Who will go to Asia for the work of the gospel? That is one question that may just be left hanging. Yet, there is an urgent need in that part of the world and indeed in the entire continent called Asia . The ball in is now in the court of Nigerian churches. The Executive Director of Kingdom Missions Outreach, Apostle Success Kanayo Uchime is largely involved in mission and he is presently involved in the drive to get missionaries to Asian countries. In an interview with Church Times, Kanayo revealed that the work in Asia is enormous. “Mission is in the heart of God and every believer is expected to be a missionary. Those who are not saved are more in the rural areas. That is why we decided to go into village evangelism.
In my case the urge to go into mission started in Nigeria . After my conversion, I was involved in village evangelism. It is true that you can still be in the urban areas and be involved in mission but I found out that rural mission is the need of the moment though it is not lucrative. I felt that there is a need to bridge the gap between the rural and urban mission.
There are a lot of persecuted churches all over the world. The trend is common in Asia . Pastors are being killed and incarcerated. There is no freedom of worship in some of the countries. In a place like Indonesia , it is a sin to preach to somebody and get that person converted to Christianity. The penalty is death. So, believers who go there for mission work have to be discreet in their approach to evangelism.
The problem in Asia
Thailand is a Buddhist nation. There are about 52 million people in Thailand and the percentage of Buddhists is 80 percent. It is difficult to convert the people there to Christianity. We were earlier in Philippine before the door closed against us and God has opened the door in Thailand .
We want to do church planting in Thailand and do leadership training. We are going to bring the people together and train. We will be working among the third largest ethnic group in Thailand The Shan people will be working with us. The shan people are mostly Buddhists and they are averse to Christianity.
It is very difficult for them to abandon Buddhism. Christianity has been in Thailand about 500 years ago. The evangelicals came in 300 years ago. We are under an agency in based in Philipi South East Mission Team. The major plan is to ensure that every people group will have a church and and also to plant churches in every area.
There is no manpower that can be enough for mission work. If Jesus said they the labourers in His vineyard were few 2000 years ago they are still few. Presently we are mobilizing missionaries to go to Asia . Those going should have the heart of mission. They will have to pay their way to the place and from there the mission group that we are affiliated to which is based in the US will take over their upkeep.
How we checkmate fakes
We do a lot of screening to checkmate those who are just interested in leaving the country rather than going for mission work. When we discover that people are not serious we send them back. There are a lot of Christians in Philipi. They have a major presence of Catholics. Evangelicals are about 5 percent. Pentecostals are just about 2 percent. We had to learn their languages.
China
We were stopped from going to China by the Chinese government. They refused to give Nigerians visa from outside the country because of the cases of fraud that is prevalent among our people. But even if you want to go from Nigeria to China , you can't go claiming you are a missionary. They will not grant you visa. It is a core communist country. There are lots of persecutions of Christians in China .
There are about 35 million Christians in China . But they are being hounded everyday. Churches are being clamped down. In China there are government registered churches and the underground churches. The ones that are registered by the government are being controlled by the government. They tell them what to preach. They use such churches to teach communism. In government registered churches the government gets more praise than Jesus. Those who cannot do that go underground. They will not even register such church. They monitor you and guard.
My salvation
I was saved in the police cell. While serving the detention, they normally have fellowship and the fellowship was so wonderful. The moment I gave my life to Christ, God effected my release. The Lord then directed me to Household of God Church, Ikeja the church being run by Rev. Chris Okotie.I grew up there and served the Lord.The Lord called me to mission work from Household of God. I went to mission school and graduated in 1993 from there I left household and went to the mission field. We worked in Awori.
I learnt the Yoruba language and was able to do mission work in Awori. We had a health centre there and even a school. But because of manpower and the need for support the pace of work has reduced there but God is having his way. My wife is also into mission. She is into the educational aspects. We set up schools wherever we go to ensure that we get the people together.
