SPONSORED BY MADISON CHURCH OF CHRIST

556 HUGHES ROAD MADISON, ALABAMA 35758 BARRY SMITH, DIRECTOR gotobarry@wowway.com (256) 772-2081

2018 Update

Madison supports works in 7 African countries in the World Mission Africa ministry. In alphabetical order these

countries are: Ghana, Liberia, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda & Zambia.

Michael Segbefia lives and works in the eastern region of Ghana near Lake Volta. He lives in the village of Hohoe (Ho-Hoy) and produces and hosts 2 different weekly gospel radio broadcasts in addition to doing Pauline evangelism work in a large area surrounding his home village. About 5 years ago Michael established the Abansi congregation (his home church in his home village) and over the last 3 years has established these congregations in his area: Ve Kolenu church of Christ, Wli Dzogbega church of Christ, Papae church of Christ, Dodi Papasi church of Christ, and the most recently formed (5 months ago) congregation in the village of Melilu. This

church consists presently of 3 members. They have acquired land already from the headman in their area and will begin a church structure as soon as they have the funds to do so. Currently they meet in the home of a sister. This church began directly

as a result of a call-in to one of Michael’s radio broadcasts. He has trained younger men at the Abansi congregation to carry on the worship services there and this frees him to travel and establish new congregations-the very essence of Madison’s favored evangelism method of Pauline-styled teaching and training. He always asks for the prayers of the Madison elders and members, as well as asking that I regularly tell the elders and missions committee how grateful he is for their support.

LiberiaIn Liberia Madison supports an evangelist, 4 radio broadcasts, a preaching school, and a nationwide brotherhood publication used for evangelism, edification, news, and instruction. Madison also supports child care and Christian education for these children through our benevolence ministry. On the Missions side of things, Brother David Kolleh has been busy this year, managing to operate the Gbarnga School of Preaching as well as coordinating 2 weekend long evangelism trips involving over 40 church members. On these trips they have visited 2 different villages in ‘the interior’ (picture a village at the end of a road out

in the bush-these villages are referred to as ‘the interior)’. One of these villages is where the Lord’s church was established following a denominational preacher listening to David’s radio broadcast in 2016, and contacting David following the

Ghana

Madison-provided food and medical relief items to his village during the Ebola crisis. This moved his heart to obedience and eventually he and his wife were baptized. This led to him teaching his denominational church members ‘the way more fully’, which led to several baptisms and the changing of their church to a congregation of the church of Christ. Since then David has led several efforts to further the teaching at this church, and to evangelize others in this village. The Lord has blessed this church with spiritual and numerical growth and the new brother who preaches there is active in the evangelism efforts taking place in other villages. The work of the school of preaching continues, and is making plans for outreach into other areas of Central Liberia to train preachers starting in 2019. In the villages where we support gospel radio broadcasts all 4 churches report regular new listeners and visitors to local congregations. Radio is an extremely effective way to spread the gospel in Liberia! The 2 brothers who manage the publishing and distributing of the Liberia Gospel Times are working hard to provide relative, scriptural, timely news and instruction to all Christians in Liberia, as well as to present truth in such a way as to be interesting and challenging to non-Christians and those in denominations. The Times has been well received by churches across the country, and is a reminder of how effective similar publications have been in helping to grow the Lord’s church in the US over the last 75 years. Please keep this good work in your prayers.

NamibiaDuring 2018 our brother and partner Bennie Isaacks had to deal with losing his wife of 21 years to cancer. Mamritha went on to her reward

only 5 months after being diagnosed. Bennie and their children (5, 3 still at home) miss her dearly, but with the help of God and family, as well as other faithful members of the church around them, they are

persevering and moving on. Bennie has begun once again doing evangelism work all over their

country (Namibia is slightly smaller than Texas) and his children are adjusting to their new realities at home. Fortunately, there are several other faithful male leaders at his home congregation (Keetmanshoop church of Christ) who stepped up to lead the congregation during his wife’s illness and their grieving period, and this now makes it easier for Bennie to once again travel to other cities to evangelize, encourage, admonish and edify.

South AfricaWe have 2 evangelism partners in South Africa. Peter Manuel and Rohan Jones, both living in the city of Capetown. Madison has been supporting Peter Manuel in Capetown since 1976 and Rohan since 2014. Peter was instrumental in

establishing most of the congregations in Namibia (he taught and mentored Bennie there for years). He also established and preached for the Athlone church of Christ in Capetown for several decades. While others now handle the full-time responsibilities at Athlone, Peter still teaches Bible Classes there weekly as well as doing evangelism work at a center for the homeless in their

community, where he has taught and baptized 8 in the last 2 years. He stays in touch with every congregation he worked to establish over the decades in the southern part of their country, all of which are still in existence. He preaches for

