What does ‘Creative Access’ mean?
We use the phrase ‘creative access’ to refer to nations, areas or ministries where there is great hostility towards Christianity. In these areas traditional ‘mission work’ or even declaring yourself as a ‘missionary’ is not possible. Workers, therefore, need to be ‘creative’ on numerous levels. They will often need a viable business reason to be in a country or area, then they will need to be creative in how they go about sharing the gospel. They will also need to be careful in how they share updates about their work.
What kind of places are they?
More than 200 million Africans live in creative access nations (CANs), the majority of which are Muslim. Creative access areas are also often Islamic strongholds within countries. Consequently, workers there struggle against some of the strongest opposition to Christianity. One of our workers in a CAN recently shared what they’d been told; ‘Teacher, before I met you I hated all Christians and wanted to kill them. I don’t think that way any more.’
What is being done to reach the people living there?
To protect the safety of missionaries and national believers we don’t share which CANs we are working in. To safeguard our personnel further, we sometimes don’t share photographs or identities of those working in particularly sensitive areas. At the moment though, a large number of workers from AIM Europe are serving in creative access situations, some of whom as part of International teams.
