God Raising Up Surprising Leaders

Mile, an illiterate, single woman who sold palm oil answered a call to become a church planter in November 2005. The pastor did not think she could make the grade as a church planter so he asked her to go home and pray about her decision. She did and then showed up for the training. After completing the training she asked for an assignment in one of the most dangerous, occultic places in her country, a community that has to gaurd new graves for two weeks because of occultic practices carried out on dead bodies. Reluctantly she was released to the task. There she planted a church that within a year has launched eight more second-generation churches.

Chief Alimamy is a senior chief in a Muslim region of his country. He has authority over ten Muslim communities. When church planters came to his community, they discovered that the chief was the man of peace. When he surrendered his life to Christ and was baptized, he demonstrated his repentance by publicly destroying his former demonic altar and ritual/ceremonial house. The fact that he survived that act catalyzed a process in which most of his subjects became Christ Followers. At a public meeting, all ten communities asked permission to destroy their mosques, which they replaced with new churches.

Zimmi, a fierce secret society warrior, came from a long heritage of occultic practitioners. He fought naked during the wars and was notorious for never being wounded even when shot at point blank range. His reputation was fearsome and his enemies fled at his battlefield presence. He called himself "The Devil". He listened to a church planter's storytelling and asked to hear more in private. He ended up being discipled by the church planter. At his baptism he was asked to speak spontaneously to a large group who had come to witness this event. "You know me, I am known throughout this region, I was your imam and your warrior leader until the storytellers came. Today I become a new man, the old devil himself dies today". This former warrior has now planted five churches.

Yamba was the leading debia (native doctor) in his village. As the chief debia in the community, he had ten other debias under his command. When church planters came they discovered Yamba was a man of peace. After going through the inductive Bible study and discipleship courses he surrendered his life to Christ and willingly burnt all his charms and amulets in the middle of the village square. This scene attracted the attention of the entire village and they considered him to have gone mad. Yamba seized the opportunity and told them about his new found faith and how he received Jesus as his Lord and Savior. Forty people gave their lives to Christ through his testimony. Another miracle unfolded when the other ten debias decided to follow Christ and dedicated their homes to be prayer centers for the salvation of other debias in the nation.

Moses was a former prisoner, sentenced for a very serious crime. After becoming a Christ Follower he was employed as an office assistant. However, during this time he developed a passion to become a church planter. On an early assignment, he entered a village with his team member. Within hours of their arrival the Paramount chief's senior wife died. The team had been trained to watch for surprising events that the Lord might use to accelerate the typical six months of story telling leading to families coming to faith.

So they introduced themselves to the chief as men of prayer and asked him if they could pray for his wife while the grave was dug. Eventually she sneezed, then sat up and asked for water. People were astonished at the power of God.

The next day, a similar thing happened in a nearby village. In that chiefdom of 22,000 the storytelling/chronological Bible storytelling process was accelerated to a few weeks, and there are now 9 churches in that region.