Welcome Adeyemos!
I would like to use my column this month to welcome a new family to the Dakotas and a new servant of Christ to our DBC staff. Those of you that follow me on Facebook or get our video updates already know this, but I’d like to officially welcome Segun and Funmi Adeyemo and their three girls Damola, Teni, and Frederica to the Dakotas.
On my twice a year trips to South Africa, I have gotten to know the Adeyemos well as partners in ministry, dear friends, and family. Originally from Nigeria, Segun has been the pastor of Waterbrook Baptist Church in Pretoria, South Africa for the past several years. He also was part of the team that helped my South African partner Dr. Julius Mbu and me launch the international evangelism initiative, TELL. This initiative has grown into a new training school for pastors that Julius and I started last month, The TASK (see related story in “Around the Dakotas”). Segun has conducted many TELL Your Story personal evangelism training events across South Africa and has a background in marketing and business consulting.
Funmi is equally talented, skilled, and in love with Jesus. She and her two oldest daughters were part of the Waterbrook praise team. She has also been a part of our teaching team on our mission trips to South Africa, training and encouraging pastor’s wives in Pretoria, Durban, and Cape Town. Funmi has a degree in accounting and a background in office management.
Two years ago, Segun began to talk with me about his sense of calling to go to “the uttermost parts of the earth.” For him, that was the Dakotas. We began to talk and pray and then work towards this possibility. In January he received his R-1 visa, which enables him to spend the next two and a half years doing “religious work in the U.S.” Specifically, he will serve as an evangelism intern with the DBC. In this role he will be available to help with personal evangelism training, preaching, and other ways of helping our churches.
Funmi will volunteer some of her time to help in the office and at our DBC events. You will enjoy getting to know this family and their love for Jesus and the Dakotas.
There are several ways you can help me welcome the Adeyemos to the Dakotas:
1) First and most important, pray for them as they transition to the Dakotas. Pray that God would “supply all their needs according to His riches in glory.” And pray for Damola, Teni, and Frederica as they soon start new schools in a totally new culture. Pray for each to build new friendships and relationships.
2) Consider sending the Adeyemos a welcoming email. Segun’s email address is segun@dakotabaptist.com. Share with him and Funmi a little about your church and community so they can start getting to know Dakota Baptists. This will be a great encouragement to them.
3) If God puts it on your heart, help provide for their needs as they make this adjustment. If you have extra kitchen supplies (pots, pans . . . things you need for a kitchen when you move halfway around the world!) and live close enough to the DBC office in Rapid City, bring them and we will get them to the Adeyemos. Or, if you would like to make a gift, send a check made out to the DBC and we will pass it on. You can send this with your regular CP giving and indicate any gift: “Adeyemos.”
4) If your church would like to have Segun conduct a personal evangelism training event or fill your pulpit, contact me. One other need he will have is a car, so until then I will be assisting him with his scheduling and transportation. And, if you have a car you are able to make available to him, contact me and let me know.
5) Look for opportunities to meet and greet them. Segun and Funmi will attend both evangelism workshops in April and May. Segun will lead a workshop at the April event in Sioux Falls and they will also attend the one in Jamestown. If you haven’t signed up to attend one, this would give you an extra reason to come!
What a blessing it is to see someone answer the call of God, even when that call means moving, not just across the state or country, but halfway around the world. I am excited to have my longtime friends and partners in ministry here to serve in North and South Dakota. I am confident you will be blessed by them as you get to know them in the days, weeks, and years to come.
“What a blessing it is to see someone answer the call of God, even when that call means moving, not just across the state or country, but halfway around the world.”
