Occupying the southernmost part of Africa, South Africa is the world’s leading gold producer. Governed for decades by a white minority government, South Africa is the richest and most industrialised country in Africa. The abolition of the apartheid laws in the late 80’s and early 90’s has led to greater and increasingly violent social unrest, as well as a downturn in the economic fortunes of the country. Materialism is a dominating philosophy in a country where belief systems are frequently overlapping and intermingling.
Present Work
There are 27 Brethren missionaries serving in South Africa in a variety of ministries, alongside about 40 national workers of different ethnic backgrounds. Work tends to be focused on different communities and includes:
African: work mainly among the Zulus of Natal including evangelism, Bible teaching, Emmaus courses. A large mission hospital (Murchison) is effective in the community
Asian: centred mainly around Durban. Effective evangelism and church planting
Coloured: mainly in Cape Province, this work is now essentially being done by their own full-time workers
White: evangelism, youth work in major cities
Needs
Main need for teachers as opposed to preachers.
Role of medical work is diminishing. Murchison was taken over the by
Government in 1978, and is now theoretically quite secular, although
opportunities for Christian witness abound
African elders and their assemblies are often quite mature. New workers would need to work under the African elders, and be willing to learn from them.
African Christians would welcome new workers. Learning Zulu is a
prerequisite, although English can be used in the medical/hospital
work.
Statistics
Population 39,357,000
Principal Cities Pretoria, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban
Languages English, Afrikaans, total 32
Evangelical 16.6%
Assemblies 120 (approximately)