Establishing a Witness Among the Koti
Name of Partnership: Establishing a Witness for Christ Among the Koti People of Mozambique
Name of the Ministry: The True Way
Type of partnership: Evangelism/Church Planting/Discipleship
Country/Region: Mozambique/Africa
Project Overview: There are some places on earth that are hard places, hard to get to, hard to enter and hard to work in. The land of the Koti people is one of those places on earth. The Koti are a group of people with a very basic lifestyle on the coast of Mozambique. Their children grow up in poverty, living in the sand and eating fish.
The Koti were previously an unreached people group until the work commenced in August 1998. Koti men lead the work and their vision is to take the gospel to every island and village in the Angoche District to establish congregations of disciples in each community.
Project Description:
A church from Japan sent a team to become involved in this area towards the end of the 1990’s. Around 2003 a significant explosion of growth occurred for the next few years. This created many new opportunities for impact and expansion.
The population of Mozambique is 23. 5 million. Unemployment is at 60% and 90% of the people earn less than $2 per day. Most of the key people involved in the work among the Koti are fishermen around the mangroves near Angoche. Their fishing helps sustain them but they need a small amount of subsidy so they can be involved in Christian outreach work among their people. There are a number of levels of support, depending on the amount of time the people devote to the work.
The key objectives for this partnership are:
To facilitate the spread of the gospel among the Koti and make disciples
To provide a supplemental level of support for the Koti leaders
To assist with transport by providing bicycles for workers who are itinerate amongst the villages and to be available for training.
The 10-year vision and strategy is to:
To support 50 evangelists per month @ $US20/month.
Provide 5 bicycles per month @ $US70/month, 4 motorcycles @ $US850 over two years, and 4 sailing boats to travel to the islands @ $US350.
To establish a farm to assist people to grow more of their own food and to provide a model for other people to imitate.
Testimony:
AA was a wild and violent husband until he met the Lord. He totally repented and returned to his wife and children. His family has been transformed and is a great testimony and model to others.
Right now the leaders are helping the people in most of the congregations through teachings on the family of faith from the book of Genesis, and AA leads many studies because he ministers life not just theory. He and his wife go out together for evangelism with a baby strapped to their back and other kids in tow. No other Koti people do things like that as couples!
Leader Bio:
Joe Graham is the key contact person in regard to this project. He was sent from a church in Japan. Joe is a New Zealander and his wife Jenny is Malaysian. They both completed degrees in Sociology from Canterbury University and attended City New Life Church in Christchurch. They have been involved with church planting for many years.
This project was started a church in Japan that had been solely supporting the project up until April 2006. when Bright Hope World also became involved with support. The work had grown so quickly that the church could had reached their limit of how much they could support this project, thus additional help was needed.
Annual Budget: $15,750 per year
Sponsoring Organization: Bright Hope World