We are working on 3 fronts In the Villages.
Following the village crusade of, we are now working in over 100 villages in the Ibadan area with nearly 200 volunteers, including gap year students. During the outreach, we saw many villagers impacted by the gospel through the word, medicine and practical help. We have been able to organize teams of young people and women to visit the villages. We have seen whole villages turn to Christ.
Our work of agricultural empowerment linked with education, medical care, clean water is changing whole communities. Half our school children are from Muslim homes. The children are reaching their parents. Our work is evangelical and “in our train” 5 churches have been planted in the Imini.
In June, we purchased a bus to facilitate this work. We plan to build a Mission House & School costing about £1,500 excluding furnishing.
We have been able to secure the services of 100 Christian Youth Corpers. (These are university graduates who are obliged to devote one-year service to their country). It takes just £l8 per month per person to maintain each Corper and so far we have sent $1,000 towards this. In addition to our regular outreaches we will have 100 resident Christian workers in the villages.
Dr. Wale Adekunle, a leading agronomist based at IlTA Ibadan was released by his employer to work in villages. He established an agricultural instruction programme where we worked with farmers to double their cassava yield. We also gave sheep, cassava tubas, and mills for palm kernels to farmers.
The Women
Our City Wide Event Liberty ’99 drew 25,000 and saw over 1,000 decisions for the Lord Jesus. We now have an office employing 2 full time staff for follow-up and planning. The women are very key in the village work. They also oversee the IT training Scheme and undergird everything with prayer. We are about to launch a quarterly magazine Today’s Covenant Woman which will be distributed in UK, USA and Nigeria.
The Youth
In October 2000, we reached over 2000 young people with the gospel, awarded 25 scholarships and set up an IT training Centre. We saw around 600 first time commitments to Christ and about 500 rededications. We gave away 5 computers (one to the Student’s Union at Ibadan University). The scholarships and IT training are on going, so far we have donated over £6,000 and in the next 2 years we will need to find a further £12,000 to complete those on three year courses .