BECHEVE OUTREACH

Becheve is a village is located in Kwande local government Area of Benue State.

The small community is surrounded by mountains with farmlands spread atop the highlands, with rivers flowing across having it's source from different spots on the mountain.

The village has a population of about 5,000 people majorly English speaking Camerounians who decided to settle away from home(due to the crises back there).

RELIGION

Becheve is predominantly an Idol worshipping community with lots of witchcraft and mermaid activities.

However, the gospel has brought many into the Kingdom of Christ.

ECONOMICALLY

Becheve people are mostly peasant farmers, producing just what they eat . They produce Cocoa, Ogbono, Palm Oil, plantain and banana etc unfortunately, the poor roads and lack of stable communication systems never allow these goods move out of the compounds where they produced. Consequent upon that, they have little or no cash flow within them due to little marketings amongst them. This affects every aspect their lives especially in education and business.

EDUCATIONALLY

the people are mostly illiterates due to absence of standard schools. The few available are located quite far from most homes. The journey to school becomes impeded especially during the rainy season as the major water bodies rise high overflowing it's banks even. Moreover, due to lack of funds, so many of the children in the village are not able to start school or complete basic education. Many young girls and boys wandering the village after dropping out from school at primary six.

The journey was a long one from Abakiliki in Ebonyi state to Obudu in Cross Rivers State, then another vehicle to Utanga market still in Cross Rivers. From there, every form of telecommunication ceased.

We entered a motorcycle that managed to take us across rocky and narrow roads, into the area where the people are located. Reaching the point where the bike could not continue, we had to trek carrying our loads on the head.

Amilé river is the city gate of Becheve village. We had to force our way across the water, fighting the heavy current of the waters moving down. Knowing that we could not swim was enough to send Thunderbolts of fear along our spines. However, the missionary who came to welcome us at utanga was there to help hold us as we crossed the large water body rising up to our thighs.

Getting to the other side of the river was a large cocoa farm(there was an altar on the side of the farm, obviously for protection and bounty harvest). We began the outreach in the night with a prayer section with the believers and otheR interested members the community and beyond.

After the very interesting praise session in Becheve language, Bro Uche Umune shared the word of God and afterwards, the prayer session was led by Pst. Chibuzor onuoha

The next day had the team trying to adjust to the environment, trying to learn certain parts of the language greetings, hear some stories about the land and strategise for their outreaches.

By night, after the people came back from their farms, at about 8pm a crusade night was held at the church venue and an Evangelist from Lagos, a friend of the missionary, pastor Chibuzor preached the gospel after which an altar call was made and many were led to Christ. Prior to this, the first episode of the movie movie walking with Jesus was played using the projector display while bro Uche Umune did the narration to aid the people's understanding.

The remaining days were occupied with activities including visits to various part of the villages and familiarizing with the villagers, and even climbing the top of the hills where some people live. .

By evenings the Team began a follow up training class for the young believers who could manage to read English Bible. The aim of the discipleship class was to raise people who would take the other people in the church through the same process even after the visiting missionaries are gone. Infact, they are to bridge the language barrier which was a major challenge during general Bible study classes as the newly trained people would teach in the indigenous language of the people, be it Becheve or Tiv language.

During the night times, film show continued, one episode daily with Bro Uche Umune narrating as the film is displayed. Lessons from the film served as a tool for massive follow up of the believers to help them grow in the faith. Prayer sessions held every night. Each night featured salvation, deliverances, restoration, Holy ghost baptism, and consecration. The Youths who are believers from the community also were given the opportunity of interacting with the members of the team.

OBSERVATIONS

1. Most of the inhabitants in the land could not continue their education due to lack of funds. Many are dropouts from primary schools, while a handful were able to get into secondary schools before dropping out. Jennifer and Godgive are amongst the three people who could manage to read the bibles written in English but two of them are Primary school graduates only since 2014. Due to poverty, they are left at home with no help to further but their passion to study further has not died. Kingsley and Moses are drop outs of Primary 4 since 2014 and could not provide N2,000 worth of school fees to finish up their primary school.

2. The entire community members are financially poor just because of no access road to take their farm produce to market places to sell, hence they rely on subsistence farming.

3. There is virtually no medical care, as the only clinic there is a write off.

4. The only nursery school around could not carry out certain academic activities and are not equipped for true education. The next schools are located about 1hr walk and across a huge river which during high Ebb, no one crosses and then schooling those periods becomes truncated till dry season.

5. The follow up training helped the participants to grow in knowledge of God and one of them excitedly testified that she now understands her place in Christ, since she gave her life to Christ.

OPPORTUNITIES

There are opportunities that we need to utilize in order to take the entire village for Christ and raise disciples who will join the force in spreading the gospel to other rural areas like theirs.

1. Jennifer and Godgive needs scholarship to be trained educationally atleast to finish their secondary School, possibly in TETMI HIGH SCHOOL as bordening students with the aim of using them in the future to impact their communties .

2. Getting more young people involved in entrepreneur development will bring a new wave of income generation that will not be too tedious for them in order to creates jobs for their people.

3. Volunteer medical personnels are needed who are mission minded that will out of passion dedicated part of their times to go on outreach to this village and help them. It will cost them but True passion is followed by sincere sacrifice even if it take one tenth of their salaries to actualize this once in six months, the entire community and nearby communities will be attracted to the Gospel.

4. Volunteers who could run a one or two weeks vocational trainings twice a years could bring about a turn around in how people view the Gospel and show deep concern for life transformation of the inhabitants of the Land.

5. Christian Business men can develop an interest in transacting business with the inhabitants, so that they could consciously increasing their production of farm produces and the transport cost could be share by the duo across the amount of products involved.

6. Volunteers who are educationist will be need to come and run some sort of skeletal classes that will enable them to communicate, read and transact their business and do ministry work in English and other languages.

7. The missionary shall need more financial support to raise a temporary building for living seeing that there is no accommodation extra for him to live in.