181 new house churches planted by tentmakers
    Steinar Opheim

African tentmakers who have gone through the tentmaking course developed by Global Opportunities and Tent have started at least 181 new prayer groups and house churches the past six years.

According to detailed reports presented by Africa-director Tiowa Diarra in Tentmakers International (TI), 3,751 persons have now gone through a limited version of the GO Equipped TENTmaking course. The course participants have reached out to 15,100 people with the gospel and 181 new, Christian fellowships have been started.

- We are still missing reports from several nations, so the real numbers of people being reached and fellowships being started is even higher than this, says Tiowa Diarra.

He has been a leading figure in the African tentmaking movement that has been emerging the past six years. In 2004 he made connections with Global Opportunities European sister agency, Tent, in order to arrange a tentmaking course in his home country Mali. Since then the development of the movement has been like an adventure. In 2007 Mali hosted the first ever All Africa Tentmaking conference with participants from 17 nations. The second All Africa Tentmaking conference was held in Cameroon last summer. At present TI has national representatives in the majority of the African nations. The tentmaking course has been recorded in both French and English and is now distributed on DVDs to the national leaders in the movement.

- The tentmaking strategy is a good fit for the churches in Africa. Through tentmaking even churches that have small resources can take part in the worldwide misson task, says Tiowa Diarra.

He is now making plans for a third All Africa Tentmaking conference that will be held in Tanzania in 2013.

- By arranging these international events in different parts of the continent, we can introduce even more people to the tentmaking idea, says Tiowa Diarra.

Risk management for tentmakers

The UN has just published a new report focusing on risk management for humanitarian workers. The document contains much valuable information also for tentmakers and business as mission people working in sensitive areas.

Humanitarian workers are under threat as ever before according to the UN report named "To stay and deliver". The report says that the number of lethal attacks on humanitarian workers have tripled the past years. Currently an average of 100 workers are killed on the job every year. The situation is worst in Afghanistan where there have been 180 major attacks on humanitarian workers since 2005. Sudan (150 attacks) and Somalia (100 attacks) follow as number two and three.

- There are no places where humanitarian organizations should not go or cannot go. Instead of asking what does it take to leave, we should ask what does it take to stay in Mazar-i-Sharif and other such places. Risk management means you adapt to the circumstances, said Jan Egeland when the report was presented in New York in the middle of April. Egeland who is the director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, has led the research group behind the UN report.

The report contains information on best practices for agencies working in conflict areas. Many tentmakers are involved in such relief work. The content is also valuable for tentmakers and business people operating in such areas. For instance it is underlining how important it is to develop plans for security including evacuation plans.

The full UN report can be found here.

 12 nations at the upcoming GO Equipped course

At least 12 nations will be present at the upcoming GO Equipped TENTmaking course in Bergen, Norway in the beginning of June. Among the nations being represented are Armenia, Colombia, Faroe Islands, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda.

- It brings great joy when people from so many nations come together. In some way it gives us a taste of what we can expect in heaven, comments Tentīs managing director, Steinar Opheim.

For the first time Tent is offering simultaneous interpretation to Spanish at the tentmaking course in Bergen. This has caused a number of Spanish speaking students to register for the course. Tent is also offering a special track for medical personnel this year. This mini-seminar dealing with special issues for medical workers will be lead by Chris Steyn who is the international coordinator at Healthcare Christian Fellowship (HCF).

Among the annual GO Equipped TENTmaking courses being run by the GO-Tent alliance, the course in Bergen has been the one with the broadest international attendance. The number of students is limited to 30 and this yearīs course has been fully booked for several weeks.

- It seems like the rumors have spread worldwide that this is a valuable course.
We are glad that our teaching on tentmaking and business as mission can be spread to several nations through the course in Bergen, comments Steinar Opheim.