Wednesday, August 14, 2019

First Young, Proselytizing Missionaries Assigned to Mali

Local members report that young, proselytizing missionaries were assigned to Mali for the first time in Church history. Two young Black African missionary companionships from the Cote d'Ivoire Abidjan Mission were assigned to the Bamako Branch and will begin teaching dozens of prospective members in multiple locations within the Bamako area. There are also additional villages near Frako (Mountougoula) that have as many as 1-2 dozen interested individuals. The Church currently has approximately 80 people who attend church meetings spread across one branch and one member group (Frako). Essentially all members on church records are active.

There have been small numbers of Malians who have joined the Church over the past several decades, but there were no overt efforts by the Africa West Area Presidency to establish an official Church presence until the past few years. Elder David A. Bednar visited Mali in May 2017. The Church organized its first branch in Mali, the Bamako Branch, in July 2017. The Bamako area was assigned to the Cote d'Ivoire Abidjan Mission around this time. The first convert baptisms occurred in February 2018. There were 42 members in Mali in April 2018, and likely as many as 70 members in Mali by year-end 2018. The Church obtained official recognition from the government in January 2019. Other proselytism-focused Christians have maintained a presence in Mali for decades. However, these groups report few members and slow growth rates. Religious freedom is supported by the government in government-controlled areas of the country.

Prospects appear highly favorable for rapid initial growth with the introduction of full-time missionaries given sustained interest in many who wish to join the Church. However, language barriers and illiteracy pose challenges for growth. Leadership development also appears a challenge. Most individuals interested in joining the Church speak Bambara and demonstrate little fluency in French. Only two Church materials are translated into Bambara, and no Latter-day Saint scriptures. Local members fluent in French, English, and Bambara have been instrumental in the establishment of the Church in Mali. Only Black African missionaries appear likely to be assigned to Mali within the foreseeable future due to safety concerns with terrorism as non-Africans are often more susceptible to these attacks.

Mali is the second West African country to have had full-time missionaries assigned for the first time in the past 18 months. Senegal is the other country where full-time missionaries were first assigned in 2018. Both Mali and Senegal have homogeneously Muslim populations. However, converts have come from a mix of religious backgrounds.

25 comments:

James G. Stokes said...

Wonderful news, Matt! Thanks for sharing it here. I feel certain the Lord's hand will help the work in Mali to soon be both fruitful and prosperous.

Julie Markham said...

This is fabulous!

Eduardo said...

Yay! Keep it up, young missionaries!

L. Chris Jones said...

I wonder how much Yeah Samake is involved in the growth of the church in Mali.

James G. Stokes said...

L. Chris Jones, you may find the following article interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeah_Samake

Particularly noteworthy are the sections about Samake's faith. And given that he has served in several political roles in Mali, I would not be shocked in any way if he still plays an important part in the growth of the Church in Mali.

Chris D. said...

Matt, a quick reminder. Here are the correct locations of these current Temples that are either under construction or have a site officially announced. So you can update the markers on your Potential New Temples map in Google Maps. I hope this is useful. All of the others are either correctly located or do not have official site announced yet. You can copy/paste the Latitude,Longitude address below into google maps.

Lisbon Portugal Temple, 38°46'42.92"N,9°5'54.94"W
Urdaneta Philippines Temple, 15°56'20.75"N,120°34'54.04"E
Winnipeg Manitoba Temple, 49°47'56.30"N,97°11'52.11"W
Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire Temple, 5°21'44.43"N,3°58'36.61"W
Bangkok Thailand Temple, 13°44'58.94"N,100°33'45.10"E
Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple, 18°31'44.35"N,72°16'5.55"W
Durban South Africa Temple, 29°42'30.13"S,31°4'27.12"E
Belém Brazil Temple, 1°23'14.40"S,48°27'35.46"W
Quito Ecuador Temple, 0°12'48.06"S,78°26'27.72"W
Lima Peru Temple (Second), officially renamed “Lima Peru Los Olivos Temple”, 12°1'12.89"S, 77° 3'15.86"W
Brasília Brazil Temple, 15°44'52.42"S,47°52'52.03"W
Saratoga Springs Utah Temple, 40°20'26.32"N,111°55'49.92"W
Pocatello Idaho Temple, 42°54'52.34"N,112°24'26.15"W
Layton Utah Temple, 41°3'42.18"N,111°56'20.18"W
Richmond Virginia Temple, 37°40'24.08"N,77°32'6.41"W
Praia Cape Verde Temple, 14°55'7.06"N,23°30'40.26"W
Yigo Guam Temple, 13°32'30.14"N,144°53'24.79"E
Auckland New Zealand Temple, 36°59'35.86"S,174°53'24.14"E
San Juan Puerto Rico Temple, 18°23'7.37"N, 66°1'47.17"W
Yuba City California Temple, officially renamed “Feather River California Temple”

Chris D. said...

