Details on the new Africa Central Area released, with headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. https://www.mormonnewsroom.co.za/article/africa-central-area-office-to-be-in-nairobi--kenya
Speaking of things, I just started reading about the proposed East African Federation, which would potentially include several of the countries of the new Africa Central Area. I'm curious to see if this union will actually end up happening, and what effect it might have on the spreading of the gospel in that area.
David Todd, I know that, from what I've heard on my end, many people seem to be surprised that the area will be based out of Nairobi, but it doesn't necessarily come as a surprise to me. We have seen President Nelson take an unconventional or nontraditional approach on things that defy usual logic and reason. This to me is another example of out-of-the-box methodology of decisions made during President Nelson's prophetic administration. And maybe the reasoning doesn't make sense now, but I am sure it will may a lot more sense in hindsight in the coming months and years.
Either way, I do anticipate we are likely to see quite an expansion of the work through these two areas once they split next year. And I look forward to seeing what might happen in that respect.
The reasoning perhaps is three-fold: Kenya is more central than Congo. Nairobi has the better international airport. Nairobi is also getting its own temple.
OC Surfer, I am not sure that the temple in Nairobi held as much sway as some may believe. There was a temple dedicated in Kinshasa DR Congo in April, so by the time the Africa Central Area begins officially operating, that temple will have been in operation for almost a year and a half. I am not sure the airport would factor into things either, unless you are saying it is easier to travel to and from Nairobi than it would be to do so to and from Kinshasa. And if that is what you are stating, I'd like to see some data to back that up. And with only Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia being closer to the Eastern side of Africa than Kenya, I don't quite understand why you said "Kenya is more central than Congo". Unless you mean that Kenya is closer to the center of the African continent than DR Congo (which might be difficult to prove geographically), I assume you mean that it is central in comparision to South Africa, from which I assume the renamed Africa South Area will continue to operate, and to Ghana, from which the Africa West Area operates. Even then, it seems a bit of a reach. I personally find it much easier to just believe that the reason the Africa Central Area will be administered out of Kenya is because that is where the Brethren have felt impressed the headquarters for it should be. It doesn't have to be any simpler or any more complex than that. Just my additional musings, for what they might be worth to anyone here.
A bit of conjecture for the sake of possible reasons for the area seat: Politically Nairobi may be more politically stable than Kinshasa. This would ensure overall generally safer, secure, as opposed to the giant and diverse Congo where maybe more people have died violently than any other country on earth. Since 1998 or so, maybe 20 million? While Nairobi has the threat of some terrorists, Congo has much worse internal struggles and threats, it has more internal divisions than Kenya to my understanding. Kenya has more English resources. French growth is doing well in places like Cote D'Ivoire, but English is "the language of the Redtoration", I have heard from General Authorities. Nairobi is situated in an area of the continent to approach major parts of the continent that have had little Church exposure. Congo and its neighbors certainly have huge areas and cities to still cover, but the eastern areas, to include Ethiopia and South Sudan, have huge population potentials. Congo needs to become a more stable place as a whole, and even the diseases seem to be worse than Kenya. I would guess transportation is more difficult there, which may have less to do with a church ecclesiastical administrative choice.
DR Congo is a tinderbox of conflict especially in its northern and eastern realms. That is also why there is very little Church presence in those sectors of the country.
Kenya is comparatively stable.
Also the Ndjili airport in Kinshasa has very few flights and passengers (abt 1M annually) compared to Kenyatta in Nairobi (abt 7M annually). Only international flights outside of Africa are Paris CDG and Istanbul from Ndjili. Kenyatta has several, including London HRW, Dubai, Mumbai, Guangzhou, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and JFK.
In addition to the comments from Eduardo and Bryan D, I would add infrastructure as another factor. Skimming through various sources online, it seems that Nairobi's infrastructure (water, electricity, roads, etc.) is better than Kinshasa's.
