In December, Suzy and I spent a week in Cotonou at the international women’s congress of the Sahel Union Mission. One topic was “Women and Global Mission,” and the speaker said some things that really impressed me. He mentioned that more than half of the world’s Adventist Christians live in Africa, and the majority of African Adventists are women. His point was obvious: the African woman has a major responsibility in the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

While the numbers were not totally new to me, I had never seen the implication laid out so clearly. I realized that we need to put more effort into including women in our work here in Benin. It is true that because of the culture, initial efforts in unentered areas need to focus on men. But once the Gospel has gotten a foothold in a village, the ladies will have to be trained and taught as well as the men since they have such a huge influence on the children and village life in general. We need African ladies—frontline workers—to reach out to other women. From the very beginning of our leadership training, we have been encouraging the men who attend to bring their wives to the meetings. But so far only one lady has attended regularly, and another joined just recently. Please pray that we will be able to motivate the ladies to take hold of the important role God has for them in His work here in Northern Benin.

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