Send56 is a mission organization, which trains and sends native African missionaries to reach the unreached tribes of Africa. The Church in Africa is very evangelical, but there are few missional structures that exist to send and assist African missionaries cross-culturally. We provide this missional structure, which involves Bible training, discipleship in character and spiritual formation, people group research, sending, networking, financial and logistical support, strategy coaching, accountability, and communication with African missionaries.

Our mission is to reach the tribes and peoples in Africa that have no internal gospel witness. We do this by: (1) Establishing mission bases in strategic locations across Africa. Each base consists of a community prayer center, a Bible school, and a missionary sending agency. (2) Sending graduates as cross-cultural evangelists and church planters into the unreached tribes  and peoples of Africa. (3) Developing global partnerships for African missionary support.

The 56 comes from Isaiah 56:7: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” This verse, which was also quoted by Jesus, outlines God’s heart for missions in two dimensions.

“House of Prayer” speaks of the dimension of quality. Missions is not just about preaching the gospel unto salvation, or about discipleship unto sanctification. It is about reconciling a broken relationship between the unreached and God. Missions is ultimately about the nations ministering to God in the place of prayer and worship.

“For all nations” speaks of the dimension of quantity. It was never the plan of God that one nation be reconciled to Himself, but that “all nations” know Him, commune with Him, and glorify Him. This is what Jesus died to purchase (Rev. 5:9-10). His supreme worth demands all of the worship from all of the peoples for all of eternity. And if we partner together in the work of missions, that’s exactly what we can strive to offer Him.

Our International Leadership Team is run by the three Send56 founders - Jesse Digges, Will Shehee, and Rachelle Digges - who oversee the vision and direction of the ministry, holding to the primary purpose of prayer and missions to the unreached. This team operates under the oversight of the Send56 Board of Directors. Each African mission base has a local leadership team which gives oversight to the ministries on the base, and the missionaries sent from that location. Each missionary is sent out to the field under the oversight of their local church elders and the mission base leadership team. Missionaries are sent out as teams and accountable to one another and their team leader.

Send56 headquarters is located in Lawrenceville GA, which is tasked with engaging the church in America with missions in Africa. Income to support this team and their admin costs typically comes from the “Where Most Needed Fund” and/or the 10% admin fee withheld from all donations except the African Missionary Sponsorship. Some members of this team have financial partners that support them for this ministry, and some volunteer as well. 

Send56 has a small staff of American missionaries that serve the African missions movement in various capacities and locations. These missionaries are deputized fund-raisers for Send56, and are encouraged to raise money to help cover their personal support and ministry needs. 

We primarily believe that God is the Lord of the Harvest and the one who owns all the silver and gold, the fullness of the earth and everything in it. Therefore, we do not use manipulation or guilt in our communications to create results. Instead, we pray and trust the Lord that He will stir the hearts of His people to steward their wealth generously toward helping us reach the unreached tribes of Africa.

Financial accountability and integrity is of utmost importance at Send56. All budgets are first approved by the local mission base leadership teams, then by the International Leadership Team, and finally by the Send56 board of directors. Each African mission base and the Send56 HQ uses industry standard bookkeeping and financial practices. The Financial Oversight Team meets weekly to work through all financial issues. All of our financial practices are in compliance with strict ECFA standards. (To see our profile on the ECFA website, or to learn more about ECFA, follow this link.) Every year, Send56 hires a third party to do a complete financial audit.

Missionaries are sent monthly financial support for their personal upkeep. We do not require accountability for this support, much like a company would not require accountability for an employee’s paycheck. However, other expenses such as immigration and travel are receipted and recorded. All project money sent to missionaries is receipted, recorded, and reports are generated. All of this is reviewed by the financial administration at the mission bases.

Every month you send in your monthly support, our team at HQ receives and records it. This money is included with the monthly wires sent to the mission bases in Africa. The mission base leadership team receives and distributes the money to the missionaries, usually through mobile money networks.  

Through the gifts of individuals who give into our Where Most Needed Fund and/or those who give one time gifts into our African Missionary Sponsorship fund, we continue to send support for each missionary on the field.

