At the time the Ghana Union Conference, the first union conference in sub-Saharan Africa, was just 11 months old. (Ghana was also the country of the first local conference in 1970.) The Seventh-day Adventist Church in the entire West African subregion owes its beginning to Francis I. U. Dolphijn, an African who, in 1888, began keeping the Sabbath after reading literature sent by the International Tract Society that had been supplied to him by the captain of a ship anchored in Apam, in present-day Ghana.

The Change and the Challenge
In 2002 another child was born, the recommendation of a General Conference commission on Africa. The new child was initially named the Western Africa Division (WAD), but the name was later modified to West-Central Africa Division (still WAD). The child was actually a triplet. Two other divisions were born along with it, the East-Central Africa Division (ECD) and the Southern Africa-Indian Ocean Division (SID).

WAD was left with five of the 10 major entities that made up the former AID, namely, Central African Union Mission, Ghana Union Conference, Nigeria Union Mission, Sahel Union Mission, and West African Union Mission. Luka Tambaya Daniel was president; Gilbert Wari, secretary; and Ceazar Hechanova, treasurer. The membership was instantly reduced by almost two thirds, from 1,582,959 to 628,303. Thus ours became the smallest of the new divisions in terms of church administrative entities and membership.

We did, however, retain three institutions of higher learning: Adventist University Cosendai in Cameroon, Babcock University in Nigeria, and Valley View University in Ghana. These institutions have so excelled in quality Christian education that they rank among the best in their respective countries. The last two have been fully chartered in the past quinquennium, thus attracting an influx of students as well as visits from government leaders of the countries they serve. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasenjo worshipped with the Babcock University community at the University church in October 2002; and Alhaji Aliu Mahama, vice president of the Republic of Ghana, was guest speaker at the Valley View University graduation in September 2003. Most of the 2,982 people baptized through the involvement of the three universities in 2003 were formerly non-Adventist students.

In spite of the huge reduction in the size of our division, there were a number of positives. Travel expenses became more cost-effective. Formerly there were times when some of us had to go through Europe to get to some destinations within the division. Unity also became easier to achieve and maintain with this smaller size.

Integrated Evangelism Outreach
In order to boost our membership we continued our outreach drive with the involvement of all the departments of the church. We integrated it with similar outreach initiatives from the General Conference, such as Go One Million, Sow 1 Billion, and, in 2004, the Year of World Evangelism. We also continued what has come to be known as Partnership Evangelism, an outreach relationship between our division (AID/WAD) and conferences, unions, and self-supporting ministries in North America.

A few of the successful Partnership Evangelism campaigns of this quinquennium include the following:

In Cameroon the government generously allowed us to use the national stadium in Yaoundé free of charge to run the Visions for Life satellite series in November 2002. The main speaker was Doug Batchelor, director of Amazing Facts, with support from the Adventist Television Network (ATN). More than 1,000 people were baptized at the main site alone.

In preparation for the Yaoundé satellite evangelism, thousands of Bible studies were conducted by church members, old and young, male and female. One of these dedicated members, Josephine Wagu, enrolled 1,350 students in Bible courses; 185 were baptized. One of those baptized went immediately to Adventist University Consendai to study theology. The Bible lesson studies were followed by about 1,000 small group minicampaigns run by ministers and lay volunteers, coordinated by Gabriel Boakye-Dankwa, director of the division's Office of Evangelism and Global Mission.

In Nigeria the church hosted the Visions for Victory satellite evangelism series, with Don Schneider, president of the North American Division, as the main speaker. The King's Heralds quartet from America, the Nigerian National Choir, and other singing groups from Nigeria's 10 conferences provided inspiring music. The series was uplinked from the Enyimba Stadium, Aba, home of the Enyimba Football Club.

The evangelistic outreach, conducted through most of November 2003, brought into the church an initial total of 19,662 new members nationwide, including more than 3,000 from the main site. "Sixteen new Branch Sabbath Schools were established, and two new churches were planted," reports Joseph A. Ola, formerly president of the Nigeria Union Mission, now president of the North-Western Nigeria Union Mission.

In Ghana the Carolina Conference evangelism organization deployed students and lay preachers to run campaigns in more than 70 sites in the country. Peter O. Mensah, president of the Ghana Union Conference, reported a bountiful harvest of 7,603 new members.

Partnership Evangelism is not limited to the use of the services of foreign partners only. Allah-Ridy Kone, president of North Cameroon Conference in the Central African Union Mission, has been using conventional public evangelism, baptizing hundreds of people, including Muslims. He uses a kind of partnership evangelism that engages preachers from both the union and the division. Last year he used the services of Pulcherie Tchoualeu, wife of the former union conference president. In that one year Mrs. Tchoualeu led out in two public campaigns, resulting in the baptism of 259 people.

In Gambia, E. Haapasalo, president of West African Union Mission, reported the baptism of 86 people at three sites in and around the capital, Banjul. This is the first of its kind in Gambia, which is predominantly Muslim. Some of the new converts are being sent as pioneer witnesses to their people.

