MOMBASA, Kenya — A jeep bumps along over deeply rutted and muddy roads through the jungle of Masvingo, Zimbabwe. The driver is carrying a message to e-mail in the nearest village, hours away. He has a computer diskette containing a newsletter from Dr. Zindoga Bungu, who works at the Mashoko Christian Hospital in a remote area of the Bikita District. In a few weeks, depending on the rain, Bungu will send another messanger to receive the replies to his e-mail. There are no phone lines at the hospital.

Bungu spoke during a retreat held this spring for Southeast Christian Church missions partners in Africa. From his report it was clear that in some ways Africa resists the changes of postmodernity. But Bungu expressed another concern for his jungle mission that was a relentless sign of the 21st Century even there -- AIDS.

The spread of AIDS - Zimbabwe

For more than 40 years the 125-bed Christian hospital has served as a medical and spiritual outreach to the people in the area. The motto for the hospital is "to save lives physically and spiritually."

"We preach to them before we ask how they are," Dr. Bungu said.

But over the last few years the work at Mashoko has changed with the rapid development of AIDS. Now, Bungu said, 85 percent of the patients in the hospital are there for AIDS-related diseases. Two of the hospital staff died of the disease that now infects 25 percent of the Zimbabwe population.

While much of the work at Mashoko is medical, Bungu emphasizes the spiritual components of the ministry. The staff begins each day with prayer and a devotion. Then, they continue treating patients spiritually after they are released.

"We also use the hospital to show people God's love, God's mercy," Bungu said. He began a follow-up ministry for AIDS patients and has started two congregations because of their interest in Christianity. It is difficult to tell which is growing faster, the AIDS pandemic, or the churches.

While the ravages of HIV and AIDS have abated in the Western world with new drugs, the disease is still increasing in Africa.

The spread of AIDS - Ethiopia

All over the continent the disease has orphaned thousands of children. Florence and Festus Muindi work with a holistic church-based community health evangelism program in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They also serve street children, many of whom are AIDS orphans.

They too emphasize the spiritual side of their work. Florence credited the success of her ministry to prayer.

"We have access to the Father and when we don't use it, it goes away," she said. Her work in conjunction with Christian Missionary Fellowship (CMF) and Life in Abundance International in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, takes that access seriously. They spend each Monday at the office in prayer for the ministry.

"We realize after we pray that things become easier," Muindi said. The remaining four days of the week are also more productive beginning with a day of prayer, she explained.

"We've learned whatever comes up we just forward it to [God's] office and he takes care of it."

The spread of AIDS - Kenya

In Kenya missionaries struggle to educate the population about AIDS. Even unique and relatively isolated cultures such as the Masai, whose lanky warriors swathed in red plaid and looped in beads have become a symbol for Kenya tourism, have not escaped AIDS.

David and Suzie Snyder minister to the Masai people. They work in churches and oversee eight rural medical dispensaries. They also provide community AIDS education.

"Our team feels the church is the answer to turn AIDS around through sexual purity and abstinence," Suzie said. She said they have seen success with an AIDS education program they use that incorporates drama and humor. A team of Masai players portrays how the ills of their own culture can spread AIDS. "They laugh and then they say, 'That is us,'" Suzie said.

"The key to saving the next generation is for the church not to be silent but to take a very active role," she said.

Ministering to Muslims

Elsewhere ministers struggle with another dilemma for Christian ministry on the continent - Islam. In fact it was the spread of that religion in Kingspride Hammond's native Ghana that drew him back from a pastorate in Atlanta, Ga.

Hammond said one day during his ministry to the homeless in Atlanta, he asked himself who had never heard the name of Jesus Christ? He didn't like the ‘no one' answer and so he packed up his wife and two children and set out for Tamale, Ghana, where the population is 90 percent Muslim.

"We go to the people that nobody else wants," Hammond said.

He began the Alabaster Project in 1998 to establish a refuge for Muslim converts, an outreach to discarded girls, vocational training, and a resource center for pastors and missionaries in the city of Tamale.

Hammond said the philosophy of their lives in Ghana is "the power of Christ to change for a better life."

Secret ministry

Other missionaries in Nigeria work in such a sensitive area that their names and the details of their ministries cannot be published. One minister works in an outreach to Islamic scholars. Overcoming cultural and religious difficulties is the main focus for the ministry because Islam calls for the death of Christian converts.

Violence in Nigeria that escalated again in recent weeks killed 600 Muslims and Christians in Plateau and Kano, according to Red Cross estimates. The conflict in Sudan has also taken thousands of lives over the years.

Amnesty International's annual human rights report criticized African nations that continue to be plagued by war, political repression, poverty and violence against women. It is particularly critical of four countries: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Togo and Zimbabwe.

Converts in other regions face imprisonment by the government. Northern African missionaries work in secret cell groups to form underground churches that grow slowly into multiple small groups.

"A church can fully function as a small group," one missionary in that region said. Planting churches anywhere isn't easy, but in areas where government is hostile to religion, the hurdles are much higher. "The government is very anti-Christian," he said. "All of us are there because we have a role in the society. That role allows us to have an influence in the community we could never have otherwise."

Kingdom business

Community and business involvement is at the forefront of missions today, according to Tetsunao Yamamori, president emeritus of Food for the Hungry International, president of Global HMR, Inc., a Christian organization committed to holistic mission and research, and co-editor of the acclaimed book, "On Kingdom Business."

Yamamori writes that while Christians are everywhere in the world and evangelical Christianity is the fastest growing major religion, 1.6 billion of the world's 6.2 billion people still have not heard the gospel and have no opportunity to hear it.

Yamamori advocates using business as a model for reaching people in countries that restrict access to missionaries. There is interest in this method. Yamamori cites an increase of more than 300 percent in the number of mission agencies that supported "tentmaking" missionaries between 1992 and 1999.

But Yamamori notes that kingdom businesses are not "fronts to get into closed countries, but real enterprises that meet real human needs."

Hammond has latched onto the kingdom business model in Ghana. He is working with farmers there to promote sustainable agriculture for the community. Yamamori met with other missionaries to discuss opportunities for kingdom business.

Poverty

In open countries missions focus on training, discipleship and church planting. But even in developed nations, poverty remains a focus of Christian outreach. In Kenya, which may be classified as a Christian nation, due in part to a history of missionary work there, ministries today face other challenges.

Elijah Ombati was a businessman in Narok, Kenya who passed street children every day on his way to the office. "I remember thinking that I wanted to become a rich man, and bring lots of children to my home," Ombati said.

In 2000, Ombati started the Nasha Needy Children's International Project to offer street children food, clothing, education and counseling about Jesus Christ and the church.

"We make sure their physical and spiritual needs are being covered," Ombati said. "So far the Lord has been blessing to change the lives of the families. They see the Lord through their children."

Political upheaval

For others, like Ben and Karen Pennington, who have worked in Zimbabwe with Christian Outreach to Southern Africa since 1976, the challenges in ministry revolve around political turmoil.

"One of the problems is that because of the poor economy many parents have gone to England to work and left their children here," Karen explained. "So they go from house to house, shuffled around. That brings a lot of trouble for the children dealing with school."

The Penningtons expressed a sentiment common to all the missionaries to Africa who gathered for the Mombasa retreat. "Whenever you think about Zimbabwe, pray for us," Ben said. "It's a tough place. Pray God will give us the strength."