A project to build new schools and supply them with teachers will soon begin in villages and towns throughout the central African nation of Chad as the result of a partnership between the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Global Mission organization, Outpost Centers International, and North American donors. Construction will begin later this year and, in the first stage of the plan, at least four schools will be completed.

Leaders from the church’s office of Global Mission and OCI, a supporting lay ministry of the Adventist Church, recently visited Chad, one of the world’s poorest countries, in early September to assess opportunities and lay plans for this initiative. They visited the capital, N’djamena, and several other locations where Global Mission pioneers have established new groups of believers. The new schools will be open to the community.

Pioneers are laypeople who, on a small stipend, establish an Adventist congregation in a so-called “unentered area” within their own culture. “They have the advantage of knowing the culture, speaking the language, blending with the local people,” says Dr. Mike Ryan, Global Mission coordinator for the Adventist Church worldwide. “It was encouraging to visit these areas where they have made such a tremendous spiritual and humanitarian contribution to the community. In each place we met with local government leaders, who unanimously welcomed the schools and offered to donate land.”

“We visited some towns where they had three or four hundred children meeting under trees,” says Jabel Busl, a builder with OCI who will direct the construction project. “We’ll be able to build them some permanent facilities so that they don’t have to shut down when rains come and will be able to continue with a more stable program.”

The Chad project expects each school to be self-supporting within three years. There are some 2,000 Adventists in Chad, which has a population of 7 million.