background of strengthen africa
STRENGTHEN AFRICA BEGAN AS A RESPONSE TO GOD'S CALL
In 2010 Tristan Strever was invited, by his brother-in-law, to attend the ‘Mighty Men’s Conference’ in South Africa, led by Pastor Angus Buchan. Although Tristan was quietly reluctant, he felt prompted to go.
At the first service of the conference Tristan experienced a moment that would change the direction of his life forever.
Even before Angus Buchan opened the conference, while sitting among the thousands of men, the Holy Spirit gripped his heart and brought him to uncontrollable tears. He knew he could no longer run away from God. After hearing the gospel message preached, he repented and surrendered to his new Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. His life was totally and powerfully changed from that day.
Tristan felt a strong desire to help others know about the beautiful and powerful Good News of God’s salvation. Initially he shared God’s Good News using existing available material. Not long after, he decided to write his own gospel tracts. He distributed them to others he met who wanted to share into their communities.
One tract (Who Stole the Chief’s Chickens?) touched the heart of a prisoner in the second largest prison in the world (based in South Africa), which led to about 500 prisoners writing to us and about 150 being disciples through the postal system. There were other faithful believers who assisted to respond to the many letters we received each month. That door was opened as an answered prayer as Tristan sought to disciple others remotely and help them grow in their walk with Jesus.
Below: Gospel Tract God used to start a prison ministry - Who stole the Chief’s Chickens?
The printing ministry continued, and in 2012 the Lord gave Tristan an idea to write and print a small A7 booklet called “Please Free Me – From the Bondage of Sin”. Containing powerful imagery of sins many people today are bound by, God has used this booklet to communicate His ability to help and set people free as they repent and turn to Christ for forgiveness.
The Please Free Me booklet has been printed and distributed, in bulk, in 5 languages, mostly in South Africa. The compact booklet design was perfect for school children to place it in their pocket.
The limitations of printing the A7 booklets:
1. We had to print large runs to make it a reasonable cost. Which means large capital outlays.
2. Only specialized companies could make the booklet, so we were limited to where we could print.
3. We could not customize the information on the back of the tract for each pastor and for us to collect important information.
After 8 years of ministry work (2018), Tristan reluctantly surrendered the printing and prison ministry he loved to follow God’s call to move to Australia. After a few years in Australia, God gave the printing ministry back to Tristan with a powerful vision to bring the living waters of the Gospel into Africa. This vision was of a massive pipeline carrying the living waters (i.e. the Gospel) from the top of a ridge down into the far distance. Tristan could see green farmlands (i.e. spiritual fruit) in the distance, as the gospel produced eternal fruit. This vision was to form the foundation for strategically growing the ministry in Africa. Below is an image Tristan re-created using AI to remind him of God’s vision for this ministry in Africa.
Vision of Living Waters into Africa.
God gave Tristan a strategy to start printing the same content of the Please Free Me booklets as a folded A5 pamphlet. This format now allows Strengthen Africa to print mostly anywhere in Africa because any commercial printer can print it. We can also add the pastor’s details on the back and QR code technology to obtain feedback from readers. Now we can print in smaller batches too so that we don’t need to wait for large capital amounts before we can print. Praise God!!
Below: Ministry Timeline
Since 2010 Tristan has held full time work while undertaking this ministry God has given him. Although Tristan has been a key donor to this ministry in the past, God's plan is now way bigger than what Tristan had in mind. Now the broader body of Christ is encouraged (and needed) to get behind this ministry to make a sustainable impact for the generations to come.
You can impact communities on African soil, even though you may be thousands of miles away.
The next phase of the ministry is to automate and scale the operations. Also to decentralize systems (in progress) so that people from around the world can volunteer and work with us remotely to implement God’s vision for Africa. This requires building a lean and smart technology solution that will enable us to scale and keep communication relevant and impactful.
Strengthen Africa is not a registered entity yet, however, the team is praying that God will bring the required people to assist take the next steps into a new phase of growth and impact.
We invite you to join us by faithfully contributing or faithfully volunteering your skills as we watch the Lord move over the face of Africa.
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