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Books Make Way into Violence-Torn Africa
BANGUI, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (March 29, 2001) - Pastors in many parts of Africa, including the Congo Covenant Church, have experienced difficulty obtaining educational materials due to continued violence and unrest in their part of the world.
Recently, however, an ecumenical Christian organization responded to this important need. SIM delivered more than $2 million dollars worth of French educational texts (9,000 books in all) through its Pastors Book Set (PBS) project, giving 36-book sets to pastors in French-speaking parts of Africa.
Tom Halgren, a Covenant missionary working in a partnership with SIM in Bangui, believes the influx of books from the Pastors Book Set (PBS) project will be a godsend for Covenant pastors. Educational materials were lost or destroyed in recent years, a period when Covenant missionaries were forced to evacuate the war-torn area.
A total of 185 book sets earmarked for Congo Covenant Church pastors will soon be delivered by missionary Keith Gustafson, a liaison to the Congo church, Halgren said. Other denominations received books as early as mid-February at various conferences designed to distribute books directly to pastors.
"There are missions working to subsidize literature and certain books are available," said Halgren, who grew up at Fruitland Evangelical Covenant Church in Whitehall, Michigan. "But, in general, we find that most books are basically involved in evangelization - most of the books are mainly about standard witness, testimonies of individuals and stories of individuals. It's good material, but not material that would help a pastor in the role of pastoring the church," he continued.
"And in French-speaking Africa, there is not much available in French literature," Halgren noted. "In French and French-speaking nations of the world, the Christian church doesn't have a large Christian community, so French literature is expensive. If you had an English book and a French book, French books would be twice as expensive. Where they produce of a run of 10,000 books in English, they may make a run of only 500 in French. Most of these books are not available to these (African) pastors."
Halgren, who has been a missionary for 14 years, is thankful that the book sets were delivered to their destination in light of numerous delays on the way. Books were held for a time in Douala because of customs hurdles. "From the very beginning it was a spiritual battle to get the books to the pastors," he said. "Every single vehicle we had to deliver the books broke down." The political unrest has also made it difficult to get bibles and hymn books to the Congo Covenant Church," said Halgren. "We're starting all over again in many ways," he said about
the lack of Christian literature available.
For more information on the PBS project, contact Halgren by email at bse@intnet.cf and insert his name in the subject line of the message. For information about the Evangelical Covenant Church Department of World Mission, call 773-907-3321 or email the department at WM@covoffice.org. Other information is available by clicking on the Departments/Institutions link at www.covchurch.org.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
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