We must first distinguish the difference between interdependency and foreign dependency. We believe that God has designed the global Body of Christ to be interdependent. The church in the West is dependent upon the church in Africa in order to see the Great Commission fulfilled. Westerners need Africans to send missionaries to the unreached in Africa. Likewise, the church in Africa is dependent upon the church in the West to play a part in making it financially possible for these missionaries to be sent out. 

Foreign dependency, on the other hand, happens when an African missionary becomes overly-reliant on Western funding at the expense of relying on God or their own resources. This saps entrepreneurial zeal and creativity. Foreign dependency happens when an African missionary becomes more concerned about pleasing western donors than about pleasing God. There are several strategies we take to mitigate these risks:

(1) We support African missionaries, but not African pastors. We believe that pastors should be supported by their own congregations and/or vocations. Missionaries working among the unreached usually do not have these options and stand in need of financial support. We provide for our missionaries’ personal upkeep, but not for all their ministry needs. They must learn to rely on God and their communities for this. When a missionary team reaches the point of equipping indigenous church leaders from within the unreached tribe, we protect those new churches from foreign dependency by not financially supporting pastors and church expenses. These new churches must find a way to be self-supporting and self-propagating. 

(2) The biggest danger is donor control. When a missionary comes from a background of poverty, there can be a temptation to do whatever a donor wants in order to receive funding. In some cases, this can cause a missionary to compromise on their calling, looking not to God for direction but to the donor. To prevent this from happening, we vet our missionaries by making sure that they feel a personal sense of calling to missions. Many of our graduates do not, and they go back to their home villages to preach the gospel there. Send56 makes sure that both the African missionary and the American senders have an alignment of purpose that never wavers. 

(3) But even the most well-meaning Western donor who has no desire to be controlling can inadvertently control a missionary. This happens through innocent correspondence, where the donor signals the kind of ministry work they are particularly interested in, and the missionary can feel tempted to focus on that type of work in order to please the donor. We protect our missionaries from this temptation by not connecting the missionary and sender in direct communication.

Economically speaking, Africa is the poorest continent in the world. Most local churches cannot afford to support their own pastor. In fact, most pastors have a side job and end up supporting their own church members! For this reason it’s usually not possible for a church to support a missionary consistently, with the exception of a few affluent churches in the big cities. This funding approach almost completely excludes missionaries from poorer village churches, which makes up most of the African mission force. Often the missionaries from impoverished communities make the best missionaries to Africa’s unreached, since most of these tribes are also impoverished communities. 

Tentmaking is a great model for missions. In fact, Paul the apostle used tentmaking as part of his mission strategy in certain seasons of ministry. We encourage all of our missionaries to find practical ways to serve their communities. We have missionaries who sell tomatoes at the market, who are farmers, taxi drivers, hairdressers, and phone technicians. These businesses help them to build relationships with the unreached, and give them legitimacy in the eyes of their community leaders. Since we already support them financially, they can provide these services without a profit motive! If someone can pay, that’s a blessing for the missionary. If they can’t, the missionary can still serve them anyway and show them the love of Christ in a tangible way. 

You can view and update your current giving by going to https://send56-bloom.kindful.com/users/sign_in and logging into your Kindful account. If you do not have an existing account, you can click on "Don't have an account? Sign up here." when you are redirected to that page. After filling out some basic information, you now have access to view all your previous giving statements as well as adjust any regular donations you have upcoming. Kindful is a third-party software, hosted by Bloomerang, so direct support is handled by their team. However, if you have questions about your giving with Send56 or need additional help you can email us at info@send56.org.

Each missionary is given a standard amount on a monthly basis which is primarily based on their family size, their role on the team, their tenure on the field, and cost of living adjustments for the local economy.

Monthly support for a missionary provides for the missionary’s personal upkeep - housing, food, and all other personal needs. We cover one round trip from their field location to their home village for a two month furlough every year, as well as travel and immigration costs. We also help with medical emergencies, wedding costs, and funeral costs for immediate family members. 

In order to qualify for missionary support, the missionary must:
-Have completed 2 years of training in our Mission and Prayer School and have the recommendation of all the team leaders at the mission base that shepherded them during those 2 years.
-Have godly character that was tested and proven during that time.
-Have a personal sense of calling to missions.
-Have and understanding and acceptance the risks.
-Have a commitment to personal prayer and worship as an utmost priority.
-Have demonstrated a competency in ministry gifts and skills.
-Be physically located in an area where there are few or no churches targeting the unreached tribe, or serving at a mission base and be physically present in their field location 10 months out of the year.

