Let loose African Cheetahs
Yaw Perbi
Our 18-year-old son, Nana Agyina, is on mission aboard Operation Mobilization’s Logos Hope ship, bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to thousands at every port. During a recent trip to Europe, my wife and I caught up with him in Brussels, where he was part of a sports ministry team sent into Belgium while the ship drydocked in Spain. We hadn’t seen him in months.
He is one of about 300 crew from approximately 60 countries, mostly youth. Apart from a few adults in key roles, the ship is literally run by young people. Significant intentionality has resulted in the most African young people on board than ever before. Think of other spaces like Youth with a Mission (YWAM), Scripture Union (SU) or the local expression of IFES in your country and you might see how youth and missions are intertwined.
Youth and mission is deeply biblical. Many consequential characters in the Scriptures were greatly used in God’s mission as young people: Joseph, David, Samuel, Esther, Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Mary the mother of Jesus, and indeed Jesus himself. So young was Timothy that Paul had to exhort him not to let anyone look down on him because he was young (1 Tim. 4:12).
In the mid-2000s, as a young medical student myself and president of the Christian Medical Fellowship, I introduced the concept of ‘Youth Power’ through a book bearing that title, to start a fire in young people to do something significant with their lives. Young people have POTENTIAL—Passion, Opportunities, Time, Energy (and strength), Numbers, Talents and Technology, Influence, Attitudes, and Lock-down (control and command).
Today, Africa is the continent with the most youthful population. Seventy per cent of sub-Saharan Africa is under the age of 30.1 The World Economic Forum reports that by 2035, there will be more young Africans entering the workforce each year than in the rest of the world combined. At the same time, Africa is the continent with the most Christians. We ask in our book, Africa to the Rest, “Is it a mere coincidence that the current most numerically Christian continent is also the demographically youngest continent?” No, the Lord of the Harvest must have a Masterplan: “The most Christian continent is the youngest continent and ‘African Christian youth’ may be the most powerful combination of words to affect the mission of God this century.”2
Youth and mission is deeply biblical.
God foretold that he would pour out his Spirit on young people (Joel 2:28). This has huge implications for the mission movement within and from Africa, including the half a million African international students who wield visas and scholarships to some of the most unreached places including India, Turkey and China; yet, are largely neither strategically envisioned nor intentionally sent.3 The local church and mission agency must be intentional about discovering, developing and deploying these teeming youth to be professional missionaries who go and/or missional professionals who as they go about their everyday lives, make disciples.
The Ghana Evangelical Missions Association (GEMA) has set up a Missional Young Leaders department, nicknamed GEMA NextGen, with a mandate to identify, prepare and strategically commission youth into God’s mission. Creative initiatives like that should be numerous for Africa’s young cheetahs who have all it takes to run fast with divine purpose, displaying and declaring God’s glory among the nations!
In this issue of AfriGO, Anna Abidan narrates her call as a young missionary and Pacifique Bisangwa delves into the potential and reality of engaging young people in missions. Our training articles offer practical guides for mentoring young people and organizing them for short-term mission trips. We also bring you FOCUS Kenya’s story of equipping thousands of students for missions. Enjoy reading and share with others.
1 https://bit.ly/4davy25
2 Perbi, Yaw and Ngugi, Sam. 2022. Africa to the Rest: from mission field to mission force (again). Xulon Press, pg. 53.
3 Kwiverr (October 2022). “Not All Who Go Are Sent: A Research Report on the Missionary Preparedness of African Christian International Students, Past and Present, from 16 African Nations” (PDF). Also Perbi, Yaw (2 December 2021). “The African International Student Phenomenon: Turning an Unsung Force into a Tour-de-force in Missio Dei”. Journal of African Christian Thought: 41–49.
Dr. Yaw Perbi is the founder and Global CEO of www.thehudgroupglobal.org, founding International Director of www.kwiverr.org and a Lausanne Movement leader. He is the Principal at www.PerbiExecutive.com and former president of International Student Ministries Canada (www.ismc.ca). Yaw is co-author of Africa to the Rest and resides with his family of nine between Accra, Ghana and Montreal, Canada as transnationals.