Urban Impact New York

“Stop the car. I think we should stop here. Look at all of them. There are so many… I never knew there were so many Fulani (foo-lah-nee) West Africans here in Brooklyn… all here on our very doorstep� said retired missionary Dorothy Adam. “This is amazing…it really feels like home to me� said Shadrack Mbogho, a young Christian New Yorker originally from Kenya. On that day, as we drove around Brooklyn together looking for ministry opportunities amongst the African Muslims, God revealed to us a specific people with specific needs… and we became a team with a mission.

I had only met Dorothy a few weeks before, but we bonded quickly because of our mutual passion for reaching Muslims for Christ. Before meeting Dorothy, I had been looking to meet other Christians around New York City who were reaching out to the 250,000 Muslims in the metropolitan area. Dorothy turned out to be one of the very few Christians who was doing this ministry. Meeting her was a divine blessing, since I needed to know someone with her experience and wisdom. I had been recently commissioned by New Hope Church, my small SBC church of 50 members, to launch an innovative missions effort called Urban Impact. Urban Impact’s purpose was to minister to and evangelize New York’s immigrants from 10/40 Unreached People Groups. For this big task, I was so glad that God sent me such a seasoned partner as Dorothy.

Dorothy had retired a few years ago after a dedicated and difficult term of missionary service in the African bushlands. After ministering for 30 years with the Fulani tribe of Guinea, West Africa, she had specifically retired to New York City. She had been told that many of “her people�, the Fulani, were located there. Even with the usual aches and inconveniences of an average 70+ retiree, Dorothy was very eager to continue serving God the rest of her life by ministering to African people. So our new partnership began.

DOROTHY

Shortly before meeting Dorothy, I ran into Shadrack Mbohgo who had recently returned to New York City after graduating from college. Shadrack had immigrated to Queens from Kenya as a young boy. He had been a very faithful attender of church and youth group at New Hope. “When I graduated from college, I could have moved anywhere I wanted, but I felt God calling me to return to New Hope Church for a purpose� Shadrack asserted. So, I began telling Shadrach of Urban Impact and the new ministry that our church was starting with Africans…and how he may play a role in it. Shadrack became very excited to see how God might use him even though he was a young immigrant with no real experience or skills for missionary work.

As we drove around on that first day, Dorothy, Shadrack, and I were amazed at the other-worldliness� of that obscure African pocket in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. We got out and prayed and then went from storefront to storefront meeting some of the local residents. We conversed in French, Pulaar, Swahili, and bits of other tribal African languages, but very little English…Dorothy and Shad did most of the talking! We met Mauritanian Africans in the check cashing store, Guineans in the barbershop and a very friendly Sudanese man at the African buffet. All of them were very friendly, and all of them happened to be from the Fulani tribe of West Africa.

Though from several different West African countries, we soon found out that almost all the residents of this neighborhood were from the Fulani tribe…..the very tribe that Dorothy had lived among in Guinea for 30 years.

The Fulani tribe is a far flung and diverse ethnic group of West Africa spanning some 19 countries. They are the largest nomadic people group in the world and are also the largest of the unreached tribes of Africa– numbering some 20-24 million. In the past few years, thousands of Fulani have immigrated to New York along with at least 120,000 other West Africans according to the 2000 US Census.

Evangelization can be a very difficult and slow process amongst the Fulani in Africa. One persistent missionary recently shared that he had served in Burkina Faso for 20 years with only six or seven people who are now genuinely interested in Christianity.

In the United States, things are very different. Many Fulanis see America as the country of their dreams and are very eager to befriend Americans and hear of our way of life. Though Muslim, many Fulani are very eager to hear about the Gospel and very willing to learn more about Christian teachings and culture.

Unfortunately, thousands of West Africans arrive in New York City and other American urban centers where there are very few churches interested in reaching out to them. ….Many would probably have had a much better chance of hearing the Gospel if they had stayed in Africa where there is a strategy and personnel to reach them. Urban Impact is working to change this. We have recently established the first of five Muslim Evangelism Centers to be started in New York City. This center, called the “African Friendship Center�, focuses on ministering to West Africans, North African Arabs, and Bangladeshis.

