Lausanne World Pulse – Unreached People Groups in Africa and Beyond
By Reuben Ezemadu
January / February 2015
Africa’s Unreached Peoples in the Americas
Aaron Terrazas, citing the U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American Community Survey, made the following observations with the relevant statistics:
The number of African immigrants in the United States grew forty-fold between 1960 and 2007, from 35,355 to 1.4 million. African immigrants made up 3.7% of all immigrants in 2007. About one-third (35.6%, or 505,619) of African immigrants in the United States are from West Africa. There are also large numbers of East Africans (27.2%, or 386,225) in the United States. North Africans accounted for 19.4% (274,951) of African immigrants in the United States in 2007, followed by Southern Africans (5.7%, or 81,595) and Middle or Central Africans (3.9%, or 56,056). The top five countries of origin of the 1.4 million African immigrants in the United States were Nigeria (13.1%, or 185,787), Egypt (9.6%, or 136,648), Ethiopia (9.5%, or 134,547), Ghana (7.4%, or 104,842), and Kenya (5.7%, or 80,595). In the United States, Africans are concentrated in New York, California, Texas, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
These provide us with an understanding that from the origin of these recent African immigrants in the USA, they are mostly from some of the areas harboring significant numbers of Africa’s remaining unreached people. We are also afforded information about their locations in the USA so that we can easily target them if we decide to.
We are also confronted with the need of peoples of African descent in South and Central America, especially in Brazil, where a significant proportion of the Brazilian population is of African descent who are still very much deep in African traditions, culture, and folk religion.
Reaching Africa’s UPGs in the Diaspora
This will entail forming strategic partnerships between the Church in Africa and those in the host countries. Already there have been discussions between some African denominations and their counterparts in Europe, as well as between ministries in the Americas and Africa. The African Inland Mission of U.K. is seeking some form of collaboration with African churches or ministries in its interest in reaching the African immigrants in southern Europe.
A new initiative (Back to Europe Project) being spearheaded by OC International in collaboration with COMIBAM has similar objectives which will focus on reaching immigrants from the Global South living in Europe, the majority of whom are from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
There is also an ongoing partnership between Occupy World Outreach Ministries in Ibadan, Nigeria, and a Brazilian ministry in Belo Horizonte. This partnership will allow a Nigerian missionary family who is now in Brazil to reach the African descendants in Brazil, the majority of whom come from the Yoruba people group of Nigeria and have largely remained tied to the traditional religion and other cultural practices of the Yoruba people.
It will be very encouraging to see more of such collaborative efforts emerging between the Church and missions from Africa and their counterparts from other parts of the world in such kingdom-oriented goals of reaching Africa’s UPGs both within and outside Africa. MANI is committed to this goal and is willing to foster more collaborative efforts and partnerships in this regard.
Endnotes
1. 2001. “Dimensions of West-African Immigration to France: Malian Immigrant Women in Paris.” An article based on her research for a master thesis.
2. 1986. South-North International Migration: A Case Study: Malian, Mauritanian and Senegalese Migrants from Senegal River Valley to France. Paris: OECD.
3. Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflexions on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.