Niger
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| Niger is a land-locked West African country that is 80 percent desert. The Christian community in Niger comprises about 1 percent of the population, most of whom are Roman Catholic. PC(USA)’s partner denomination, the Evangelical Church of the Republic of Niger (EERN), is Niger’s largest Protestant denomination with 125 churches/preaching points and approximately five thousand members. Mission worker Thomas Johnson writes, “The EERN is also the country’s oldest denomination, having been founded in 1961 when the existing and disparate Sudan Interior Mission churches banded together to become newly independent Niger’s second registered organization.”
Primarily a Hausa-language church, EERN is now reaching out to share the gospel beyond its historical roots. EERN missionaries were sent to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, to work among Hausa migrant workers from Niger until 2002 when the country fell into civil war. Local evangelists are now starting churches in non-Hausa communities. The emergence of private radio stations is creating new opportunities for the EERN to expand its outreach. In 2006, the church plans to introduce daily religious broadcasting in Hausa and French throughout the country with hopes to include Niger’s other languages in the future. PC(USA) education mission worker Kara VanderKamp arrived in Niger in late 2005. She is helping EERN develop its education ministries, especially education of younger children. Nigeriens who would never visit a church are very willing to send their children to church-run schools. Education is proving to be another means of evangelism. In Niger, Muslims, Christians, Hausa, and non-Hausa people are “crossing boundaries” and learning and living together. |
 Partners/Ministries Evangelical Church of the Republic of Niger (EERN): Monsieur Yahaya Cherif, general secretary PC(USA) People in Mission EERN: Thomas Richard Johnson, mission specialist, development worker, Kara Joy VanderKamp, teacher PC(USA) General Assembly Staff Rev. Alexa Ann Smith, DEDO Benjamin L. Smith, MSS Craig Smith, MSS |
 I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever (Ps. 89:1). |
 Ps. 1, 33, 89:1–18, 147:1–11 Zeph. 2:1–15 Rev. 16:1–11; Luke 13:10–17 |
