Africa (MNN) — The African refugee crisis is becoming more of a permanent situation, and the majority of the displaced have little chance of returning to their home country.
(Photo courtesy of World Missionary Press via Facebook)
“The refugee crisis in Africa is still existent, even though there’s been a lot of focus on the refugee crisis in Europe, which is real and needy,” says Helen Williams with World Missionary Press (WMP).
Currently, Kenya has the largest refugee camp in the world, hosting almost 330,000 people. Tanzania has nearly 70,000 people in the Nyarugusu refugee camp.
Over the last several decades, millions have fled their homes because of violence, political conflict, and lack of supplies. Some refugee camps have grown to the size of large cities.
Where some might see these camps as hopeless, WMP views them as places where hope is taking root.
WMP recently sent a shipment of two million Scripture booklets to their national coordinator in Rwanda. It’s taken a year to get the order together because of limited supplies and is expected to arrive in May.
The coordinator wants to minister to people in his own country, but he also plans on crossing the border into other nations, specifically the Democratic Republic of Congo. Williams points out the Congo is such a large nation, its easier to bring booklets in from surrounding countries.
He and 272 indigenous pastors and workers want to reach refugee camps with God’s Word, using Scripture booklets as their primary guide.
“They wanted to go to the refugee place at Goma and distribute literature there,” Williams says.
“This is not just dumping things on the ground. There are pastors and workers that’ve been trained and are ready to use this material. They’re ready to go out into the villages and into the camps and use the literature to share with people.”
(Photo courtesy of World Missionary Press via Facebook)
Distributing Scripture booklets in English, French, Swahili, and Kinyarwanda in several African nations, the pastors will reach millions of people and help plant churches.
But there is one thing holding them back. “These pastors and workers are establishing churches in some of these [camps], and there’s just no structure to provide a…supply of regular materials.”
The need and demand for Scripture booklets among the indigenous pastors is high, but funds for printing are limited. It’s taking much longer than it should to fulfill an order.
“The need doesn’t abate. It seems to be growing as people move from place to place.”
Offering these small booklets to people is an act of God’s love and concern.
Will you pray for pastors in Africa as they use Scripture booklets to tell people who He is and what He’s done? Also, please consider helping WMP financially in order to print more booklets. It takes just $1 to produce 25 booklets and touch more than one hundred lives.