Those Latitude,Longitude addresses can be used in Microsoft Maps app also.

Ray said...

Eric S., also the new Lima Santa Clara Stake, making 6 new stakes for Peru in 2019.

John Pack Lambert said...

This is wonderful news. Is this the highest percentage Muslim country to ever have such missionaries assigned?

Two new Spanish-speaking branches One in Lousiville, Colorado the other in Rockford, Illinois. I was told that the mission president here in Detroit has been working to establuish more Spanish-speaking units, although I am not sure if they would be branches or start as groups.

Peter M. Johnson, the only African-American general authority, will be presiding at my stake's upcoming stake conference. He will also be giving a fireside for high school seniors and YSA the Friday before our stake conference.

Grand Lahou in Ivory Coast just got a branch. This is a place with 67,000 people not all that far west of Abijan. Kapeteh in Sierre Leone also got a branch. This appears to be a rural place but I don't know much about it beyond that. Oume alo in Ivory Coast also received a branch. This is a department headquarter city of the same named department, the city has 127,000 people.

Three new branches were formed in Abia State in Nigeria (which is the state where the temple is). One of the places with a new branch has 40,000 people and is the location of Abia State University.

John Pack Lambert said...

Mali has essentially 20 million inhabitants and is 90% Muslim. This means there are about 2 million non-Muslims in Mali. On the other hand most estimates place the percentage of Muslims in Turkey at well above 95%, some over 98%. Senegal is over 95% Muslim.

Senegal and Mali are both secular states that respect religion freedom. Sierra Leone is 78% Muslim. It however has almost 8% of its population Ahmadiyya Muslim, a very toleraant and open group of Muslims, and in fact all except one of the heads of state of Sierra Leone has been Christian.

Eduardo said...

What's the magic number left for African countries remaining? 15-20? Gabon is open or no? Sao Tome e Principe?

James G. Stokes said...

Eduardo, according to the information I have found (for which I hope anyone will correct me if I am wrong on any of them), the following African nations do not have a Church presence: Ascension, Burkina Faso, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Mayotte, Niger, Saint Helena, São Tomé and Príncipe, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tristan de Cunha, and Western Sahara. A total of 19 nations within the current Africa Southeast and Africa WEst Areas. In Northern Africa, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia are added, which brings the grand total to 23, if I have my math and facts correct.

Free Walburg said...

There is a branch in Libreville, Gabon and full time missionaries serve there.

Free Walburg said...

There is also a branch in Conakry, Guinea . I know a family from there.

Eduardo said...

Right, Guinea was introduced lately. What about Chad, and Central African Republic? Some of those listed are not sovereign nations. Mayotte, Ascension, Tristan...

John Pack Lambert said...

Gabon is open. There are two branches and a group there. I do not believe the Central African Republic yet has full time missionaries. On the othere hand Ethiopia and Tanzania are so little covered by the Church that it is hard to say they really are open.

Along the same lines about a third of the states in Nigeria lack any church units.

I just completed the abuse prevention training for leaders of youth and children. It was very good training. The one issue that I do not think was well addressed was car etiquette. That is a,big issue for ministering assignments. As a youth I always had a non-parental hometeaching companion.

The training addresses how to respond to abuse but also bullying, harassment, hazing and teasing.

It also addresses the issues of youth dating violence, well mentioning it can occur.

Another issue that is addressed is youth sexually abusing children. This has come up in the Church more than we might want to realize, and in some cases seems to have not be treated quite how it should have.

John Pack Lambert said...

My brother-in-law's sister lives in Gabon which is how I know there is the group as well as two branches. Michael F. Moody former chair of 5th he Church music department and I believe last non-Christian mission president in Haiti and I want to say temple president in Tahiti was one of the first missionaries in Gabon along with his wife. Their son had moved to Gabon.

Central African Republic has a branch but I do not believe has ever had full-time missionaries. On the other hand I do not believe Equitoriak Guinea has ever had the Church present. If we are going to include territories perhaps we should list Cabinda as unreached. Since it is a geographically distinct part of Angola.

James G. Stokes said...

