Thailand
The Church organized a new stake in Thailand on June 14th. The Ubon Thailand Stake was organized from the Ubon Thailand District and includes the following six wards and three branches: the Buriram, Korat, Mahasarakham, Roi-Et, Srisaket, and Ubon Wards and the Kalasin, Surin, and Yasothorn Branches. There are now three stakes and three districts in Thailand.
Ghana
The Church organized a new district in Ghana at the end of May. The Tamale Ghana District was organized from four branches in the Ghana Kumasi Mission located in the city of Tamale. These branches include the Education Ridge, Kalpohin, Kanvilli, and Vitin Branches. The first missionaries were assigned to Tamale in February 2013 and the Church organized the first member groups at that time. Startling successes has occurred in this most northern city in Ghana with an LDS presence. Today there are approximately 200 active members in the city - essentially all of whom are recent converts from northern Ghana. Implementation of a church-planting strategy called the Sunyani Model has been a key ingredient to this unprecedented development.
12 comments:
Could someone explain the planting method of proselyting that people have been talking about in Africa? How does it differ from the traditional methods of growth in, say, Central or South America?
Could someone explain the planting method of proselyting that people have been talking about in Africa? How does it differ from the traditional methods of growth in, say, Central or South America?
@Christopher - Matt has written an article explaining the church-planting strategy on the Cumorah.com website: http://cumorah.com/index.php?target=view_other_articles&story_id=672&cat_id=35
In part, it reads: "Church planting differs from splitting already functioning units to create new congregations (e.g. 'church splitting' in that church planting traditionally starts from scratch in the target location)."
Awesome. Planting in big cities should continue. Too bad India does not permit more missionaries. The Lord still needs more.
This article from the Deseret News http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865630778/LDS-senior-missionary-serving-in-Ghana-builds-pulpit-for-paralyzed-branch-president.html?pg=all about a branch president who is paralyzed and the senior missionary who built him a special stand is quite interesting. It gives lots of details, like that at least in this stake the stake presidency members wear suits while on official business.
Luckily there are ways to exceed the quota limits for missionaries in India. One is missionaries from India. With some stories of successful reactiviation of youth in India told in recent priesthood meetings, we hopefully will see an uptick in missionaries serving soon. It may not be spectacular, but hopefully enough to open new areas in Uttar Predesh and some other huge cities.
The other way to go around the rules is missionaires of Indian descent from abroad. We had a couple from India where the wife was baptized in my ward, but they moved to an adjoining ward. They have 2-year-old daughters. However there are lots of immigrants from India in south-east Michigan, Britain, New York City, and lots of people of Indian descent in Fiji. So the first step is probably going to be converting Indians abroad in larger numbers.
Trinidad has many but not many join. The other half are Afro-Caribbean; not sure who gets baptized more.
There are quite a few people of Indian descent in the UK and former British colonies like South Africa as well.
Would the Indian govt. allow these multi-national ethnic Indians visas to proselytize? How many are there in the LDS faith? I still think that even that pool of young people worldwide is not significantly robust. Reminder to do your part for the overall effort. Pray always. Don't faint on West Bengal.
Not related to India directly but here's a darn interesting story from Mission Geek.
http://www.missiongeek.net/2015/06/missionaries-now-speaking-arabic/
Trinidad's population is roughly 1/3 Afro-Caribbean, 1/3 of Indian descent, and 1/3rd of various mixed ancestry, white or other things. The church may also have some converts of Indian descent in Guyana or Jamaica.
I did read somewhere that it was easier for these people of Indian descent to get visas. I am not sure if those who were born in India would be treated differently than those whose parents were born there who might be treated differently than those whose grandparents were born there.
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