in 2006, I met Rev. Mathieu Kazadi from Congo. Matheiu served as an OMS church
planter in the villages and encouraged me to do the same. I wanted to get involved. I
was born in a village. I grew up in a village. And I have a passion for villages. So getting
involved in OMS’ Village Church Planting (VCP) ministry made sense. I volunteered for
the first year, and then I took on more responsibilities. From 2010–2020, I served as
one of seven VCP supervisors and was in charge of four countries.
Outreach: What responsibilities does your new position hold?
Claude: I lead the VCP work in 24 nations. This is not a small job. I am not excited
because it is such a big job, and I need your prayers. I am afraid, but I know God will
lead me.
Outreach: What is VCP’s vision?
Claude: The vision of VCP is to have a church in every African village by 2050. There
are 54 countries in Africa, with a total population of 1.2 billion souls, about half of
whom live in rural areas or villages. So, we must add more countries each year to meet
this goal, and that means we need more workers!
Outreach: What are some of the challenges you face?
Claude: Africa is a poor continent with much poverty and illiteracy … and now the
Muslim influence is growing quickly. They are building mosques everywhere. And the
terrorists are burning churches and killing Christians. Just recently, 200+ displaced
pastors from the north of Burkina Faso relocated to the interior due to the persecution.
We have trained 58 of those pastors as VCP trainers and hope to train the remaining
150, soon to be deployed to unreached areas of their country to serve with VCP. Lives
are being changed!
Outreach: What kind of results are you seeing?
Claude: Last year, VCP reported 2,281 new village churches, 198,062 decisions for
Christ, and 82,089 baptisms. This is an average of 99 new churches with about 40
people each in every VCP country.
This year, VCP began implementing a new training curriculum in 4 languages, with
a view to start 400 new training centers, training 15 first-generation church planters
each.
Outreach: It sounds like there is a lot to pray for in Africa.
Claude: Yes! There is much work to do. But we couldn’t do it without the support of
OMS. I must say thank you to all of OMS, its leaders, and every donor. Because of
your help, the work in Africa is made possible. May God bless you.
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