For the last century Christianity has shifted its centre of gravity from the Euro-American West to the Global South. While Africa had less than 10% Christians in 1910, its population was nearly 50% Christian in 2010, with sub-Saharan Africa well over 70% Christian. Christianity in Africa has grown from 10 million in 1900 to more than 685 million today and is predicted still to grow in the decades to come. It is expected that Africa will have 1.1 billion Christians by 2050. Growing Christianity in Africa needs well informed and biblically sound Christian education and formation of its priests, ministers and church leaders. Firm Foundation has two programs to preserve the integrity of the gospel and transmit it with integrity to the next generation so that Africa can be the next centre of gravity for the gospel and world missions. These are Children’s ministries and Theological Education. 

Children’s ministries

Zimbabwe has 13 million people, 48% (approx. 6.2 million) of which are children under 15 years. 72% are in the rural areas living under extreme poverty. They do not have access to health care, education, nutrition, water, sanitation, information and other basic necessities for wellbeing and quality of life. A significant number are either orphaned, taking care of other siblings, left with ailing grandparents while parents are abroad or have divorced, or living as child mums. The prolonged economic meltdown, the continued drought coupled with the pandemic has increased trauma and unimagined distress in most Zimbabwean children. As Firm Foundation, we reach out to children under the age of 15 years through Sunday school enrolment, VBS, district and annual camps, feeding programs and providing camps & general education scholarships.  

Theological Education

In the last century, Christianity has experienced explosive growth in Africa. It is estimated that every week, 4000 new churches are planted in Africa. This means 571 churches are planted daily. This presents a huge challenge to the church in Africa namely, to train church leaders in the way that church growth demands. The collective annual number of graduates of all the theological schools in Africa, are not enough for the churches that are planted in a week. In Zimbabwe alone 95% of both rural and urban pastors do not have a seminary education. It is this reality that Firm Foundation has a goal to produce godly disciples and who will be qualified to disciple others. 2 Tim 2:2. 

Pray for:

• Children’s Camps

We have two camp running each year. 1) District camps (During summer time) & Annual Camp (Dec).

• Education opportunities for orphans and kids from severe hardship backgrounds.

We provide scholarships for needy children and we have a feeding program for starving kids during the pandemic

• Sunday School curriculum development and materials

We are developing a Sunday school curriculum and produce materials for poor & rural congregations.

• Leadership training workshops

We train Sunday school and camp leaders and this year we plan to train a 100 Sunday school leaders for the Malawian church. Malawi has 700 churches and prayer houses. Pray for resources and that borders will be open for travel to Malawi. 

Theological Education and Library.
We collected 5444 theological library books from Wheaton (USA) in 2020, and we are beginning to build a library for our college. Pray for staff & resources e.g. computers for research and internet connection.

Scholarships for rural pastors