue to be the highest worldwide, creating business and democratic openings for an increasingly connected and youthful population,” states Global Trends’ Five Year Report.

Daren Davis, IMB leader for missionaries serving in Africa, said the signing of the memorandum is a historic step toward enabling Asian missionaries to engage those in need of the Gospel in Africa.

“This is a worthy effort, and we stand here to say we will stand firm, in one spirit, with one mind, striving together, side by side. Why? For the sake of the Gospel,” Davis told those who gathered for the signing at an undisclosed location in Kenya.

“Welcome to this momentous occasion. Welcome to this time where we join hands across the ocean to see the next step of partnership, the next step of ‘side by side’ for God’s glory,” he said.

Asian and Kenyan Christians gathered with IMB personnel five years ago to dream and begin planning for a mission partnership. Davis said they were encouraged by Philippians 1.

Davis recounted how the vision expanded from IMB missionaries engaging the world, to IMB missionaries and Africans ministering together, to serving side by side with believers from Asia and the world.

He acknowledged the decades of missions investments in Asian countries. “We stand here today on the shoulders of those who went before us, people who labored in places where the name of Jesus was not known and now from those very places, [raise] up believers who are going to the nations for the sake of the Gospel.”

Jeff Singerman, who serves in Africa with IMB, said the brutal fact is that there are multitudes of unreached people on the African continent. He sees the signing of the memorandum as an answer to prayer — a building block to understanding that Christians from other nations can join the task of seeing African churches sending African missionaries.

Singerman said multicultural training will be conducted to enable missionaries from Asia to be fruitful and successful in the mission and in the calling that God has given them. “This collaboration might be the greatest contribution the IMB can make in this generation of missionaries. In other words, facilitating connections with those whom we work, so that they can understand their fulfilling and calling to the missionary task.”

Jonathan Tipton (name changed for security reasons), the IMB leader for missionaries in Asia, said, “We’re privileged to not only witness but play a key role in missions history that is just now beginning to leverage all of the economic and technological accomplishments made within the last 200 years.”

He described the “lightning speed” of the development of new telecommunications and transportation systems as a bridge. “Not only do we, but our Christian brothers and sisters from all the people we serve, have a massive and unprecedented opportunity to walk on this same bridge, declaring the Gospel to all the peoples of the earth as we and as they go.”

Tipton said it’s important for IMB and other missionary sending agencies to represent and reflect the changing and expanding demographic of Christians. To recognize the diversity of the up and coming missions force, IMB leaders and missionaries prayed before the memorandum signing in Chinese, Thai, Korean, Portuguese, Wolof (spoken in Senegal and Zambia), and Lozi (spoken in Zambia and along its borders with other countries).

Jeremiah Farmer, who serves in Asia, said, “It is my hope that before I die, I get to see more Asian missionaries on the field than Western countries have ever sent in Christian history. I hope the same is true for Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Farmer noted that Asian missionaries make an enormous commitment when they choose to answer the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). “When I think of what it takes for a rice farmer in Asia to send a missionary someplace like Africa, the sacrifice it takes is immense but what they get to learn are Kingdom principles.

“They get to learn what it means to be blessed [and] to be a blessing. They get to learn what it means to give and not receive anything back in return, except to know that God’s name may be proclaimed to lost people who have never heard the Gospel,” he said.

Farmer leads the training and equipping of Asian missionaries. Seven missionaries from Asia will soon be serving in Sub-Saharan Africa, and seven more are in the process of interviews.

Eight of the missionaries committed to serving in Sub-Saharan Africa during the memorandum. signing ceremony. Farmer said the meeting provided opportunities for the new missionaries to interact face-to-face with missionaries already in Sub-Saharan Africa. Several missionaries recently finished training and are in the process of moving to West Africa.

Josh Rivers (name changed for security reasons), who serves in Africa, said the missionaries will come alongside their urban team in a key gateway city in Muslim-majority West Africa to share the Gospel, disciple believers, and plant churches.

“We are living in a day when we are going from everywhere to everywhere. May we put our hand to this plow and move forward.”

Daren Davis, IMB leader for missionaries serving in Africa

Rivers said they will work in a developing area of a rapidly growing city to engage both the residents and the rising population of migrants. “In partnership with Asia and the Pacific Rim, we are sending laborers into locations that are well below one percent evangelical. Most have never heard the Gospel explained to them.

“Not only is this a wonderful opportunity to see more laborers among the lost, but it also serves as a testimony to believers in West Africa as they see nationals from Asia coming and walking alongside them for the advance of the Gospel. It becomes a testimony to the West African believer that they too can be sent by God to carry the Good News to other nations,” he said.

Davis urged the attendees at the memorandum signing ceremony, “Let’s work together so that African churches will send African missionaries to our brothers in Asia, to our sisters in South America, to the big cities of Europe, [even] taking the Gospel back to America.

“We are living in a day when we are going from everywhere to everywhere. May we put our hand to this plow and move forward,” he said.

For more information on Southern Baptist international missions, visit https://www.imb.org/.