THE REGIONAL CONSULTATION FOR FRANCOPHONE AFRICA

CRAF in Côte d'Ivoire 2017

The CRAF Consultation in Grand Bassam

From April 18 to 23, 2017, the CRAF Consultation was held in Grand Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire. The theme of this meeting was: “Bringin back the Gosppel of the Kingdom, Bible training and Integral Mission in the Local Church.”

This Consultation brought together Ministries and Works leaders with special expertise and perspective on a specific topic or subjects, influencers who would be able to implement the recommendations of the Consultation. Each participant was invited to contribute to a working group with a unique perspective based on his or her leadership role, context and geographic location.

It is in this perspective that I was called to facilitate a working group on the Movement of Refugees in connection with the global theme. All over the world we are experiencing an influx of refugees from the regions where the socio-military conlicts, the famine or the persecution of part of the populations of these places are located. This is a challenge for the local churchs because these refugees mostly come from the regions unreached or less reached by the Gospel of salvation. These people are most often in a situation of fragility and require psychological and spiritual support that the Church of Jesus Christ is well placed to bring to them. The African Church has a large share to take in this challenge, the more so the African Continent is hosting the most refugees in the world.

Indeed, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), there were 65.3 million refugees in the world in 2015. People who have been forcibly displaced by persecution, conflicts, widespread violence or human rights violations. An article in the newspaper Jeune Afrique of June 25, 2015 estimated the share of refugees on the African Continent between 17 and 20 million, estimating that these figures were underevaluated due to lack of reliable data, i.e about 32% of the refugees of the planet! This means that the poorest continent hosts, in silent without media coverage, one-third of the world’s refugee population. An article in Le Monde, by Philippe Rekacewicz, entitled “Refugess and Asylum Seekers Concentrated in Poor Countrie”, stipulated that the developing countries, first and foremost the poorest, should host 80per cent of the exiles. Most often these migrants survive in a very precarious way. Most are denied acces to industrialized nations as well as the right of asylum.

We then discussed the appropriateness of the refugee movement for the church to reach the unreached without movings from home. People in exile are often more open to the Gospel, and the children of God are called to seize the opportunities of this service of love (John 13:35), sharing the Good News in season and off season (1 Timothy 4:2; Acts 8:4-5), and making disciples (Acts 11:26, Philippians 4:22, Genesis 39:2, 41, 50:20). This appeal is addressed to the children of God both in the migrant community (Diaspora) and in the Local Churches of the host countries. It is in this respect that the churches of Africa are challenged because, as we have seen above, Africa is the continent that hosts the most refugees in the world without closing her borders. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates in its article 13 that “Everyone has the right to move freely and to choos his residence within a State. Everyone has the right to leave any country including his own, and to return to his country…”

Following this presentation, we discussed the following points:

-          Does the Local Church in Africa Understand the stakes of refugee movement?

-          Does it integrate these data into its actions?

-          What are the obstacles to this integration?

-          How can the Local Church be involved in the care of refugees?

The conclusions are reflected in the final report of the Consltation.

Many other areas related to the challenges facing African Churches have been addressed such as:

-          The multiplication of leaders with 4 essential challenges: the thirst for power, the lack of knowledge of its weaknesses, the lack of leaders according to the model of Christ and the preaching of several gospels other than that of the Kingdom of God.

-          Children in and for the Kingdom with 5 challenges identified: misunderstanding of the place of children in the Kngdom, lack of appropriate training for monitors and suprevisors of chidren, lack of family in education from the perspective of the Kingdom of God, the absence of evangelistic programs for children, outside the church and, children perceived as more difficult.

-          Women in and for the Kingdom with also 5 challenges identified: understanding their identity in Christ (they often feel, with a few exceptions, useless and unimportant), bad relationship, lak of personality (poor self-esteem, feeling of rejection), lack of communication due to wounds through behaviour in church and in families, lack of men’s understanding of the biblical role of women (they are often in position of leaders)

-          Biblical training with 11 identified challenges

-          Misson with 9 identified challenges

-          The Gospel of Kingdom, with 8 challenges identified

All discussions and conclusions are recorded in the final consultation document and are available on request from CRAF leadership.

The plenary sessions begin with praise  and worship before the speakker of the day.

MISSION TO CAMEROON 2016

Advertising campaign in Duala

Evangelism in Cameroon, November-December 2016

From November 15 to December 22, 2016, we went to Cameroon for an evangelizing action in two stages. First from 16 to 30 November in North Cameroon among the Muslims and from 16 to 29 December in Duala in the South of Cameroon.

Evangelization in the Far North

I joined the team of Pastor Emmanuel KOUM in Maroua on November 19, when they had lready started operations since the 15^th. This was a challenge, as the airline had canceled flights on several occasions. I was not able to join the team until that date.

I then started with Maroua where we worked until November 20^th. Then we went to Guider, a little town further south of Maroua where we preached the Gospel from November 21^st to 24 before heading to Figuil, another little town about a hundred km from Guider, on the 25^th and we evangelized there until the 27^th. Then I went back to Maroua on the 28^th after having preached in one of the churches which had welcomed us, while the rest of the tean was heading eastward.

In each of the cities we visited, we held leadership training seminars and the people of God’s during day time. We had many convesations with the young people to whom we also gave appropriate lessons, followed by public campaigns in the evenings. In Maroua the campaigns took place in the churches, but for the first time since the Islamic sect Boko Haram raged in this region we were able to do open-air campaigns at Guider and Figuil. We thank the Lord for the work He has accomplished in this Region. It was moving to participate in the Lord’s harvest. Indeed, every time we appealed to receive Christ, hundres of people got converted, many of them young.

