Beekeeping Ministry Formed by Multinational Cooperation

Karin and Frank have been working in the Central African region for many years. When they needed a yellow fever vaccination booster shot, their doctor expressed a lot of interest in their work, since she herself was involved in a project in a different region of Africa. She invited Karin over for coffee, and it turned out that she lived just around the corner with her husband who was a beekeeper. 

When the doctor asked about the beekeeping scene in central Africa, Karin had to admit that she didn’t know much about it. She had never seen beekeeping there and did not have good experiences with their honey. Karin promised to keep an eye out for it on her upcoming trip to Chad, but to her knowledge, beekeeping was nonexistent in that area.

On their trip, Karin and Frank were shocked when they were served some very high-quality honey at their breakfasts. That’s when a plan began to form that would use beekeeping to support a local church-planting zone.

Driven by an urge to better understand the project and take meaningful steps, Karin started learning beekeeping. As she invited her ministry partners to pray for the project, one of them connected her with a Swiss beekeeper who had trained the father of a beekeeper in Cameroon. 

Karin started communicating with the Cameroonian beekeeper, which proved to be very productive. Shortly after, she went to Cameroon to teach at the Bible school and meet with the beekeeper. On that trip, she got to know him personally and saw all the great work he was doing.

In November 2023, plans were finalized for three evangelists in Chad to take a three-month beekeeping course with the beekeeper in Cameroon. The three evangelists just returned to Chad at the end of January 2024 and immediately began capturing swarms of bees and building hives. Now they hope to collect their first honey harvest this year to support their church-planting efforts.

Isn’t this a good example for how we can support each other—not just with our finances but also with our areas of expertise—as the Charis Alliance lives interdependently for the glory of God?