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Who
Will Help Them?
The first Free Methodist missionaries came to Africa in 1885. The first parties landed in Mozambique and South Africa. Later that same year, the work began in the western part of the continent. A little known party of independent Free Methodist missionaries, who were later recognized by the missionary board, landed in West Africa. Also, King Tappa, of Liberia, asked for missionaries to come to Monrovia, the capital city. In 1885, Miss Mary Carpenter and Rev. and Mrs. A.D. Noyes went to serve there. Within five years, the Noyes were transferred to South Africa where they bought and began work at Fairview Mission. Miss Carpenter died in Liberia within a few months of her arrival there. There is no history of any work that remained.
One hundred years later in 1985, some Nigerian Christians made contact with the Free Methodist Church and they became Free Methodists. Three couples went under extended-term and VISA service and helped the new work develop over about a ten-year period. Jim and Phyllis Sortor are going to Nigeria in February 2005 to serve as the only missionaries. Nigeria has been organized into an Annual Conference under the North American General Conference.
About the same time as the first Nigerian Free Methodists came to be, contact was made with a group in Cameroon. We worked with them from a distance for a few years but had to discontinue the relationship due to corrupt leadership. That work was re-opened with different leadership just two years ago. There are no missionaries, but about 300 people who call themselves Free Methodist. They have sent a young man, who is basically untrained, to Gabon, to plant a church there. They need a missionary to mentor and guide them both in Cameroon and Gabon. In Accra, Ghana, the church was planted by a Ghanaian who had visited the United States, encountered the FMC, and went home to start the church. There are a few congregations with 200-300 members, who need mentoring and guidance. They have great plans and aspirations and great ability. Who will help them?
Work was started in Togo by another Cameroonian who had been trained in Nigeria. He has returned to Cameroon but left behind a handful of Togolese Christians who are now trying to develop their own church without much leadership and with no one to train them. And, would you believe, in Liberia where it all began — three different groups of Christians have met with our national leader from Nigeria. They have decided to be Free Methodists. They have joined together to found the denomination in that nation, so long after King Tappa asked for help. There are no missionaries to help them form and found the church. They are open to guidance and counsel. Where will they get it? We have an open door to Equatorial Guinea and Guinea Bissau. We need someone to walk through those doors to plant the church. One hundred years later, our time has come. West Africa is open to us. We have footholds precariously placed in these nations. Who will go and meet the need? |
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