Comparing histories and cultures, Joseph Smith potentially would have lasted a year or less in Mexico, maybe 39 years in Canada? We cannot know. Centers of strength are necessary for good outreach. From what I know, diseases and their consequent health providers should be better in Kenya... Congo and its neighbors should do great, no slowing down...Francophile Africa should continue to bloom as the rose.
Tanzania more than likely. Ethiopia I still somewhat doubt.
Most of the EAF countries use two languages: English as a lingua franca and Swahili for general communication, with a few exceptions. Swahili is fairly easy to learn with only five vowel sounds like in Spanish.
Ethiopia is a whole other ballgame. You have dozens of languages there with different writing systems, and they are Semitic and Hamitic in origin, yet with different writing systems than what are found in Hebrew and Arabic. They also tend to be Orthodox Christian whereas the EAF is a mixture of different Christianities and some Muslims.
I had similar thoughts. In nearly all the international areas of the church are located in the city with the most stakes. There are a few exceptions like Frankfurt, which is more central in the Europe area.
I agree that Nairobi is a better travel hub. It’s probably easier to fly from Nairobi to the various counties in the area. I am excited at the prospect at more expansion in Tanzania and Ethiopia. Those counties could have population growth potenciales similar to Nigeria. Hopefully having an area presidency close by will better facilitate more church planting.
When I presumed that Kinshasa would be the headquarters of the area, I had entertained the idea that an MTC would be constructed there to serve all the French speaking countries in Africa. It’s still a possibility, but probably less likely, especially considering the pattern of MTC closings in the last year.
Once a few savvy Ethiopians learn how self-sustaining and efficient the Lord's Church operates, thousands will join. When they understand family history and temple work, and see how the Book of Mormon has become a powerful, meant for modernity testament of Jesus the Messiah in the Latter days, and how all of us share the priesthoods of God, how perfect it all is, the Ethiopians will have the vision these ancient Christian peoples will join strong and fast. Eritrea, too. Let's not forget giant Madagascar: a temple or two should go there. Comoros, harder to see yet.
Amharic and rare languages do present larger obstacles in Church growth, for sure. It is interesting to observe ancient Christian cultures and their growth with the Restored Gospel. "New wine in old bottles", as it were. Greece has been famously difficult. Armenia has done better, comparitively. Georgia maybe has been harder than Armenia, but perhaps adopted Christinity a bit later than Armenia, "the first Christian nation". Ancient Christians in the Levant: Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, face obvious obstacles. Fulltime missionaries existed in Lebanon briefly until the breakout of the civil war in 1975. Millions of Iraqi Christians are now in flux with a more recent forced diaspora with the issues there; millions of Copts in Egypt are nearly impossible to access. Back to sub-Saharan Africa: Francophone countries Cameroon, Rwanda and Burundi should grow effectively, hopefully more like Ivory Coast or at least Benin or Togo. Non-traditional or non-Western language cultures like Gabon and Malawi, Zambia pose those second layer issues. I wrote a fictional dialog between brothers (members) of Eswatini and South Africa. This new co-citizenship across boundaries is a fascinating aspect of the Gospel. http://clinchitsoonerorlater.blogspot.com/2019/08/story-3-eswatini-guy-and-boer-2019.html?m=1 Endless possibilties. Destitute places like Haiti and Lesotho will grow as they adopt and graft into Israel. Exciting times.
Considering how many people live in Ethiopia it has potential to be a very significant area for the Church. Also Kinshasa is far to the west of the potential area while Nairobi is not much further from Lumbumbashi than Kinshasa is, maybe even closer. I think if you look at the entire population of the area the choice is between Nairobi and Kampala, Kinshasa is too far off center to consider. Kinshasa was considered a candidate more because it could have been just what was the Kinshasa Mission a decade ago and left East Africa in the Africa Southeast Area.
Interesting this new split gives the longest established areas to one area, and makes Central Area a more recent established area than Africa West, although the picture is more complex.
