DAWN Fridayfax 1998 #38

News from Liberia, USA, Canada, Tonga, Swaziland

In this issue:
Liberia: Do churches always grow when the missionaries go home?
USA: Clinton follows King David's example
USA: Salvation Army receives 80 million dollars
Canada: Rural Christians become 'short term homeless'
Tonga: Queen calls women to evangelise their families
Swaziland: King's vision fulfilled

Liberia: Do churches always grow when missionaries go home?

Something has been happening in China, Ethiopia, Cuba, Vietnam and a whole list of other countries recently: as soon as the Western missionaries went home, the churches started to grow. After years of work by American Lutherans and others, two Lutheran denominations with some 119 churches had been set up in Liberia. Since the 34 missionaries from the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran church left the country in 1991 during civil-war like hostilities, the indigenous Christians have planted some 140 new churches and preaching stations. As the missionaries returned to the country this year, they found that the Liberian christians had also planted churches in areas which had previously been hard to reach. "It's a new edition of Acts, in 20th century Western Africa," says Kenneth Greinke of the church's mission agency. They now want to concentrate on theological training for the Liberian christians, not continue where they left off.

Source: Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod

USA: Clinton follows King David's example

In a TV interview on ABC, the Baptist sociology professor Tony Campolo and pastor Gordon MacDonald reported that Bill Clinton asked them for counselling following his affair with Monika Lewinski. "Our talks with Clinton were confrontative," they said. "We dug down deep. It was sometimes so hard for Clinton that he shouted at us! We spent the night from 10-11 September in the White House, before Clinton publicly confessed his sins at the prayer breakfast," they said, continuing "We would have ceased the relationship, had we not been certain that Clinton is serious about repenting of his sins."

Source: Religion Today, USA

USA: Salvation Army receives 80 million dollars

The Salvation Army recently received the largest single donation in its 118-year history. The gift of US$80 million was donated by McDonald's heir Joan Kroc, and will be used to build a community center in an underprivileged area of San Diego. The center should be ready at the end of 2000. "We're walking on clouds," said Victor Pinzon of San Diego's Salvation Army in an interview with USA Today. For Joan Kroc, the 70-year-old widow of McDonald's co-founder Ray Kroc, it was also her largest ever donation. Her deceased husband, even after making a fortune in the fast food business, regularly went on the streets of San Diego to collect money for the Salvation Army, dressed as Santa Claus, according to newspaper reports.

Source: USA Today and others.

Canada: Rural Christians become 'short term homeless'

City missionaries in Vancouver don't roll out the red carpets for visiting church groups, quite the opposite: the guests are sent penniless out on the street, with the advice that they should look out for themselves, and see how they can get something to eat. The 'downtown plunge' is part of a missionary program developed by YWAM staff, and is welcomed by pastors and youth leaders of suburban and rural churches who want to give their church members a taste of life and work in a city. The visitors help in christian ministry to the homeless and in Vancouver's red light district. "By the year 2020, 80% of the global population will live in cities," says Mr. Davies of the mission agency UWM, "yet many Christians ignore cities. Our aim is to acquaint them with city life, and show how they as Christians can help. At the same time, the visitors get a sense of God's heart for cities."

Source: UWM, Vancouver

Tonga: Queen calls women to evangelise their families

The Queen of Tonga called on the island nation's women to evangelise their families. Her Majesty Queen Halaevalu Mata'aho encouraged women to explain the gospel of Christ to each member of their family by the year 2000. Beside Tongans, some 80 Christian leaders from Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Samoa attended the "Oceanic Women Renewed in Christ" conference during August 1998 in Tonga, sponsored by the Lausanne Committee for World Mission. Hundreds of Tongan women came to hear sermons by the Queen, Princess Mele Siu'ilikutapu and the Lausanne Committee's Robyn Claydon. During the finale, the delegates knelt before a huge cross with their nation's flags as children prayed for them and their nations. The Queen also knelt at the cross with her nation's flag, and asked for prayer.

Source: Religion Today

Swaziland: King's vision fulfilled

A 150-year-old legend is being revived in the Southern African state Swaziland. The nation's founder, King Somhlolo, had a vision in 1844, in which people with a different skin color came to him with two things: a book (umculu) and a round object (indilinga). In his dream, the King was instructed to refuse the round object (which he understood to be a coin), but to accept the book. Following his dream, he sent ambassadors to find the 'men of the book'. They returned with Methodist missionaries. In 1998, over 150 years after the King's vision, the Bible has been completely translated into Swati, the national language, and published by the local Bible Society. For the first time, Swaziland's 2 million Swati speakers can read the Bible in their own language. His Majesty King Mswati III of Swaziland decreed a special holiday in honour of the publication of the first Swati Bible.

Source: Errol Pike; E-mail: bibles@biblesoc.org.nz

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