Tony’s Story
A volunteer’s perspective on the Kumasi Mission
Tony has lived in Kumasi all his life. He’s loves his city and he’s passionate about reaching the lost here. He’s volunteered his time and resources to help organise the mission with the aim of seeing as many people saved as possible. We in AE rely on volunteers like Tony to make a mission a success.
AE’s desires to awaken African Christians to fully grasp the call of the Great Commission and apply it to their lives and communities. That value is expressed in our mission statement, “To evangelise the cities of African, through word and deed, in partnership with the church.”
When the mission planning begins, we start with the local churches. Without their support, the mission will not become a reality. We work to mobilise volunteers across the city and train them in evangelism and theology. We help churches work together to reach their own communities and we rely on local volunteers to make the missin a success. Tony has caught our vision.
“This mission has made me realise that there is a harvest right here.”
“We have been doing missions for a long time.” Tony told us. “People come from Europe or America or all over and we partner with them for crusades. Honestly speaking though, I can say this event is different all together. In the past we have formed a team and we leave the city to go to this village or that village. Sometimes we even form a mass crusade. However, this idea of ‘Stratified Evangelism’ is such that it allows me to reach a whole different category of people. We’ve ministered to professionals, politicians, market women, lorry drivers and prostitutes. We are winning souls from right here in our city! We’ve always gone far away when there are so many souls around us being neglected. This mission has made me realise that there is a harvest right here.”
“I know that this mission has caused the local church to change their strategy. As I speak to pastors I can see that a light has been switched on in their mind. They received the training before the mission but now they have seen the training in action and it has given them many ideas. We have all learned a lot. For instance, it never occurred to me to put horns on my car to tell people about Jesus and to advertise for Gospel events. Before, I used to just tell people about church events in passing but now I’ve realised that what they really need is Jesus before they’ll come to any programme.”
“Churches in Kumasi often come together to do things, but this event has been different. The churches who have failed to attend have really missed out on a lot. I’m excited for the Kumasi churches to keep up this work. We need to pull together our knowledge and the things we have learned from this mission so we can use our collective knowledge to train those who didn’t attend. We can teach those who are coming up in the Lord and our own churches too.”
“We can’t continue to do things how we used to or wait for AE to come again. We’ve been given the best example and it’s up to us now. Thank you for coming. Our city and our churches are better because you came.”