Ministry provides support to African churches, orphans

A mission in the heart of Johannesburg - that's how Gospel

Outreach describes its ministry, working with many local churches for mission trips to Africa.

Director of Gospel Outreach Trevor Vosloo embarked on a mini-tour to various churches in the Texas Panhandle to give updates on programs to supporters and to establish relationships with potential supporters.

"I'm here to report back to the churches that support us and give them an accountability on what we have done so they'll know where their money has gone," Vosloo said. "I'm also meeting with new churches and encouraging them to come join us on missions."

Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Gospel Outreach is an interdenominational organization that works with children in orphanages and provides training to pastors.

"I the run the mission in South Africa, which affects many different countries but mainly Malawi, Mozambique and more doors across South Africa are opening up," Vosloo said. "We have the potential of going into the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a very big way but the bulk of our work is in Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa."

Recently, Gospel Outreach helped 45 orphans in Malawi secure sponsorships to attend school.

"The schools in Africa are not free and the fees are higher to attend school in South Africa," Vosloo said. "We were able to get 10 kids in school in South Africa and got enough sponsorship for three more."

School fees can range from $15 to $100 monthly.

Glenn McCathern, a member of Coulter Road Baptist Church and director of I Will Go, Too Ministries, has led numerous mission trips to South Africa to work with Gospel Outreach.

This summer, McCathern was in Johannesburg where he met the Rev. Stanley Futch, whom Vosloo trained.

"This guy started about 60 churches in Malawi and Mozambique," McCathern said. "Only Stanley had a Bible, so he would write a sermon for his group of guys and write as many copies by hand as he had pastors because he didn't have a copy machine."

Those pastors would memorize the message and come back on Thursdays and recite it for Pastor Futch, McCathern said.

"If it was OK, then he would let them go back to their villages and preach it to their people," he said. "Some of those churches under the trees have about 100 people a week.

Joe Meurer, 17, member of the River Road Campus of Paramount Baptist Church, spent the summer in Malawi, gaining hands on experience helping to train local pastors.

"The entire mission trip deepened my spiritual outlook," he said. "It opened my eyes to a different culture."

There are a lot of pastors in Africa with no formal training, Vosloo said.

"I'm training over 200 pastors at the moment in Malawi and we're training pastors in Soweto," he said. "These pastors are pastoring churches but they have no formal training due to poverty, so we give them free training to equip them to give the word."

Vosloo said he hopes to inspire many more people to help with the Gospel Outreach training program, especially pastors.

"That's why I talk to pastors, so they can help train," he said. "This is very evangelistic driven."

The Rev. Micah Meurer, river road campus pastor of Paramount Baptist Church, who has also done mission work through the ministry has been named the director of the U.S. Office of Gospel Outreach.

"Our main goals will be to facilitate and promote the work in Africa," he said. "We're going to support orphan care in the states and abroad and encourage pastors plus support pastors in networking and training."

There's plenty of work that needs to be done in Africa, Meurer said. "A lot of the issue is not intelligence, it's opportunity. There are a lot of brilliant men over there who love the word."

Dyana Greer and B.J. Greer, members of the River Road Campus of Paramount Baptist Church, have been doing mission work as a couple for the past five years.

"I went with Coulter Road Baptist on my first mission trip and really enjoyed it," Dyana Greer said.

B.J. Greer went on a medical mission trip to Brazil in 2005 and said he's been hooked ever since.

"It was definitely a different culture for me but that trip touched my heart," he said.

Meurer is planning on taking a group to South Africa and Malawi in July that has many church members in anticipation.

"One thing I can say about mission trips, when you return, you definitely come back with your life changed," Dyana Greer said.