We are convinced that God is just as concerned about the souls of the 3,000+ Fulani in New York, as he is the 20 million Fulani in Africa. And we truly believe that God wants missionaries and laymen to share the Gospel in both of these places. Whether young or old, experienced or novice, God is calling us, as sincere Christians, to act by reaching out to those He has sent to our doorstep.

We invite you, right now, to pray about doing your part as an American Christian to reach out to these unreached people groups that God has sent for us to impact.

I LOVE NEW YORK! It’s an incredible place to live, to work, to minister and to grow. There’s always something new, something fun, something weird, and something challenging….it’s just a never ending adventure. But it hasn’t always been this way……

When I felt led to move from my sweet home Alabama to the New York area back in the “80’s ….the Big Apple was a totally out of control hell-hole. I was scared to death every time I entered a subway or walked around at night. I had settled in my mind and heart that I’d probably be mugged or gunned down within a year or two of living here…. in the late ’80s NYC was not your “FRIENDS” and “laugh along with David Letterman” kind of city. But because of a call…..I moved here.

And even more distressing thing to me was…..I felt that I was literally offering up my wife and 2 kids as an Abraham/Isaac kind of sacrifice by moving here. Would my kids even live through childhood? Would they get beat up at school? Drugs? Bad public school education? Never experiencing the Bible Belt spiritual & phsical luxuries that every one has down south. Would they later hate me (and God too!) for having thrown them into misery?

But, as God is in a habit of doing…….he took my worst fears and morphed em into some of my greatest joys.

Now I CANT EVER GET ENOUGH of going into the roughest areas of NYC…..baby, we’re talkin Bed-Stuy, Harlem, Jamaica, South Bronx…. where there are people that need some help….and want some help….and respond to love…..and want to hear about God and His answers. What a rush to tell a punk or a Muslim on the streets about Jesus and His peace.
And, as for my kids (I now have 4)—-(A real big wet tear rolls off my cheek now as I think about how wonderful they have turned out):

Josh (15), my oldest son is probably the most ideal teenager I’ve ever met in my life. He’s so talented and loving. This year he started attending a public high school in Manhattan that is connected wtih Juliard and the Lincoln Center……and he’s using his gifts in so many Jesus ways…..Drums in one church worship team…Bass in another…..and teaching a new Drum Corp (on paint buckets) class to Muslim teens this summer.
My oldest daughter Tori (13) is brilliant….testing as one of the top math students in New York state. She helps with Sunday school and ESL classes and loves to be my office worker. She and my younger daughter Grace (7) are both really into theater and dance….Tori was in an Off-broadway show last year…..and Grace was in a nationally distributed kids video….and both just had great parts in a kid’s Godspel production last week. They would never dream of living any where else!
And Ben (9) plays drums for worship team and productions sometimes. He always wants me to call him my “right hand man” and go with me in the ministry whenever and wherever I go (unless there happens to be a Mets game….then I’m second choice!).

My kids have had such great opportunities growing up in NYC….Macy’s Day Thanksgiving Parade, Ice Skating in Central Park, Empire State Building, Broadway shows,….these are all plain common childhood memories for them. But the greatest opportunities have been the spiritual ones. At a very early age….seein first hand that there is a whole world out there (and at our doorstep) that doesnt know Jesus. For the past 12 years my whole family has had the incredible opportunity of meeting with and living amongst people from all over the earth. Every day of their cognitive existence they have learned, first hand, about the problems and issues in the world…and about the various and subtle nuances of other countires, languages, cultures and religions.

And now, as years fly by, I understand God and His ways a little better. I trust Him more with my insecurities and fears. I know that His grace is sufficient for me, and that His power is made perfect in my weakness. “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me”. The very things that I dreaded and feared the most, are the things by which He proves His power, strength, and wisdom.

Oh God, I ♥ NY…..and I just know that He does too.

We hope you enjoy reading about our round-the-clock world adventures in the city that never sleeps.