Veteran Ghanaian Church Planter Eric Aidoo Reaches Africans In Chicago

For months he slept in someone else's apartment while his wife and four children slept 5,800 miles away. For Eric Aidoo, penetrating lostness in the city of Chicago isn't just an abstract idea -- it's a calling worth giving up everything.

Aidoo had been a Baptist minister in his home country of Ghana for 17 years before he felt God's call to a seminary in Maryland three years ago. While there, God began to point him toward Chicago.

"God laid on my heart that there are no Ghanaian African Baptist churches [SBC] in all of Chicago," said Aidoo, a North American Mission Board church planter. "I was a student. I had no money, but I knew if God called me to do this, He would provide." 

And He has. God has brought people to the new church, which has averaged 50 in attendance since launching earlier this year. God also provided through Southern Baptists, whose Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong Easter Offering gifts have helped support Aidoo's work. 

With more than 8.7 million people in the metro area (an area of 10 Illinois counties surrounding the city), Chicago is one of the largest of NAMB's 30 Send North America cities. Southern Baptists currently have 275 congregations engaging the area, but many more are needed, according to the locals formulating the Send North America: Chicago strategy. So far the local strategy team has identified 161 locations in the Chicago area that need new churches.