Self-support
We strongly believe that mission status is a temporary arrangement for any administrative entity. Hence we have vigorously pursued the goal of developing our missions into conferences. At the final AID year-end council, held in Yaoundé, November 2002, the remaining three missions in Nigeria were granted conference status. With that action, all the church administrative entities in Nigeria became conferences.

This development encouraged the Nigeria Union Mission to request reorganization into two union conferences. Carlyle Bayne, former field secretary in charge of strategic planning and stewardship, began processing the request. When he went back to the Inter-American Division on permanent return, his successor, Danforth Francis, continued this work with equal enthusiasm.

A survey team from the General Conference recommended the creation of two union missions: the Eastern Nigeria Union Mission (ENUM), with a membership of 127,201 and headquarters in Aba; and the North-Western Nigeria Union Mission (NWUM), with 90,482 members and headquarters in Lagos. Both membership figures are as of December 31, 2003. At its past year-end meeting, the WAD elected officers for the two new unions. For the NWUM they are J. A. Ola, president; O. Okonkwo, secretary; and M. M. Dangana, treasurer. G. C. Nwaogwugwu, B.E.O. Udoh, and E. G. Manilla were elected as president, secretary, and treasurer, respectively, for ENUM. The two union missions were challenged to work toward becoming union conferences within two years.

Other Developments
God has helped us acquire some sophisticated equipment for our publishing house, the Advent Press. With a four-color press, the facility is now equipped to print books that are not only affordable, but also of superior quality. Our goal is to make it the printing press for all of Africa.

Similarly, we purchased a machine that can produce quality video programs for our media center in the office headquarters. In fact, we used it to produce our video report for this General Conference session. These two organizations are serving as the centers of the production of materials for both outreach and spiritual nurture.

We can report some encouraging developments in our health ministries, too. For years the only eye hospital in our division has been the one at Glei, in Togo, Sahel Union Mission. But in January 2004 another one was added with the dedication of the Seventh-day Adventist Cooper Eye Center in Monrovia, Liberia. This project began in 1999 with a visit of the regional officials of the Christian Blind Mission that eventually led to the choice of our hospital as one of the centers to provide eye-care services in Liberia.

In the meantime we are still struggling to solidify our postgraduate medical education at the Seventh-day Adventist Hospital Ile-Ife in Nigeria. We are encouraged by an increase in the number of Adventists coming into the program. With the decision to make the Seventh-day Adventist nursing school at Ile-Ife a degree-awarding institution, the school has begun a process of affiliation with Nigeria's Babcock University.

Special Events and Features
We ended 2003, our first year as the West-Central Africa Division, with a number of landmarks. The year-end council was graced with the presence of our world church leader, Jan Paulsen. He cut the ribbon for the multipurpose building that is, for practical purposes, the Riviera Seventh-day Adventist Church. The same day a government official cut the tape for the completion of the general renovation and extension of our office building, accomplished loan-free and debt-free.

In August about 3,000 women camped at Grand Bassam, near Abidjan. The General Conference was represented by its former Women's Ministries director, Ardis Stenbakken.

Also in August about 2,000 youth had their Pathfinder camporee in Lomé, Togo. Matthew A. Bediako, secretary of the General Conference, attended the occasion. The young people returned home with testimonies of rich spiritual experience.

Another special event was the inauguration of the two union missions in Nigeria, which took place on the grounds of the proposed office of the new Eastern Nigeria Union Mission. It was the culmination of a special session of the former Nigeria Union Mission and its final year-end meeting. A vote to dissolve the union was taken and the two new unions went into action and elected their department directors and laid plans to move toward becoming union conferences. Before the Sabbath sermon, a message of goodwill from the Abia State governor, Orji Kalu, was read by his deputy, Chima Nwafor. Choirs in colorful traditional costumes from the five conferences of the new ENUM provided the music. Elder Bediako preached the sermon for the worship service, in which he called the congregation to rededicate themselves to ideals of spiritual maturity demonstrated in self-sacrificing love that ignores regional and/or ethnic boundaries.

The services were conducted on the site of the proposed office complex of the new ENUM, a large piece of land worth 8 millon naira (more than US$57,000). The entire piece of land was purchased and donated to the ENUM by E. O. Adaelu, an Adventist lay leader and industrialist. Another church elder, Frank Adieleuwa, provided the sand that has been used for construction to this point. Dr. Adieleuwa supervises a ministry to the destitute and those in prison. His unique ministry garnered so much public attention that the federal government of Nigeria appointed him national prison counselor. He was also recently appointed director of the Hope Channel of the Adventist Television Network in Nigeria.

Quinquennial Objectives
We plan to implement three overarching objectives for the next quinquennium, christened Win One, Every Day With Jesus, and Global Mission. We plan to join the rest of the world in achieving these objectives through training, soul winning, church planting, spiritual nurture,
and self-support.

Since the primary duty of the church is soul winning, we plan to use the first objective, Win One, as a means of doubling our membership during the next quinquennium. We plan to use the slogan "Win One Each One, Each One Win One!" We believe that with a program like this, supported by good training, God will use all, ministers and members alike, to make the doubling of our membership in five years a mission possible.