Tag Archive for: Africa

A Review of the Past Year 2023

WE WISH YOU A WONDERFUL YEAR 2023!

Tanzania

In February, Pr. Jonathan had a mission trip to Dar es Salaam. He inspected the school facilities to be used for the June 2022 mission course. During that week, the local GNN team leaders also interviewed pastors applying for the course, over 30 of them registered.

Pr. Jonathan visited nearby towns. In one Zaramo village, he dedicated a well we had built. During dry seasons it gives access to water also for other villagers nearby. With the Tanzanian GNN team, Pr. Jonathan also visited the Maasai people in Morogoro for a couple of days.

He coordinated a follow-up seminar held regularly for the active pastors (25) who were part of the previous GNN mission course. Zoom enabled the rest of the teaching team to be present on live video streaming from their home countries. This way we can keep the UPG vision alive and strengthen our calling.

The Tanzanian GNN team arranged 2-day children’s ministry seminars throughout the country in order to equip workers to reach children that are often omitted. Since 2021, there are already 21 seminars held, with a total of 1,390 participants.

In June 2022, in Dar es Salaam, a 3-week mission course was held for 44 pastors, evangelists and bishops throughout Tanzania. The course focused on the unreached people groups, of course.

After completion of the course, participants inspired by the vision began to put words into action. In a new Maasai tribe inhabited area, 70 young warriors, women and children decided to follow Jesus. The local pastor there rejoiced because he had been praying for years for an evangelistic team to visit his area.

In 2023, we plan to arrange discipleship teaching for those new believers.

 

Uganda

For nearly a decade now, we have been supporting evangelistic radio broadcasts from Mubende reaching even to neighbouring countries in East Africa. With the outbreak of the pandemic, we increased our support and there was a surprise in the number of calls that came into the studio, around 20 listeners are saved weekly.

 

At the end of May 2022, we arranged a Vision and Leadership seminar. 50 church leaders from various denominations in western Uganda and Bryan, a Christian police captain and intendant for the Kampala district, also attended.

He later sent an invitation letter signed by the Major General to Pr. Aki Miettinen, GNN’s representative, who went in November to teach Christian officers in the army, police and prison staff about spiritual leadership.

 

 

Southeast Asia

I travelled with Pr. Aki firstly to Singapore. We had arranged a meeting with GNN Missions Advisor, Dr. Paul Ng. He extended an invitation to Vietnam. Its realisation in Autumn 2023 is an important prayer topic!

There are still 68 unreached people groups living in that country of almost 100 million people. The church movement we cooperate with has a vision for the unreached peoples even to neighboring countries.

After the weekend meetings, we had our annual teaching week at the Bible school in Sumatra. Despite some blackouts, we completed 18 teaching hours. In March 2023, this course will send out tens of pioneers again. Last year, 22 pioneers were supported to new areas and 16 were among the unreached tribes.

The last pioneer alumni seminar was a 4-hour drive away from the school (inland Sumatra). They were the first students ever sent from the Bible school. They had already established their pioneer ministries.

 

Domestic Mission

Throughout 2022, Vantaa International Christian Fellowship (VICF) church has partially supported our missions and sending support for Jewish kids for their return migration (Aliyah) to Jerusalem from Ukraine.

The church also sent support to JCBT (Jerusalem Centre for Bible Translators). Students from around the world are initiated to original Biblical Hebrew and geography enabling them to make more accurate translations for languages amongst unreached peoples.

In October, we had visitors from HeliMission. Its international leader, Simon Tanner along with his wife Prikena, came from Switzerland. During the visit, I suddenly recalled having seen their helicopter standing next to the MAF hall in Wamena, Papua, in the late 80’s.

We learned about the importance of the helicopter ministry in the impenetrable areas of Indonesia and Madagascar. VICF sent a love offering to support their ministry. During our October mission in Jakarta, we also met the Indonesian leader, Pak Carter, from this organization.

During 2022, we held vision casting events in northeast and east of Finland. Our ongoing topic has been the urgency of reaching the unreached peoples.

Tanzanian Mission course greetings!

Jun 2019 | The opening evening of this historical course was filled with expectation. There had not been such a mission course in Tanzania before that focused on reaching the unreached people groups (UPG). Now, in a hostel in Dar es Salaam, 42 pastors had gathered to learn about missions among the unreached.

Course participants Emmanuel and Maria

The three weeks’ program was quite intensive, and the content was both demanding and diverse. Days began at 5am with prayer, continuing until 9pm after two hours’ break in the afternoon. As the course went on, the participants’ enthusiasm didn’t wear out but kept on growing. On the weekends they returned home to shepherd their churches, meanwhile we i.a. arranged a Youth Conference, and a vision casting breakfast for entrepreneurs, visited a Zaramo village and preached in local churches.

In the graduation ceremony students were wearing academic robes and caps.

On the graduation day, some 150 people were gathered together to celebrate including family and friends, leaders of the local community as well as the hostel owner. The atmosphere was joyfully liberating. A student representative gave a speech about what they had learnt. They had received tools for reaching the unreached. Their understanding of missions was expanded, and they had realized that it’s not just for the Western missionaries alone; this calling – that is God’s heartbeat – is also for the church in Tanzania.

Just recently, in September, our Ugandan missionary in Tanzania, Francis, excitedly told us that nearly half of the course participants had already begun implementing the attained knowledge into their work in new villages and areas close to them and beyond. This is great news! One of them, Brian, organized a seminar for Pastors, where he is teaching them about the practices for reaching new tribes. At the same time, he’ll continue his already commenced work in a new village, utilizing the principals he’s learned.

Pastor Sadoki started working in three new villages. Here he’s wearing the course shirt, standing together with a new believer.

Our wonderful translator, Jane, reported: “Partakers of the training are grateful for GNN’s mission course. They began to modify their practices, having special consideration for the unreached tribes in their region. One lady went to a Masai area near Arusha. She has already made connections with members of the tribe, applying methods learned during the course to her work. It is evident that this June’s Mission course is bearing good fruit; we thank God for that!”

There are still 27 unreached tribes (6M ppl) in Tanzania. Next we will arrange for our participants an online follow-up training, and a “Next Steps” seminar which will be held in May 2020. Let’s intercede for these events as well as for the participants in their work – may God’s fire and vision spread through them!

We give God all the glory and want to thank everyone who were enabling this course to become a reality!

Our facilitator team consisted of Pastors Arto Sädeaho, Jonathan Lemmetti and Shierley Siwi. Also Ps. Erik Klar from Thailand, Aki Miettinen from Finland and Dr. Paul Ng from Singapore brought their valuable experience to these weeks.

 

Pioneer training in Tanzania

We are arranging a missions training course in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (June 7-26th 2019).  It is our latest endeavor! During this motivational course, 50 registered local pastors and active church members will be trained to reach the unreached tribes (30) in their country.

According to a local, one of the most difficult groups to reach is the Zaramo; a tribe of approx. 1,2 million people. They are the 1st in our focus. On our last trip we visited a Zaramo village (100% muslims) and at the end of that visit the village head welcomed an evangelist to start working there. (In the above picture our team is on the way to that village.)

We have been collaborating on this project since summer 2018, and the GNN team has been busy preparing this course.

It’s not just another event! For us, this is a new channel – for the salvation of yet unreached people groups. We will use the experience gained from this course in our other destinations.


Would you like to join this effort?

  • You can make a donation by going to our ’Donate’ page and choosing ’African Pioneer work’ (3560).

Our prayer is that Good News Networking (GNN) will bear much fruit!