Nigeria Report [2019 – 2020]
2019 & 2020 Quarterly Report from Nigeria
By William and Victoria Udotong, Lagos, Nigeria
We have continued our road as IFBC missionaries at Africa Centre for Theological Studies. These responsibilities include education which involve teaching and administration at ACTS at both graduate and undergraduate levels. This teaching is focused on seminary students and church leaders. The second aspect of our educational ministry is using education as a tool for reaching out to high school teenagers in a poor area of Lagos State.
We are also involved with IFBC ministry in Nigeria. Focus has been on organizing IFBC pastor’s forum and planning of Pastor’s conference to empower church leaders. A second aspect is the church planting initiatives that would enable us plant churches in urban and rural areas Nigeria.
I also involved as Africa representative of Cornerstone Foundation, a sister ministry with IFBC. My role involves supervising some of IFBC interest in Nigeria which has to do with distribution of Christian literature for pastors and seminaries and some educational ministries.
All of the above is tied to our goal and purpose of ministry, which is to instill vision, develop skills in leaders so that they can become change agents, growing and expanding God’s kingdom in Nigeria and beyond. We also develop Nigerian youths by teaching them to think constructively.
The last quarter of 2019 focused on the following activities:
- We held IFBC Nigeria minister’s forum hosted at Pastor Joseph Chukwuma’s church. We had approximately 10 pastors in attendance. Rev. John Onwuka preached at the forum. The primary goal of the meeting was to get to know some of the pastors, provide encouragement and explain what IFBC stand for. We had a robust and engaging a Q&A session.
- During this quarter, the three of us, (John, William, Joseph and our wives) held three planning meetings at my home to discuss plans and strategies to revive IFBC from recent challenges that we faced.
- We planned a pastors and church planting conference for 2020. Pastor Joe also represented IFBC Nigeria as a guest at the international Coordinating Council (ICC) meeting at Corydon, Indiana
- I continue with my teaching and administrative responsibilities at ACTS, particularly teaching masters students and preparing ACTS for an Accreditation visit by the Association for the Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA).
- The later part of October and November 2019 I was able to attend Cornerstone Foundation’s Board meeting at Easley, SC as a new board member. Dr William Sillings and Victor Reasoner were also inaugurated as new board members. One of the highlights of the board meeting was the decision by to provide support a new ministry to secondary teens in Ajegunle, Apapa started by my wife Victoria.
The First Quarter of 2020 included the following:
- My teaching ministry where I taught one doctoral class, two master’s classes and one undergraduate class. I taught 20 leaders or would be leaders from a total of 10 denominations. These leaders supervise over 142 pastors and total congregations of 7,000.
- A substantial part of our ministry this quarter was devoted to developing and putting structure in place for the ministry of Cedrela High School which started in September with a total of 25 students and has now grown to 36 students and 7 teachers.
- The School is reaching out to a poor section of Lagos community located at Ajungunle, Apapa. Fees paid at the school are less than a quarter of what is charged in similar schools in the area. The goal of Cedrela High School is to use education as a tool for impacting the minds of the teenagers.
- The third aspect of my work was focused on IFBC ministries in Lagos. John (the head of IFBC work) and I held several meetings with pastors to plan for the IFBC pastors conference in South Western Nigeria. The program was scheduled for April but was later postponed indefinitely because of the COVID -19 Pandemic. The program is therefore put on hold. We are also wrestling with the direction and funding for our church planting thrust in Nigeria.
PICTURES