We had months later, returns from the local pastors with whom we worked that informed us that following our action, the Lord continued to add souls in their churches! Let Him alone be glorified! AMEN!

Evangelization in Duala

After North Cameroon, the team of Pastor Emmanuel Koum continued with a campaign in the East before going down to Duala. During this time, I was the guest of the Akwa Francophone Shalom Community Church. There I once againhad the opportunity to preach the Gospel and sing to the glory of the Lord.

Then Pastor Emmanuel Koum organized an evangelization campaign in two districts of Duala City from 17 to 29 December. Given my travel requirements I only took part in that of Makepe from 17 20 December. Every evening we met in the open-air at Rond-Point Makèpè for an evening of evangelization. This campaign has made me realize that the big cities of the world are somehow universal and that where we consider that Christianity has no problem, we see hardening of hearts and sometime those who say they are Christians live their Christian lives somewhat like a vaccination, or like this character of the comic Asterix, Obelix who, fallen in the magic potion child, had no mors need to take. Whereas in the North there were hundred of people converting to the call, in Duala when two, three of four people rose to the call to give their lives to the Lord, we were very happy. I have even experienced what I call “the solitude of the Evangelist” who dooesn’t see anyone rising after the call.

We also officiated at wedding services and ppreached in many churches in Duala. The Lord was glorified!

MISSION TO CUBA 2016

Our tour in CUBA

The Lifeline Expedition Mission in Cuba

We visited CUBA from October 6 to 24, 2016, for a very special mission as it was announced and that was. Indeed, usually when we arrive in a country, we organize a prophetic march with chains and yokes to express our compassion with the sufferings of slavery, followed by our request for forgiveness to the local people who are called at the end of the march, to remove chains and yokes symbolically granting their forgiveness as a sign of reconciliation.

This time, the lifeline Expedition team was reduced to three people representing the three people groups involved in the “Triangular trade”: a slave descendant, an African and a European. From the get go, we knew that our mission will be different first from the preparation and from what the Lord gave us. In addition, the recommendation from our brother Joseph, leader of this ministry, was that we should listen to God and the people on the ground, then to visit the targeted sites if possible and to make our recommandations. That is what we did.

The Encounters

The day after our arrival we met the man who was to be our man of peace, but that we finally met only once. He gave us a summary of the Cuban situation in relation to our mission, and then he advised us to meet the actors who could best help us in this task, in particular the leader of the ICC (the International Church of Cuba) as well as the leaders of the Cuba Council of Churches. These are people whom Joseph also recommended us to meet, but we did not have their phone numbers or physical addresses.

It then turned out that the person of peace we really needed was Pastor Rodolfo Juarez of the ICC. He made himself available to us for all the essential meetings we had and his advice was always very relevant. It was he who fixed appointments with Rev. Dopiko, Chairman of the CCC, Pastor Suarez of the Martin Luther King’s Center, after we missed appointment with him, it was he who helped us organize our trip to Trinidad and Santiago de Cuba and made contact with Bishop Laborde, the leader of the Church in Santiago that received us on site. And when we found ourselves in difficultiy at the end of the mission, our landlady asking us to leave the place two days before the end of our contract with her, it was also he and his wife Flor who helped us to solve this problem quickly and in excellent conditions.

Among all the people we met from a variety of backgrounds and organizations it is unanimously admited that our approach in walking with yokes and chains will not be appropriate neither understood in the context of Cuba and should not be used in this country. They are observing that the issue of slavery do not have the same legacies or impact as in other Caribbean Islands or the USA. Since the Cuban revolution, government officials have put in place policies that Cuban will not be defined by their racial origins or skin colour. These policies contributed greatly to level racial considerations in the country though one can notice some “resistance” from one side or the other (Black people as well as White people), as remarked Bishop Laborde who, among all those we met, was the only one to express this shade.

The Work is accomplished

We believe however that the work we were sent to do was accomplished in that land. Though what we did this time was in the same spirit of Lifeline Expedition, it was different than the usual form. We were listening to our hosts in every place we went, we prayer walked in every city we visited, taking authority and blessing the Nation. We started in Trinidad de Cuba where we walked and prayed nightly in the streets of the city for over an hour, then we went to Santiago de Cuba where we had the honour of being joined by all the Team of Bishop Laborde who walked and prayed with us to the Del Morro Fortress where we gave hands and knelt for the final prayer. It was Jacques who received the vision that we should accomplish the work in this Fortress. We ended up in Havana where we had to walk seven times round the great tower of the Masonic temple, which we also did with a young local participant. It was important for us that at each march the local church be present, which represented a spiritual agreement to accomplish the mission within the country.

After the Walk in Havana, we met a surpising woman of God versed in Bible meditation and intercession. She too shared with us that we were sent to brake the spiritual yoke of mental salvery that is keeping this people in chains. But she let us know that our assignement would not be done until we reached the city of “Matanza”. It seems there is a museum of slavery spiritually very charged. Before we moved, Jacques was inspired by a ritual of forgiveness for this woman of God of Afro-Cuban origin: he symbolically tied his hands, knelt down and made his request for forgiveness, on behalf of Europeans, to the descendants of African represented by her, shedding warm tears. She then symbolically freed him and granted forgiveness, then they embraced for a long time. Jacques, from that moment, considered that the Work of Lifeline Expedition had been accomplished in that country.

As a result of these visits, listening to our various hostes and taking into account the Work carried out on the ground, we made recommendations as to the follow-up to this mission. We are honoured to have been part of this exploration mission and to have participated in the blessing of the People and the Nation of Cuba. We hope there will be a follow-up to the work that has been started.