Missionaries are accountable to the Send56 mission base who oversees them. They are required to give monthly reports of their work on the field. They receive calls, messages, and visits from mission base staff. The missionary department of each base also works hard to ensure that missionaries are pastored, held accountable, supported logistically and financially, and coached in missions strategy. Missionaries are sent out as teams, which ensures peer level accountability on a daily basis. And they remain accountable to their local church leaders who have sent them out.

Each missionary goes through the school of Missions and Prayer (MAP School). It is a two-year Bible School, which combines theological coursework, cross-cultural missions training, and character and spiritual development.

Student missionaries live and study together full-time in an intense environment of community and training. They have classes throughout the week on theology, missions, and Islamics. They engage in corporate prayer daily, and have time set aside for personal prayer in the house of prayer, which is part of each mission base. They are engaged in community service and evangelism weekly. They learn the power of forgiving one another, walking in humility, and working together toward a common goal in our communal environment. Each month they join the house of prayer for a three day fast, and break it with the Communion. 

Students learn various strategies for outreach and Islamic evangelism. They learn to interact with Muslims by understanding their worldview and the Quran, their holy book. They even learn Quranic Arabic. This training enables them to bridge Muslims to the Bible through stories and teachings which are in both the Quran and the Bible, as well as to engage in debate polemics by understanding how the Quran contradicts the Bible. Finally, they are taught to remove barriers of belief in the minds of Muslims through apologetic preparation, enabling them to effectively answer questions Muslims have about the Christian faith.

To see a full list of courses taught and a sample weekly schedule at MAP School, click here: https://www.mapschoolafrica.org/what-you-will-learn

Missionaries reach people through various means. Most missionaries go through neighborhoods door-to-door, sharing the Good News. As they live among the unreached in their communities, they build relationships and friendship centered around the gospel. Many preach the gospel in open-air venues to crowds. Some even participate in public debates with Muslim preachers. One favorite method is utilizing solar powered projector kits to play the Jesus Film and other movies in the local dialect. Those who are responsive to the gospel are usually gathered into simple house churches or Bible studies. Sometimes these grow into larger congregations, other times they multiply into other house churches. Some of those who are being discipled are eventually equipped by our missionaries to reach their own people. 

Most missionaries will not settle in the same community forever. The goal is to work themselves out of a job. As members from the unreached tribe experience transformation through evangelism and discipleship, the missionaries begin equipping them to evangelize and pastor their own people. Once a core group of indigenous leaders is capable of standing on their own and reaching their own people, the missionary’s work is complete. They are ready to move on to the next community or tribe and begin a new work there, as they continue to visit and encourage the indigenous leaders they left behind.

We recognize that native African missionaries generally make the best kind of missionary to the unreached of Africa. But that doesn’t mean there is no place for Westerners. Most of our Western missionaries are serving at the mission base training centers equipping and shepherding the native missionaries alongside other African leaders. Western missionaries have been very catalytic in calling the African church into missions. Western missionaries have helped with forming training curriculum and mission strategy. There are so many ministries based in America that have amazing resources and services, and American missionaries often help create a bridge for making those things accessible to African missionaries as well. 

To help sponsor a native missionary online, visit our sponsorship page. You can also call our office at 706-901-SEND (7363). Sponsorship donations can be made monthly or annually by checks, credit card charges or electronic transfers from a bank account. One time donations are also accepted and will be used to supplement unique situations where funds are most needed at the time.  You will receive a picture and testimony of the native missionary you are helping along with periodic updates from the region where your missionary serves.

There are a few things to look for when considering if you should invest into a certain missions organization. There are lots of great ministry activities, but there is one thing that must be a higher priority than everything else - the Great Commission. Are they focused on preaching the gospel to those who have never heard (Mark 16:15), and actively discipling those who respond (Matt. 28:19)? Too many mission organizations are emphasizing humanitarian ministry (meeting practical needs) at the expense of a verbal preaching and teaching the gospel.