Humble steps and giant leaps

When Rev. Dr. John Gordon Egyir-Croffet started Excellent Youth Outreach (EYO) in 1995, the goal was simply to meet the spiritual needs of a few students at a high school in Ghana. Thirty years later, EYO has grown to impact people all over Africa. In the three years before the pandemic, the ministry sent over 130 young people on 60 short-term international mission trips across 30 African countries.

“We started with Mali in 2002, then sent out others to USA, India, Pakistan, and to Egypt,” says Kwesi Oteng-Yeboah, the International Director of EYO. By 2019, the number had grown to 30 countries, with the goal to reach all African countries. The outreaches slowed down in 2020 due to the pandemic, but the vision is still on. Branches of EYO have started in other countries and they all send out missionaries.

Self-funded

Sending young people who are in college or just out of college to lands far away with the gospel comes with a major challenge – young people have the energy and the time but not the money to go. Kwesi says, “We have never had outside funding. Whenever I tell people about our mission trips, they keep asking if we have sponsors from Europe or the US, and I tell them we don’t.” He adds that maybe God wanted to use EYO as an example to people in Africa that they can fund from within.

The ministry has heavily invested in support-raising activities, reaching anyone willing to help. Every participant  is expected to raise funds from their networks and EYO as a ministry raises support also. For example, they will reach out to over 400 churches in Ghana asking them to donate $10 each. In the end, some would give more, others would give less, but the amount would go a long way in funding the trips.

The alumni of EYO also support fundraising efforts, increasing the network of mission donors. Students go to the malls and streets asking strangers to give money for missions, sometimes as little as one cedi (US$0.09). One time, Kwesi went knocking on doors and a pastor directed him to a church member who ended up giving a recurring gift of US$6,500. What an unexpected miracle!

Throughout the mission activities, the team has seen God come through when it was almost time to give up. Kwesi recalls a mission team in Kenya that ran out of money. By a miracle, one of them found enough money to last them a few days.

Challenges

One of the biggest funding challenges EYO faced was the depreciation of the Ghanaian currency, which affected people’s ability to give and escalated the cost of international missions. A mission trip that used to cost 1200 cedis ended up costing 6000 cedis.

Financial challenges also meant that not everybody who wanted to go could be sent but this didn’t dampen the resolve of the young missionaries. Some students sold their smartphones and laptops to raise the money. At a mission station in Sierra Leone, the message that moved young people most was hearing that some of the missionaries who came to them had sold their gadgets to pay for their travels!

Impact

Through EYO’s missions, churches have been revived, people involved in crime have given up their old ways, and churches have started similar projects to reach out to neighbouring countries. In one of the trips, an old imam got saved and invited the missionary to share the gospel with his whole family. Can you imagine a young person barely in their 20s leading an imam to Christ?

In another mission to South Sudan, only two out of five missionaries could go due to financial setbacks. The two held a crusade and when they made an altar call, over 600 people gave their lives to Christ. They started a new believers’ class and 350 people attended. The events made EYO send a missionary back to the place and a church was planted. The church is still active and bringing many to the Lord in a South Sudanese refugee camp in Northern Uganda, where the church relocated to due to war.

Long-term sending

At the moment, EYO is reorganizing its missions arm into the International Missions Commission (IMC). This will provide a dedicated structure for sending and supporting missionaries to reach the whole world. Building from what has been done, the IMC will enable young people from all over Africa to take the gospel to the farthest corners of Africa and the world. Kwesi hopes that there will be bold leaders who will be willing to send out young people to the nations.