Africa Hope

World Relief – Financial Stewardship

A number of years ago, Joe Davis (our then-pastor of business and stewardship) was introduced to Jean Paul Ndagijimana, the African Director for World Relief. The two men quickly discovered that they shared a passion to further the cause of biblical stewardship education. At Jean Paul’s invitation, Joe made several trips to Nairobi, Kenya, working through World Relief to develop stewardship training programs with the senior pastors of 22 large churches from various denominations.

In one week-long retreat setting, the dialogue on stewardship priorities led to the conclusion that the greatest need was for small group training. Joe and others helped these Kenyan brothers develop the content and outline, and a team of writers from the various congregations produced a culturally relevant student training manual: He Owns, I Manage, which was published in December of 2009. The initial printing of 3000 was quickly distributed and rewrite for the second printing is underway at this time. Training and implementation is also in progress.

The stewardship growth of these Kenyan churches is manifested in their plans to provide this material and training to villages throughout the country and beyond in their tribal languages. Translations in Swahili, Kenyan-Rwanda and French are being considered.

This has been a strategic initiative which came from the contributions of the Fullerton congregation in partnership with the African church through Africa Hope.

Goals for the project:

• Create right relationship with God: The peace and true joy that results from knowing that one has  both recognized and practiced what God’s Word teaches about being stewards of His resources.
• Increase savings/Improve financial stability in an African context:
  • Where care for large extended family members has, in some ways tended to place successive generations in a cycle of poverty.
  • Where urgent need exists to teach new and more realistic methods of saving other than the traditional investment in land.
  • Where urgent need exists to change some non sustainable practices like firmly having to be buried on personal or family land.

• Help Reduce Indebtedness to absolute minimum Possible:  Preventively for most and redemptively for an increasing many in the context of aggressive marketing by banks, credit card companies as well as a fast growing consumer economy.
• Increase giving: To the church, Para-church organizations as well as deserving causes and individuals. The Church in Africa and the Christian universities in Africa cannot and should not indefinitely continue to receive financial help from the West when there are enough people with reasonable incomes to make endowments or to give regularly and adequately to sustain these institutions.
• Save marriages:  In a context where increasingly husband and wife have to work if they are to give themselves and their children a decent living and education, but where skills in friendly and open discussions on money matters have been badly wanting.