EDUCATION IS KING IN MISSIONS

 “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” Luke 2:52

The development of a child can be summarized in the life of the boy that came down from Heaven to become our Savior. Jesus increased, which means he was gaining maturity as a child into adulthood. He grew educationally, physically, spiritually, and socially. Every child we influence also needs to advance in these four

areas of human growth. 

Missionaries understood the importance in the past of educating children where they had
come to preach the gospel. We as modern-day Baptist missionaries along with our sending churches have forgotten this approach. We have become so anchored to the concept of pure church-planting that we have failed to remember that the local church can have various ministries to serve its community and to reach the lost. Not all fish can be caught with the same bait. This is true with classes of people as well as various cultures. In the underdeveloped world, EDUCATION is sought after as a means of escaping ignorance and poverty. In the West, we live isolated to the point where we begin to feel that everyone has the same access to the benefits we have. EDUCATION should be a center piece in missions in every place where we go to preach the gospel so long as it is an area where people are struggling with illiteracy and poverty. In Africa and beyond, EDUCATION is thirsted for. 

In the past few months our church and mission ministry we call, "All Nations Outreach Ministry", has helped start two new schools in Africa. One is in Sacelpea, Liberia and the other in Mwangulu, Kenya. These are ministries of two local churches already established in their areas by indigenous Baptist pastors in which we support. Our role was to help them build small facilities for the schools to begin and to provide other support. Their obligation was to enlist and employ quality teachers to educate the youth in their environment. These pastors have the same heart we have in this ministry. We want these children to grow educationally so that one day in the future they can provide for their own families a better well-being than what they found coming into this world. We want them to increase in wisdom and as adults find good jobs and possess the ability to function in professional careers. 

However, we also what them to grow spiritually. We want them to learn the gospel at an early age. The small school in Mwangulu is the only non-Muslim religious school in the entire region. It is the only school providing a CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. It is called, "All Nations Christian Academy". We are proud of the teachers and staff. They pray and read the Bible daily to the students. Pastor Ercik Chondo who was a converted Muslim, also struggled in his early life to function as he only went to the 7th grade. After being saved, he learned to read the Bible. Now he is founder of a school where all the students read God's Word daily. 

The school in Saclepea, Liberia was founded by Pastor Emmauel Gaye. He was raised as an orphan and had many struggles until his aunt and uncle took him in and made sure he had a chance in life. Now Pastor Gaye serves the children in his community to give them what he did not have as a boy, someone to love. He shows these children the love of Christ daily and leads them to love Jesus. 

Yes! EDUCATION is a wonderful means of leading people to Jesus in the Third World. One can drive across the continent of Africa today and casually observe the numbers of Schools and Hospitals with the names Baptist, Methodist, Catholic and other denominations attached to their structures. This is because the early missionaries of 150-plus years ago realized that in a world that struggled with academic ignorance and in societies languishing 50 or more years behind the modern world, EDUCATION is KING, and the church can utilize EDUCATION to bring people to the KING of KINGS