The Africa Church Planting Initiative (ACPI) began in 2019. They regularly receive international visitors, train local church planters, and have overseen 66 church plants in five African countries. As of November 1st, the ACPI will now have its own guesthouse after purchasing a new property. This will give them the freedom to branch out in many encouraging ways.
A guesthouse will provide lodging for visitors, advocates, leaders, and more. This new property will host many African planters who participate in a two-year pastoral program. In that time, church planters will receive spiritual and business training since many pastors are bi-vocational in these rural areas. The guesthouse will also provide a new revenue stream to support further church planting operations within the ACPI.
Jeanette Smith, the Operations Manager of the US Administration at the ACPI, works directly with the many hands who were involved in purchasing this property. This location is ideal since it’s close to several ACPI church-planting “clusters” or groups of new churches. Seeing everything come together after two years of prayer and planning is exciting for the team. “God’s provision for funding and donors, who see the vision of training up indigenous leaders, has been phenomenal. We have seen God’s hand in every detail of this process, and we are so grateful to continue carrying out this opportunity in Harare.”
Over 20 FEC churches in the US are connected with the ACPI. They regularly send teams overseas to do work projects, leadership training, and most importantly, relationship building. Marc Buwalda, lead pastor of Fairview Fellowship Church in Kendallville, Indiana, recently connected with a church planting friend he’d been in regular contact with over the last year and a half when he traveled to Malawi, Africa in September. Marc felt greatly encouraged after visiting his friend’s church and strengthening that relationship.
