A few years ago during a trip to equip African pastors in the WordPartners training program (in partnership with Christian Horizons), Doug Dunton and Pastor Allan Sherer were joined by Dr. Tim Keesee of Frontline Missions International.
Dr. Keesee documented his experience in Episode 5 of the popular missions DVD series Dispatches from the Front. Below is the transcript from the portion mentioning WordPartners with a few photos.
Just next door, Allan was rightly dividing the Word of truth. Christian Horizons is not only rescuing children but is also a force in strengthening the Church in the radical rescue work of the Gospel. Intensive Bible training was underway with men and women from all over the region—from elder statesmen like Pastor Ti-yay, who was tortured for his faith during the Communist time, to young men and women eager to learn and to share the Scriptures.
Some of the pastors have said in the past their only models for preaching were the “health and wealth” types they saw on television—an embarrassing American export. These same men are now getting a taste for simple, solid biblical exposition, and they have publicly repented of how they handled God’s Word before. What is so effective about the teaching that Allan and his colleague Doug are doing is that learning is not for accumulation but for multiplication. Allan and Doug are just the initiators of a movement—for this school has legs! These pastors and evangelists are in turn teaching other pastors and evangelists in ever widening circles of Ethiopians training Ethiopians in Word-centered preaching.
I love to think of the fact that in Acts there’s an Ethiopian searching the Scripture, and the Lord sent along Philip to show him Christ, Whom he embraced in faith and joy. The Ethiopian eunuch surely brought the Gospel back to this very land. Now in our time, God is raising up a new generation of Philips and of Ethiopians hungry to know and preach Jesus—to shake every corner of their nation with the Gospel!
Dr. Tim Keesee journals his experience with Doug Dunton and our African training partners.
Sat by the Nile yesterday morning beneath a huge mango tree and listened in on Michael and Kebede, his right-hand man, talking ministry strategy with Doug. Kebede is Oromo, he is intense, encyclopedic, and his administrative skills are as sharp and varied as a Swiss Army knife. What is impressive to me is the caliber of leadership among these Ethiopians.
What they are doing here is nation-shaking. Training that moves from generation to generation takes work, focus, mentoring, translators, and logistics. Conferences are easy, but multiplying leaders and overcoming lots of geographic and linguistic barriers isn’t. Here in Sudan they are taking the first steps to equip 1500 church planters who are taking the Gospel across South Sudan and into the Arab North.
Images are from Dispatches from the Front: Father, Give Me Bread (episode 5). Used with permission from Frontline Missions International, Taylors, South Carolina.
More information about the Dispatches from the Front video series is available at www.dispatchesfromthefront.org. Learn more about Frontline Missions International at www.frontlinemissions.info/
