Church on Camelback
There are vast stretches in Africa where people make their living through camel herding. These nomadic people travel with their herds for grazing and water. They often cross borders with no regard for modern political states. It is easy to romanticize this lifestyle as free and easy. However, nomadic people groups are classified as some of the most unreached people groups. Traditionally, it has been challenging to evangelise and establish churches within a people group that is never in the same place for more than a few weeks. The hardships of this lifestyle have prevented many would-be evangelists or missionaries from reaching these groups.
But God gifted the leadership of the Church of the Nazarene with the wisdom to develop a strategy for reaching these nomads with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This strategy came from a conversation that a missionary had in the 1980s with a nomad. The missionary asked the nomad, “What would it take for you to become a follower of Jesus?” The nomad replied, “When you can put your church on the back of my camel, I will consider becoming a Christian.”
And that is precisely what evangelists have done—put the church on camelback! Through this strategy, a team of two evangelists share the responsibility for a small herd of camels owned by the Church of the Nazarene. These evangelists themselves come from a nomadic background. They take turns traveling with the nomads in larger groups and sharing the words of Jesus with individuals in the group. The one-on-one evangelism in the nomad’s context has been highly effective, and an increasing number of nomads are coming to the Lord. This strategy also works well for discipleship. The Church of the Nazarene now has several teams working amongst the nomads, with plans to develop more teams as resources become available. You can contribute to Church on Camelback here: https://give.nazarene.org/category/global-missions- projects/africa/church-on-camel-back
Praise be to God, who gives wisdom beyond human ability to reach even the most unreached people with the Good News that Jesus is our Hope!