Bori is the traditional center for an ethnic group of 2 million. It is also the 2nd biggest city in Rivers state after Port Harcourt. This makes me hope we could see a Port Harcourt Temple soon. The distance from there to Aba is at most 50 miles, but remember we are dealing here with villagers who in many cases have families who stayed true to the gospel without baptism for often over 2 decades making it through the Biafra War and much else. I can certainly see another temple in the south-east of Nigeria. I also still expect temples in Abuja and Benin City. All three I can see announced before the decade is out (and yes I know that adds up to predicting 3 temples announced for Nigeria in October)
I don't think the Church is to the point yet where more than two temples will be announced per area per announcement, let alone 3 temples being simultaneously announced for any single nation outside the US at one time. At least not immediately. But I could see 3 new Nigerian temples announced within the next 3-4 years. I wouldn't anticipate more than that, at least for the time being.
I want to be clear here: I'd be absolutely elated if a mass number of temples were announced in October, including multiples in many areas and nations in which the Church is prospering. At the same time, however, when most of us were anticipating a mass number in April, some were disappointed when "only" 8 new ones were announced. So I again suggest it would be wise to prepare for a smaller number to again be announced. That way, no matter what happens, we rejoice about any number which may actually be announced.
One other thought: for some people, each decade spans 0-9 in a set of years. However, the Book of Mormon goes from 1 BC to 1 AD, with 10 AD marking "the tenth year of the reign of the judges." And since the Church was reorganized in New York in 1830, each new decade for the Church rolls around on April 6 of years ending in 0. By these definitions, this current decade for the Church would end at the end of next year, which would mean 3 General Conferences within which the Church could announce 3 new Nigerian temples before the end of this decade.
I mean no offense by this. Just some food for thought, FWIW.
You're right that we aren't yet at that point, James. However, I suspect we aren't too far off from seeing three announced at one time in Brazil, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw something similar in Africa West Area announced all at once, such as: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and either Kumasi Ghana or Benin City Nigeria.
Point well taken, Jonathan. I agree with you there. Multiple temples in an individual area are more than likely. I overlooked the fact that I had surmised a similar scenario in my breakdown of the likely by-area distribution for the 14-16 temples which I anticipate being announced in October. Anyone interested in reading my thoughts in that respect can find them at the following web address:
Thank you again, Jonathan, for these great observations. My thanks also to all of the rest of you for adding to my understanding of all topics discussed here.
Ethiopia has 102 million people. Although other estimates are as low as 94 million. Either way it is more than the DR Congo's 91 million.
On the issue of Swahili, it is not just present in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, but also has a presence in much of the eastern, especially south-eastern DR Congo. This is a result of slave trading and other networks of power in pre-colonial times having extended from Zanzibar on the coast into the interior and streching into areas in the modern Congo. The Europeans disregarded these previous power nodes when they divided Africa in the 1880s. There are Swahili-speaking Church units in and around Lumbumbashi, while others there are designated French-speaking.
Ethiopia is more religiously and ethnically complex than outsiders realize, and this situation will make Church growth there difficult. Amheric is not the most common first language in Ethiopia, and only 43% of the population are Orthodox Christians. The Oromo in Ethiopia seem to outnumber the Amhara, and they are majority Muslim, although only about 67% Muslim. Overall Ethiopia has a population that is 34% Muslim. It is also 18% Protestant. I have begun to try to understand Ethiopia better, but it is a hard task to achieve.
28 comments:
Am I the only one surprised the HQ aren't in Kinshasa?
Speaking of things, I just started reading about the proposed East African Federation, which would potentially include several of the countries of the new Africa Central Area. I'm curious to see if this union will actually end up happening, and what effect it might have on the spreading of the gospel in that area.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_Federation
David Todd, I know that, from what I've heard on my end, many people seem to be surprised that the area will be based out of Nairobi, but it doesn't necessarily come as a surprise to me. We have seen President Nelson take an unconventional or nontraditional approach on things that defy usual logic and reason. This to me is another example of out-of-the-box methodology of decisions made during President Nelson's prophetic administration. And maybe the reasoning doesn't make sense now, but I am sure it will may a lot more sense in hindsight in the coming months and years.