I was basing the information I gave in my previous comment on what was noted on the Wikipedia Area page. Those nations I named specifically were italicized, signifying that there was no official presence, which I assume also means the Church has not been officially recognized in any of those nations. Are there any mentioned in my last comment (posted here @ 6:32 PM) which, given the information provided in subsequent comments, would suggest that any of the nations I mentioned above should have the italics removed on Wikipedia's Area page? Thanks for the clarification.

I am not sure what constitutes the Wikipedia definition of the Church having "an official presence", so I thought I would ask. If need be, I guess I can do some further digging on each of those nations once cumorah.com is back up and running again, since the country profiles for each nation would specifically note the status thereof. But if I can shortcut an answer to that question without doing the work on it myself, it would be significantly more convenient.

James G. Stokes said...

In the meantime, I wanted to note that I spent the bulk of Friday afternoon and evening putting together a 3-part mini-series of posts on my blog, which focused on the current and future direction of the temple construction program of the Church, including links to relevant articles from the Church, posts from this Church growth blog highlighting a relevant part of the coverage I provided, and prior posts on my own blog which were relevant to what I was explaining.

And in that mini-series, I not only provided a look at what's ahead for the temple construction program of the Church within the next 5 years (in terms of known or anticipated events), but also, and far more importantly, an analysis of Nelsonian temple announcements up to this point, and an exploration of how the patterns in the announcements up to this point can indicate what may be ahead for temple announcements in October 2019.

Any here who may be interested in reading that series, or any other recent content I have shared on my blog, can visit the following website:

http://www.stokessoundsoff.blogspot.com

In the meantime, one other thing I mentioned in that mini-series was that tours for the Lisbon Temple would get underway at 9:00 AM Portugal time, which was 2:00 AM Utah time this morning, meaning that tours will have been underway for almost an hour at the time this comment is being published. Also, if I am correct in assuming that the groundbreaking for the Belem Temple will take place between 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM Brazil time today, that will be anytime between 7:00 AM and 1:00 PM today here in Utah.

And the final thing I want to mention is that the open house for the Port-au-Prince Temple is set to wrap up at 7:00 PM Haiti time, which will be 5:00 PM this evening Utah time. Not sure how those times convert in any other zones in which the rest of you might live, but I hope the information is helpful anyways. Thank you for indulging me as I have shared all of this.

Christopher Nicholson said...

Is the group in Gabon in Mouila, by chance? In "Safe Journey: An African Adventure" by Elder Glenn L. Pace, he describes how as West Africa Area President he visited Mouila and established a group. That was in the early 2000s so I've wondered if the group still exists.

Eric S. said...

Groundbreaking held today for the Belém Brazil Temple.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/groundbreaking-for-the-bel%C3%A9m-brazil-temple

Chris D. said...

Earlier today Matt listed on 2019 New Stakes list here, the Winneba Ghana District, which was a Stake until 08/2018, then downgraded to District when the Swedru Ghana Stake was organized, and now on 08/11/2019, was upgraded to Stake again. And confirmed in Classic LDS Maps as Winneba Ghana Stake today.

Also, Matt, in your July 2019 Cumorah Foundation newsletter posted, you stated, as was posted last month the 5th District in 2019 Discontinued. The Puntarenas Costa Rica District, informed 07/12/2019. But not listed on the list here as #5 in 2019.

Chris D. said...

I came across this Reference Resource the other day while doing other research. It may be useful to some here. It is a 1950-2050 U.S. Census Bureau - International Programs - Country/Territory yearly Population estimates, last updated September 2018. It lists 228 Countries / Territories with a population of 5,000 or more of the total 262 known populated or non-populated areas.

In previous years I relied on the CIA World Factbook stats posted annually. But i just realized they use the US Census chart for their sources on Population for the first 228 Countries / Territories.

https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/idb/informationGateway.php

And here is another U.N. Midyear 2017-2018 Population est. chart with the most recent official Census data given for each Country / Territory, updated every 2 weeks. Last updated 02 Aug 2019

https://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic-social/products/vitstats/seratab2.pdf

Johnathan Reese Whiting said...

I play soccer with a kid from Tanzania here in Utah. Don't know if he's a member or not. I know we do have a few nonmembers who play, and our group is very internationally representative. There are guys (and gals) who play from Brazil, Cambodia, Mexico, Spain, Nigeria, and Tanzania. We also have a bunch of Hispanic Americans and some Afghani kids (I don't know if they or their parents were immigrants). Oh, and a bunch of regular old boring white American dudes like me. ;P

John Pack Lambert said...

I was in a ward in Provo many years ago with a family from Tanzania. They were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.