By John Michael Poulin

The BMA has a rich history on the continent of Africa. Many American missionaries have been there in the past. In fact, the Quillmans will hopefully be elected this year as another American missionary couple and continue that legacy. This rich history does not only include American missionaries but countless ChangeMaker missionaries and cooperation from other BMA departments and entities like our seminary, Lifeword, EIM, and Water for Christ. 

God has blessed these efforts and many souls have been saved, disciples have been made, churches have been planted, and associations have been formed in many of the countries of Africa. 

There are several areas we need to work on. The area of finances is the most common and widespread problem in our work.  We have been carrying the Africans in this area for years. This is a problem. Think of the issues that would arise if parents never put their kids down, if they never let them crawl on the floor and get dirty, never let them stand on their own and fall occasionally, if they never let them try to walk. This would create untold problems in the development of their children. The same is true in the area of finances.

Our short-term goal is to allow the Africans to crawl. Just like a child may not want to be put down at first, he or she will soon enjoy the freedom of crawling where they want to go.

I would like to introduce you to two ways we are trying to help them crawl in the area of finances. The first one is with grants for new church planters. The way these grants work is that we will come along side the local church and national association (if there is one) to help with a grant for three to five years to provide the church planter with an offering so he can be involved in planting the new church. We will only give grants if the local church and national association are contributing to this offering as well. The idea is that the local church and national association will give 50% then BMA Missions can provide 50%, but we must remember they have not crawled before, so these numbers are not written in stone. 

The second way is by what we like to call the principle of the thirds. Let’s say that a new mission wants to buy a building. We would ask them to raise 1/3 of the money up front. Then we would loan them 1/3 from the international revolving loan fund then Missions would gift them the last 1/3. The new mission would pay for two thirds of the building, and we would gift one third.We would like to ask you to pray for Africa. Pray that God will continue to save many people, make many disciples and plant numerous churches. Pray that African churches will begin to crawl in the area of finances. Pray about how you can be involved in these grants and the principles of the thirds.