Mogodi is the FIRST Fulani man that Phyllis met in Nigeria, and has become a very dear friend and partner in our ministry. Mogodi and his family had permission to use a complex of vacant buildings for their homes and our school, New Town Primary. Without warning, the Nigerian government came and evicted the families, tearing the buildings down! Mogodi and his family had nowhere to go! After many road blocks and much hateful discrimination of the Fulani people, Phyllis was able to purchase 128 acres just outside of Port Harcourt! Thank you to those of you who helped purchase this land! THEN, longtime friends and SFA supporters bought an ADDITIONAL 123 acres MORE! That is 251 acres TOTAL! It's a gorgeous place - fields, streams, access roads, and a very good paved road into town!
Mogodi has been well-trained in rotational cattle grazing. He visited the founder of rotational grazing in Zimbabwe to see the work first hand! Mogodi is going to divide that land into paddocks, gather together all his people's cattle, and practice rotational grazing there! Thank you God for this SAFE new home for Mogodi and his family, AND for this wonderful provision for rotational cattle grazing in Port Harcourt!!
Phyllis has been working from Ogun State to get our Port Harcourt school properties - desks, chairs, tables, zinc roofing sheets, etc. - from the destroyed school to the new land. She asked Mogodi to find a used container we could buy, to put on the land, to keep our furniture in and use later for building materials. Jacob reported to Phyllis that we cannot buy a container for now, as we cannot put it on our new land! "Why?!" Phyllis asked!! "It's our land! We've paid for it!" The legal documents on the land are signed and sealed by both parties, recorded in court, and without question, the land belongs to SFA.
Jacob told Phyllis that we must wait until we put up our school signboards on that land. As long as the local villagers think the land is just for school, there will be no problem. That the problem they will have is when the Fulani move in! Phyllis couldn't believe her ears. The locals must know that we wouldn't buy 128 acres and want another 123 acres for just one primary school!
Jacob reported that we need to be patient, that he is talking with the villagers. He said we should give them at least 2 weeks to get everything settled and agreed upon. Phyllis agreed, but only for 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks, if we cannot move our container out there and if the Fulani aren't allowed to move in, we will return to Port Harcourt with our lawyer. The chief and recent owner of the land agreed to sell us this land, knowing full well it's for this very unpopular tribe of people.
We're calling the new school Peaceful Village Primary School. Promoting peace between tribes is what we do, and in this particular situation, this new school will be in a Fulani village surrounded by Rivers State tribes. NAMING PEACE IS CLAIMING IT!! WE CLAIM PEACE FOR THE RIVERS STATE FULANI, IN JESUS' NAME. AMEN.
Please pray about this - it's very serious. It is not fair for the former owners to keep us and the Fulani out of that land. This is exactly the kind of discrimination that the Fulani people face throughout Nigeria! Please join us in praying that things will calm down.
Pray with us for PEACE IN NIGERIA!
This is the beautiful new land we just bought!
Remember Phyllis's friend, Doris Heritage?
Her film is NOW available!
Own LAST LAP on DVD and Blu-ray
Purchase your copy of the film HERE
Stream the film!
While they await approval for streaming on Amazon Prime, the first 25 people to stream LAST LAP on Vimeo get 1/2 OFF. Use the code HALFOFF to receive the discount. Rentals have a 72 hour streaming period.
WELCOME to new SFA board member, Mike Sparling!
I am 63 years old and father to 6 adult children. We also have two grandchildren. My wife's name is Gay. We have been married for 40.5 years. We and all of our children and grandchildren are bible believing Christians. Missions/service attitude has been taught in this house to the best of my ability. My faith journey began early in life, at 13 years of age, with the death of my grandfather. For the first time, I realized where I would spend eternity was important/real. I would call that time marker when I owned my faith, not just my obeying my parents' wishes.
My mission's interest began with viewing the effects of starvation/malnutrition on children. The images were shown in my first and last human nutrition class. Those images said to my simple mind: "This ain't right" and I want to be a part of the solution. I changed majors, quit trying to play varsity football, and transferred to an agriculture school. Six years later, I graduated from Veterinary School. This June will be my 37 years as a clinical veterinarian.
I will skip up to 1999, when I met Jim and Phyllis Sortor in Rwanda. I was there by invitation from Todd Stephens, MD. My task was to educate/encourage Huiti pastors to use their cattle (which they got from a program Phyllis started) to the best of their ability to improve the nutrition of their families. In short, make the cow make more milk and put more calves on the ground.
A lot of life has happened since then, and I have always followed and supported Phyllis in her work in Nigeria. I have not been able to see it in person for various reasons. I will support her work as long as I am on this earth. My heart waits in expectation to see Fulani Christians in the great throne room singing in unison with me. HOLY HOLY is the Lamb that was slain!!!! If I can help you hasten the scene of the last sentence into reality, I am all in! If you need a more normal resume, I can send that also, but I wanted to express how crazy in love I am with Christ's Great Commission!
Mike Sparling DVM
Mike, we LOVE your enthusiasm! Welcome to the team!
Is your stock gaining TOO MUCH VALUE?
Direct transfer some to us!
Do you have appreciated assets that need distributing?
We can help with that, too!
Email our SFA Treasurer, Don Standley for more information!
As the Lord pours Himself into Nigeria, it is an absolute delight to be His hands and feet there. We see the Lord moving mightily! God certainly doesn't NEED us, but He does INVITE us to join Him. Would you care to join us by supporting the work financially?