In a small town in Togo on a makeshift soccer field, Pastor Phillip Barbara came to know the Lord through the faithfulness of a short-term missionary. Years later he would find himself in Stone Mountain, GA planting a church reaching French speaking Africans with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the pastor of Francaphone International Baptist Church looks to return the gospel back home.
"Most people come from a Catholic background and do not know the truth of the gospel. We are planting churches outside the main cities in remote areas where there are no evangelical churches."
Recently showing his congregation a tree that a new church plant meets under, he expressed the need to help them build a shelter. Another church plant is seeking to serve as a church, school, and library in an area where children have little access to education, yet lacks the funding to complete a roof. While many church plants internationally are seeking to birth as sustainably as possible, it still rains and the church still often has needs or outgrows a single home.
Like many Internationals he came to the US with agricultural experience. However, he and his wife, Edith, have been volunteering faithfully at B and C Farms where they are learning how agriculture and church planting can support each other. Like many pastors of ethnic churches here in America, they realize that their churches alone cannot meet every financial need that their church plants have back home. Thus, like the members of the Returning Diaspora Network, he is looking to develop a vision to help the churches back home embrace a model that can help self-sustain.
Short-term missionaries rarely see the fruit of their labor. Pastor Phillip has served his church faithfully for nearly 20 years and plans to continue leading his people in a missional vision as commanded in the Great Commission. And thanks to a short-termer's faithfulness, the gospel continues to expand.
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