News at ABWE

Community Health Evangelism in West Africa

Togo

ABWE is in the initial phase of a community health evangelism program that has the potential for reaching people across West Africa with the gospel of Jesus Christ. At this point, ten Togolese have been trained in the first phase of the outreach program. A team of five of these trained team members will visit a village on a weekly basis and work directly with the people in that village in order to help them understand their major problems and find solutions to those problems. The health-related goal is that individuals in the community will change behavior, so that diseases will be prevented. The great majority of illnesses in Africa are preventable: malaria, typhoid fever, worms, amoeba, and AIDS. We can help prevent disability and death from these diseases. And in helping with these physical needs—we can show people God's love and present Christ to them, so that they can know Him personally. Rather than live in fear, they can enjoy peace. Rather than live with guilt, they can enjoy forgiveness of sin. Rather than live in uncertainty, they can have the assurance of spending eternity with God. This is our hope, and it is why we believe so strongly that a community health evangelism program is an essential part of our ministry in Togo!

Urgent prayer needs:

  1. Selection of two villages in which to start this program. Our training teams have visited about ten different villages in the past six weeks, making observations about health needs and evaluating potential for a community health program. The training teams will evaluate these village visits with the goal of selecting two of them (one village for each team). The future of this program will be dependent, in some ways, on how things go with these first villages.
  2. Finances for the program. Expenditures for this program will include money for food for the ten team members. Each team member is an employee of the hospital, which gives them one day per week to work in communities, but the community health evangelism project needs to reimburse the hospital for those work days. There is also a need for gas and vehicle usage. Initial gifts have allowed us to get this program started, but approximately $600/month is needed support an ongoing community health evangelism outreach.

God responds to our prayers. As we commit to pray together, we will clearly see God's direction and provision!