Either way, I do anticipate we are likely to see quite an expansion of the work through these two areas once they split next year. And I look forward to seeing what might happen in that respect.
The reasoning perhaps is three-fold:
Kenya is more central than Congo.
Nairobi has the better international airport.
Nairobi is also getting its own temple.
OC Surfer, I am not sure that the temple in Nairobi held as much sway as some may believe. There was a temple dedicated in Kinshasa DR Congo in April, so by the time the Africa Central Area begins officially operating, that temple will have been in operation for almost a year and a half. I am not sure the airport would factor into things either, unless you are saying it is easier to travel to and from Nairobi than it would be to do so to and from Kinshasa. And if that is what you are stating, I'd like to see some data to back that up. And with only Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia being closer to the Eastern side of Africa than Kenya, I don't quite understand why you said "Kenya is more central than Congo". Unless you mean that Kenya is closer to the center of the African continent than DR Congo (which might be difficult to prove geographically), I assume you mean that it is central in comparision to South Africa, from which I assume the renamed Africa South Area will continue to operate, and to Ghana, from which the Africa West Area operates. Even then, it seems a bit of a reach. I personally find it much easier to just believe that the reason the Africa Central Area will be administered out of Kenya is because that is where the Brethren have felt impressed the headquarters for it should be. It doesn't have to be any simpler or any more complex than that. Just my additional musings, for what they might be worth to anyone here.
A bit of conjecture for the sake of possible reasons for the area seat:
Politically Nairobi may be more politically stable than Kinshasa. This would ensure overall generally safer, secure, as opposed to the giant and diverse Congo where maybe more people have died violently than any other country on earth. Since 1998 or so, maybe 20 million?
While Nairobi has the threat of some terrorists, Congo has much worse internal struggles and threats, it has more internal divisions than Kenya to my understanding.
Kenya has more English resources. French growth is doing well in places like Cote D'Ivoire, but English is "the language of the Redtoration", I have heard from General Authorities.
Nairobi is situated in an area of the continent to approach major parts of the continent that have had little Church exposure.
Congo and its neighbors certainly have huge areas and cities to still cover, but the eastern areas, to include Ethiopia and South Sudan, have huge population potentials.
Congo needs to become a more stable place as a whole, and even the diseases seem to be worse than Kenya. I would guess transportation is more difficult there, which may have less to do with a church ecclesiastical administrative choice.
DR Congo is a tinderbox of conflict especially in its northern and eastern realms. That is also why there is very little Church presence in those sectors of the country.
Kenya is comparatively stable.
Also the Ndjili airport in Kinshasa has very few flights and passengers (abt 1M annually) compared to Kenyatta in Nairobi (abt 7M annually). Only international flights outside of Africa are Paris CDG and Istanbul from Ndjili. Kenyatta has several, including London HRW, Dubai, Mumbai, Guangzhou, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and JFK.
In addition to the comments from Eduardo and Bryan D, I would add infrastructure as another factor. Skimming through various sources online, it seems that Nairobi's infrastructure (water, electricity, roads, etc.) is better than Kinshasa's.
Comparing histories and cultures, Joseph Smith potentially would have lasted a year or less in Mexico, maybe 39 years in Canada? We cannot know. Centers of strength are necessary for good outreach. From what I know, diseases and their consequent health providers should be better in Kenya...
Congo and its neighbors should do great, no slowing down...Francophile Africa should continue to bloom as the rose.
One hopes that this means Ethiopia and Tanzania will FINALLY get the attention they deserve.
Tanzania more than likely. Ethiopia I still somewhat doubt.
Most of the EAF countries use two languages: English as a lingua franca and Swahili for general communication, with a few exceptions. Swahili is fairly easy to learn with only five vowel sounds like in Spanish.
