EE impact in Africa rises to new level posted by jwatson on Feb 16, 2011

All across Africa, God is raising up men and women who are fully committed to equipping people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and presenting Jesus’ saving story at great personal sacrifice. Africa is a vast continent with 12.9 percent of the world’s population.

In 1988, EE was only planted in five nations of Africa. By 1996, EE had been planted in the remaining 48 nations. Leading the way today is Twakkies du Toit, EE Vice President for Africa. Twakkies joined EE in 1994 as Managing Director of EE South Africa.

Twakkies asks himself how one man can direct the EE ministry across the entire African continent considering the following:

• Africa consists of more than 4.4 million square miles, one-fifth of the earth’s land surface
• Limited infrastructure
• A population of 950 million
• 55 nations
• More than 3,700 people groups
• More than 2,600 languages
• High illiteracy
• High poverty (20 of the world’s poorest nations)
• 673,000 Christian churches in Africa with 353 million church members

Challenges abound with God’s grace leading the way

In light of these daunting facts, Twakkies remains positive and hopeful. “My passion is twofold,” he says. “First, I envision 50 percent of Africa’s churches implementing EE to equip their people. Second, I envision equipping more than 1.2 million children in the next three years who will share the Gospel with more than 12 million of their friends.”

Vast gains have already been made across the African continent.

• Indignized training materials in more than 30 African languages covering youth, adult, and children training
• Seven area EE directors and 57 field workers

In 2010 alone, 9,700 church leaders were equipped representing 2,500 churches at 351 training events in 38 nations. There were more than 70,000 professions of faith in Christ through the EE ministry.

Other significant developments for 2010 include the hiring of 37 implementation field workers and launching the Hope for Kids (HFK) ministry through 76 workshops in 12 nations. “We truly thank the Lord for these accomplishments that have moved EE’s impact in Africa to a new level,” he says.