Story number 1 for 24 Oct 2002

(Ivory Coast)–We begin today in the Ivory Coast where a cease-fire is in place after more than a month of violence brought on by rebel fighters. The attempted coup last month has left hundreds dead and many mission organizations wondering about their future. However, Africa Enterprises’ Ernie Smith says they’re proceeding with their planned outreach in Abidjan. “We’re going to do a scaled down version and not take in the full sized team that we were initially planning. We’ve decided that it would be much more of a church based mission rather than a full scale city wide evangelistic outreach.” Smith says the church needs to be part of the country’s healing process, but he’s concerned. “My concern is that they’ll become so absorbed and inward looking because of the problems and they forget about the role that they have to play. And this is mainly what is motivating us to go is to actually encourage them to get out of the that frame of mind.”