A 2002 report from the Zambian government has indicated that for the first time since AIDS became an epidemic, it is now under control. The report goes on to say that the main reason AIDS is stabilized and in a number of southern African countries has actually gone down, is the churches in southern Africa have banded together over the past fifteen years to fight this epidemic. The Evangelical Church in Zambia has led the way to change Africa.
As the report shares more details, it is also noted that the number of people in poverty has declined, with economic opportunities being offered at an unprecedented rate through the churches. Schools are better equipped with several hundred thousand AIDS orphans now in school. The root change for all these aspects to change was an aggressive leadership development initiative that church leaders took to their congregations. What started through such movements as Wise, Intentional Leadership Development in Zambia has spread to all of the other southern African countries plus several of the northern countries on the continent. In fact Zambia is the leading country sending teams of trainers out to the other countries. They have been very effective in developing leaders both in their local congregations and international congregations. It is estimated that a team of three to four people go monthly to another country.
In the past fifteen years, it is known that 125,000 leaders have been trained. These leaders are involved in all aspects of African life. From the inception of WILD’s influence, the goal has been to have all parts of society impacted by spiritual leadership development. The method is rather simple. After one person is trained, she or he is directed to teach someone else. The results are unprecedented. One side note is the noticeable lack of spread and influence Islam has had in recent years. In fact in many southern African countries, Islam influence is no where to be found compared to fifteen years ago, when Muslims were purchasing business and providing schools for many poverty stricken children.
Though this is a made up story, the truth is this can become reality. According to our fellow pastors in Africa, the efforts put forth by WILD have had an impact and people are being impacted by the training we give. Spiritual leadership training is one of the top couple prayer requests given by churches throughout the world. There is a huge lack of pastors available and for many of the available pastors, they are not trained well or not at all. For example, in the Evangelical Church in Zambia, out of the 1000 churches, there are only 40 pastors. With the 40 pastors, not all of them are paid.
Leadership makes or breaks an organization. Depending on the quality of leadership, a country can be greatly affected. An example of this is Zimbabwe, where in 1991, the country was feeding not only their own country but a number of other African countries. Today Zimbabwe’s people are starving. This is all due to the leadership of their president.
As we have had dialogue with the Zambian pastors who have been trained by WILD, there are a number of observations given by them. The material that has been put together for the leadership training is easily understood, transferable between cultures because of the heavy focus of Biblical principles, very inexpensive and the target is the people in the congregations. The goal is to get to the grass roots, meet the common person right where he or she is at. Above all the training exemplifies being relational as you teach the material. Trainers from American have not just come to teach the material and leave, rather, a core value of WILD is to build relationships with the people and let them see the taught principles be lived out in front of them by the trainers.
Our colleagues in Zambia have caught the vision of what spiritual leadership development can do for any level of organization. They are teaching the material to their own congregations, offer training to other churches and as of right now, two pastors are working to teach the material outside of Zambia, Henry Mukonda in Zimbabwe and Allan Kasungami in Namibia.
During early October, I wrote one of the hardest letters I have ever written to our brothers and sisters in Nepal, where God has opened doors to offer the training. I informed the Church there that a grant I was pursing for the express purpose of assisting pastors and church leaders to attend an unprecedented national missions conference involving 95% of the churches in Nepal, had not come through. 700 to 750 leaders were affected. The Lord did open the door for me to go.
WILD is very careful not to throw money at the whims of change. The world has done that. In Zimbabwe, if you added up all the money that has been sent to that country for AIDS relief, every person in Zimbabwe would be a millionaire today. Some people are prayer warriors for WILD, others need to be raised up to be financial supporters. I am not asking you to take away from those you are already giving to. Instead I am requesting that you prayerfully consider giving in a sacrificial way to WILD.
We need to raise up monthly giving in order to do what needs to be done. Right now WILD is under the non profit status of HCY. Some day WILD could go on its own which means some organizational and administrative costs. Eventually having a steady flow of income will allow WILD to assist in sending international trainers to other countries, translate the training material into other languages (which is already occurring), allow me to travel without always having the need to ask for each trip and cover some of my personal costs in putting WILD together and keeping it running.
We do not charge for the material because most people in the world could not purchase such a tool. It has been developed and put together by me which obviously affects the lack of costs to reproduce the material. The story in the beginning of this letter can become reality if we work together. The fate of the Church is at stake here. Would you consider your part in this WILD team effort?
Mike Prom