them when someone is available to drive him to these various churches, some several hours drive away. Peter is truly a pillar in the Kingdom in South Africa. Rohan Jones labors among 6 congregations in South Africa, aided by his ever-present wife and helper Sandra. They operate a weekly soup kitchen out of the home of a faithful couple in a distressed area of Capetown, and this has been a very successful evangelism tool over the last few years. They make over 200 sandwiches and 40 gallons of soup in their home every Monday evening for this effort! They’d be thrilled if you dropped by to help any time. :-) Rohan and Sandra also travel to Namibia regularly to assist Bennie and the brethren there in evangelism efforts. Sandra is involved in the leadership of the annual Christian Women’s Leadership Conference held in different South African cities each year, where she is a favored teacher. For the last 3 years she and Rohan have also been invited as teachers at the Annual Workshop for church members held on the campus of George Benson Christian College on the Namwianga Mission in Zambia. (Think, Harding or Freed-Hardeman Lectureships) We have a partner there who you will read about in the Zambia section of this newsletter. Rohan also directs the Capetown School of Preaching, which meets at a local congregation and offers advanced Biblical Instruction for existing preachers in the area as well as for any interested member of the church.

TanzaniaOur partner in Tanzania is named Bright Mwakaboko. (Drop the leading ‘M’ to pronounce it.) Bright and his young wife live and labor in the town of Morogoro, Tanzania, where Bright finds Bible seekers by offering to teach English for free, and he uses the Bible as the text. Tanzanians are eager to learn to speak English, and Bright is fluent and a good speaker. Most Tanzanians speak Swahili as their first language, but English is the official language and the language of business and government, thus the desire to learn it. Bright earns his living by working his ‘shamba’ (farm) and stays very

busy teaching English/Bible classes, leading the church where they worship, and as the father of 3-year old Megan, named after Megan Evans, the wife of Adam Evans whom

Madison supported in Tanzania for 3 years. Bright served as Adam’s translator while he and his family labored there. If you wanted to visit Bright and Mebo they would say to you, ‘Karibu’ (Welcome)!

UgandaUganda Christian Bible College is a preacher training school in Uganda that is supported by Madison. The work is sponsored by the elders at the Foote Street church in Corinth, Mississippi, and I direct that work for them. Preachers are trained there at a college level of biblical education, so as to prepare them to not only preach currently, but to be pillars in the church in Uganda in the future, which is only in it’s 5th decade of existence - barely 2 generations deep. There are men here from Uganda and also from several surrounding countries (Tanzania, Kenya, Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Central African Republic), and most recently a large group of new students from South Sudan have moved onto the campus. The college owns 50 acres of land free and

clear and we are developing the property to accommodate more students in the near future. Preacher students are obviously trained in the Bible and related church leadership, and they also have a few secular courses to choose from in the curriculum to help prepare them to earn a living for themselves once they graduate from the 2-year course work. No UCBC student is offered or given a salary after they leave the school, so we work to equip them to be self-supporting. I also direct another work for the Foote Street

elders which is called The Sudan Project. This work previously operated a Bible school and a clinic in the neighboring country of South Sudan until early

2017, when they were all forced to refugee into Uganda due to violence. Many of them are now students at UCBC, and one is teaching there. Lord willing, we will soon have a clinic built on the campus that will be staffed by the medical personnel from the clinic in South Sudan. This clinic will serve the same outreach purpose that the former clinic was used for. The students and teachers here are involved in weekend evangelism campaigns 3 times each month in villages where the church does not exist, and they participate in 2, one-week long evangelism campaigns per year all over Uganda. These campaigns are excellent training for them, and they serve to establish new congregations as they do their work.

ZambiaFor over 100 years the Lord’s church has been present in Zambia. Just like in the US there are areas where the church is stronger and areas where it is weaker. From those stronger areas in the USA Christians have sent and continue to send missionaries into the weaker areas of our

country, and the same is true in Zambia. Madison partners with Brother Wilson Siazilo to carry out this evangelism work in what is called ‘the River Valley’ in the Southern part of Zambia. The river

being referred to is the mighty Zambezi River, which is the river on which the magnificent Victoria Falls are found. This ‘river valley’ area is a

huge agricultural area, and is home to many folks who are less than affluent. Wilson uses students from The Christian Leadership Development Program (of which he is the Director) on the campus of George Benson Christian College to assist him in weekend evangelistic campaigns here, and they have established 4 new congregations in the last 3 years. One was visited by Madison members in July of 2018. We assist Wilson with funding to travel here, provide some benevolence assistance for widows, and to purchase teaching materials and Bibles for use in the work. Wilson is a retired High School Administrator and a current elder in the church,

and has a love for the lost people in the valley that is inspiring. He asks that we pray for the lost in ‘the river valley’ regularly.

Please keep all of these works in your prayers.