Starting out 1895
By the end of the nineteenth century, the gospel had reached the coastlands of Africa, but there were vast, uncharted, and unreached inlands beyond. Peter Cameron Scott’s vision was to go to these places, to the “inlands of Africa”. He had a clear picture of a chain of mission stations reaching from the coast of Kenya to Lake Chad.
Up to 1950
Despite initial setbacks, and the First and Second World wars, by 1943 the Africa Inland Church is established across Kenya. 93% of these churches were planted by African church-planters assisting a missionary, or by Africans on their own. By the end of the 1940’s AIM has bases in Kenya, Tanzania, DR Congo, Uganda, CAR and Southeast Sudan.
Growth in the 1990’s
Graphic 3 showing that by 1990: 44% of Africa’s total population are Christians, 13% of the population follow African Traditional religions and 39% follow Islam, 4% are atheists/other religions.
AIM continues to seek new ground where people have yet to hear the gospel, and so pioneering work begins in Madagascar, the Indian Ocean Islands, Namibia and Mozambique. AIM missionaries reach Chad in 1987 fulfilling Peter Cameron Scott’s original vision.
A new millenium
The noughties led to AIM missionaries returning to Sudan following peace agreements, serving the church in Rwanda, and starting to minister in the North of the continent. The move to the North begins a new challenge of sharing the gospel in locations where missionaries are not welcomed by local government. With 651 of the remaining 1,000 people groups waiting to hear the good news of Jesus located in North Africa, this move is necessary to effectively respond to God’s call on AIM.
Going forward
Currently, the Sahel area of Francophone West Africa has few Christians, small numbers of churches and large numbers of mainly Muslim people groups. Many people in those countries will live and die without ever hearing the good news of Jesus Christ. Hear more about this from page 20 onwards.
*data from the World Christian Encyclopeodia for 1900-2000 and the Joshua Project.
Find out more about a new project in West Africa on page 22.