Ethiopia is a whole other ballgame. You have dozens of languages there with different writing systems, and they are Semitic and Hamitic in origin, yet with different writing systems than what are found in Hebrew and Arabic. They also tend to be Orthodox Christian whereas the EAF is a mixture of different Christianities and some Muslims.
I had similar thoughts. In nearly all the international areas of the church are located in the city with the most stakes. There are a few exceptions like Frankfurt, which is more central in the Europe area.
I agree that Nairobi is a better travel hub. It’s probably easier to fly from Nairobi to the various counties in the area. I am excited at the prospect at more expansion in Tanzania and Ethiopia. Those counties could have population growth potenciales similar to Nigeria. Hopefully having an area presidency close by will better facilitate more church planting.
When I presumed that Kinshasa would be the headquarters of the area, I had entertained the idea that an MTC would be constructed there to serve all the French speaking countries in Africa. It’s still a possibility, but probably less likely, especially considering the pattern of MTC closings in the last year.
Once a few savvy Ethiopians learn how self-sustaining and efficient the Lord's Church operates, thousands will join. When they understand family history and temple work, and see how the Book of Mormon has become a powerful, meant for modernity testament of Jesus the Messiah in the Latter days, and how all of us share the priesthoods of God, how perfect it all is, the Ethiopians will have the vision these ancient Christian peoples will join strong and fast. Eritrea, too.
Let's not forget giant Madagascar: a temple or two should go there. Comoros, harder to see yet.
Amharic and rare languages do present larger obstacles in Church growth, for sure. It is interesting to observe ancient Christian cultures and their growth with the Restored Gospel. "New wine in old bottles", as it were.
Greece has been famously difficult. Armenia has done better, comparitively. Georgia maybe has been harder than Armenia, but perhaps adopted Christinity a bit later than Armenia, "the first Christian nation".
Ancient Christians in the Levant: Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, face obvious obstacles. Fulltime missionaries existed in Lebanon briefly until the breakout of the civil war in 1975. Millions of Iraqi Christians are now in flux with a more recent forced diaspora with the issues there; millions of Copts in Egypt are nearly impossible to access.
Back to sub-Saharan Africa: Francophone countries Cameroon, Rwanda and Burundi should grow effectively, hopefully more like Ivory Coast or at least Benin or Togo.
Non-traditional or non-Western language cultures like Gabon and Malawi, Zambia pose those second layer issues.
I wrote a fictional dialog between brothers (members) of Eswatini and South Africa. This new co-citizenship across boundaries is a fascinating aspect of the Gospel.
http://clinchitsoonerorlater.blogspot.com/2019/08/story-3-eswatini-guy-and-boer-2019.html?m=1
Endless possibilties.
Destitute places like Haiti and Lesotho will grow as they adopt and graft into Israel. Exciting times.
I have a friend who was transferred to Ethiopia halfway through his mission in Uganda and picked up Amharic.
Reported today, the new "Bori Nigeria District" (2144859), possibly from division of Okrika Nigeria District :
Assigned to Nigeria Port Harcourt Mission
1 Asarama Branch (1625578)
2 Bori Branch (1145193)
3 Bori Nigeria District Branch (2151774)
4 Nortem Branch (2070774)
5 Sogho Branch (2101300)
6 Taabaa Branch (2139308)
7 Unyeada Branch (2139294)
8 Zaakpo Branch (2138980)
https://classic.churchofjesuschrist.org/maps/#ll=4.714985,7.375761&z=12&m=google.road&layers=stakecenter&q=Bori%20Nigeria%20District&find=stake:2144859
Comparing the stability of the DR Congo to Kenya I am not surprised. Also with a Kenyan General Authority there are just added advantages there.
I still think the biggest plus is Kenya has not had multiple civil wars constantly for the last 25 or so years.
Considering how many people live in Ethiopia it has potential to be a very significant area for the Church. Also Kinshasa is far to the west of the potential area while Nairobi is not much further from Lumbumbashi than Kinshasa is, maybe even closer. I think if you look at the entire population of the area the choice is between Nairobi and Kampala, Kinshasa is too far off center to consider. Kinshasa was considered a candidate more because it could have been just what was the Kinshasa Mission a decade ago and left East Africa in the Africa Southeast Area.
