The Preach Burden

Due to the academic challenges in many of the Portuguese countries, PREACH seeks to equip and train national pastors both academically and doctrinally to assume the role of planting their own churches to reach their own people. Off the western coast of Africa on the volcanic islands of Cape Verde, construction began early in 2004 on a nine thousand square foot facility built for the training and lodging of both students and facility members. Simultaneously, four thousand miles away on the eastern side of Africa, plans are underway to ascertain a similar facility in central Mozambique.

To date, the formerly established churches in Mozambique have now grown from seventeen to twenty in number. National pastors and church leaders are beginning to reach out and expand those ministries into new communities. As in bible times, churches are planting churches. These churches are producing individuals with vehement desire for biblical training in God's word. These chosen men are dedicated and faithful believers who have a vision and burden to evangelize their own nation, but yet are not presently equipped to answer this call. PREACH aims to promptly respond to this need and seize the opportunity to equip the laborers while the fields are white.

Through extensive survey, we set out to discover which of the Portuguese countries are the most and the least evangelized. With Brazil having 245 fundamental Baptist missionaries, and Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Guinea Bissau not having a single one, it was very easy to determine where to begin. It is the vision of Ripley Tabernacle Baptist Church and PREACH Evangelistic Ministries to train and establish a coordinator to oversee the evangelistic efforts and the church planting endeavors in each of the Portuguese-speaking countries.

With such an enormously complex vision to reach an entire language group, comes the essential importance of teamwork. It is no task to be done alone. Among our many co laborers, is a network of fundamental printing ministries; stateside team members who have responded to the need for printed literature in the Portuguese language. Training manuals, songbooks and many other materials have been donated to the ministry free of charge, leaving only the challenge of shipping these materials to their various destinations around the globe.

PREACH has shipped over fifty tons of literature in the last twelve months. These materials have transformed the lives of thousands of believers in even the most remote bush regions of Africa.