A Southern Baptist ministry is bringing spiritual and physical relief to a rural area of the Horn of Africa that is plagued by malaria.
The international relief and development organization known as Baptist Global Response (BGR) is distributing plants throughout the Horn of Africa that are known to combat malaria. In the past year, more than 2,500 Artemisia plants have been distributed to 800 farmers, effectively giving about 10,000 people access to their own treatment of the deadly disease.
For more than 17 centuries, the plant has been an effective way to fight malaria when its dried leaves are brewed as tea. Abraham Shepherd with BGR says missionaries are not only able to help prevent the physical disease of malaria, but also are able to share the cure for sin.
"[It's] what I call proclamation by demonstration, really...[i]t gives [the missionary] ample opportunity to share with these people and to love them...," he explains. In addition, says Shepherd, it is a "very effective cost-versus-benefit" treatment. "Minimum capital is making the difference in thousands of people's lives," he says. So far, he notes, missionaries have used a little more than $10,000 from Southern Baptist World Hunger funds.
The area where BGR has been working has a population of four million and also has one of the highest rates of malaria in the country.
Source: http://www.onenewsnow.com/Missions/Default.aspx?id=192588