Interesting this new split gives the longest established areas to one area, and makes Central Area a more recent established area than Africa West, although the picture is more complex.
Bori is the traditional center for an ethnic group of 2 million. It is also the 2nd biggest city in Rivers state after Port Harcourt. This makes me hope we could see a Port Harcourt Temple soon. The distance from there to Aba is at most 50 miles, but remember we are dealing here with villagers who in many cases have families who stayed true to the gospel without baptism for often over 2 decades making it through the Biafra War and much else. I can certainly see another temple in the south-east of Nigeria. I also still expect temples in Abuja and Benin City. All three I can see announced before the decade is out (and yes I know that adds up to predicting 3 temples announced for Nigeria in October)
I don't think the Church is to the point yet where more than two temples will be announced per area per announcement, let alone 3 temples being simultaneously announced for any single nation outside the US at one time. At least not immediately. But I could see 3 new Nigerian temples announced within the next 3-4 years. I wouldn't anticipate more than that, at least for the time being.
I want to be clear here: I'd be absolutely elated if a mass number of temples were announced in October, including multiples in many areas and nations in which the Church is prospering. At the same time, however, when most of us were anticipating a mass number in April, some were disappointed when "only" 8 new ones were announced. So I again suggest it would be wise to prepare for a smaller number to again be announced. That way, no matter what happens, we rejoice about any number which may actually be announced.
One other thought: for some people, each decade spans 0-9 in a set of years. However, the Book of Mormon goes from 1 BC to 1 AD, with 10 AD marking "the tenth year of the reign of the judges." And since the Church was reorganized in New York in 1830, each new decade for the Church rolls around on April 6 of years ending in 0. By these definitions, this current decade for the Church would end at the end of next year, which would mean 3 General Conferences within which the Church could announce 3 new Nigerian temples before the end of this decade.
I mean no offense by this. Just some food for thought, FWIW.
You're right that we aren't yet at that point, James. However, I suspect we aren't too far off from seeing three announced at one time in Brazil, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw something similar in Africa West Area announced all at once, such as: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and either Kumasi Ghana or Benin City Nigeria.
Peru having two announced at once wouldn't be much of a stretch, either.
Or the Philippines.
Point well taken, Jonathan. I agree with you there. Multiple temples in an individual area are more than likely. I overlooked the fact that I had surmised a similar scenario in my breakdown of the likely by-area distribution for the 14-16 temples which I anticipate being announced in October. Anyone interested in reading my thoughts in that respect can find them at the following web address:
https://stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com/2019/08/additional-thoughts-and-observations-on_17.html?m=1
Thank you again, Jonathan, for these great observations. My thanks also to all of the rest of you for adding to my understanding of all topics discussed here.
Ethiopia has 102 million people. Although other estimates are as low as 94 million. Either way it is more than the DR Congo's 91 million.
On the issue of Swahili, it is not just present in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, but also has a presence in much of the eastern, especially south-eastern DR Congo. This is a result of slave trading and other networks of power in pre-colonial times having extended from Zanzibar on the coast into the interior and streching into areas in the modern Congo. The Europeans disregarded these previous power nodes when they divided Africa in the 1880s. There are Swahili-speaking Church units in and around Lumbumbashi, while others there are designated French-speaking.
Ethiopia is more religiously and ethnically complex than outsiders realize, and this situation will make Church growth there difficult. Amheric is not the most common first language in Ethiopia, and only 43% of the population are Orthodox Christians. The Oromo in Ethiopia seem to outnumber the Amhara, and they are majority Muslim, although only about 67% Muslim. Overall Ethiopia has a population that is 34% Muslim. It is also 18% Protestant. I have begun to try to understand Ethiopia better, but it is a hard task to achieve.
It is easier to see it as it came out
A révélation from a prophet of God.
The Lord knows why
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