First howFar Celebration Banquet Huge Success

April 23, 2010 marked the first annual howFar Ministries and How Far Foundation Celebration Banquet. The event hosted one-hundred twenty of our mission and ministry partners and their guests.




Guests were welcomed by an original oil painting donated by local artist, Phil Bursi. The painting is of a village church the Maynard's visited in 2005. The hand built mud church sits in the palm covered hills of Rabi, Kenya. The area is one hour inland from Mombasa, the largest coastal port in Kenya.



Board Vice-Chairman, Scott Gates, welcomed the guests and shared some of his personal experiences from his mission with a howFar team in Myanmar.



An African themed buffet dinner of Tomato and Cucumber Salad, Groundnut Stew with Chicken and Beef, Rice and Sweet Roasted Plantains was enjoyed by all.



Several additional original oil paintings by Phil Bursi were offered in a Silent Auction. The auction raised $2,200.00 for How Far Foundation, Inc.



The Drummers of Burundi entertained the guests with Burundian folk music and dances. The group is comprised of several members who escaped the 1993 genocide and fled to the US as refugees. Of their music they say, "Africa is the continent of drums, but the drums of Burundi require extraordinary vigor, dexterity, agility and grace. Burundi drums sound like rolling thunderclaps. You don't listen to them with your ears; you listen with your heart."



Our guests were captivated by the sound of the Burundian drums.









After a moving video that captured images of churches, schools and our brothers and sisters in Sub Sahara, Africa howFar founder, Mark Maynard, shared the history and vision of howfar Ministries and How Far Foundation. "Our mission is to obediently take the gospel message to unreached and unengaged people groups and then to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ by offering humanitarian aid that will improve their quality of life".

He went on to explain that howFar plans to maintain its work with the Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania and expand its work among the Batwa Pygmies in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and The DR Congo.

Additionally, he announced that howFar has committed its resources to reaching the unreached and unengaged Ngongo people group. The Ngongo inhabit the deepest forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With no roads leading into their remote villages, and Hutu rebels still active in the area, this will be howFar's most aggressive mission effort to date. No Bible or Jesus Film exisits in the Ngongo language.


Table covers, in African animal prints, were made by the Refugee Sewing Society of Clarkston, Georgia, Clarkston is one of the main entrance points for refugees entering the US. In fact, many of the people groups that we are engaging around the world have refugees living in Clarkston. Our desire is to engage them here as well as in their homeland.



Mark Maynard reminded the guests that everything that has been done through howFar should cause us to celebrate God's goodness, mercy and grace and that it is all for His glory.

Mark reminded the group of our mission question, "howFar will you go?" He asked two questions of the guests.

"First, for those of you who have worked with us and prayed for us and supported us over the years. Will you continue to 'go' with us? Will you go until all that God has chosen for Himself have come in?"

"And for those of you who have come as guest tonight. Maybe you have been moved by what you have seen and heard tonight. Will you consider joining us? Will you 'go' with us?"

"howFar will you go?"


After the Celebration Banquet the Drummers of Burundi mixed with our guests. They taught Burundian dance steps and let them play their drums.



The compelling question at howFar is this, "howFar will you go?" How far will any of us go to fulfill the Great Commission?

Gihara Baptist Church & Crimson Academy Progress

Construction of Gihara Baptist Church and Crimson Academy continues outside of Kigali the capital of Rwanda. Our team will visit the site in mid-June to inspect the progress and make plans for the church and schools completion and opening.


Foundation began in January, 2010



The buildings completed roof. April 2010

The How Far Foundation will be recruiting four teachers and two aids to work at the Crimson Academy. The facility will also be home to Gihara Baptist Church whose members are mostly Batwa. The church will be lead by Pastor Vinesti.

howFar Sub Sahara Church Plant Map - April 2010

(Click on image to enlarge)

howFar Celebration Banquet Video - April 23, 2010

Great Commission Resurgence

Recently, the Southern Baptist Convention was presented with a progress report from The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. This group of leaders was charged with examining the way that the Southern Baptist denomination views, and executes against, Christ’s command to make disciples of all the nations. Many believe that the denomination will move to make significant, and extraordinary, changes this summer to create an environment of unity and co-operation that will lead to a recommitment, a resurgence, to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Their goal: “To present the gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all nations”.

That is a huge challenge…one that a single denomination cannot complete alone. We believe that God has called howFar Ministries to participate in the fulfillment of the Great Commission, shoulder to shoulder, in partnership with other God-centered evangelical denominations and agencies.


As of this writing, there are no Southern Baptist missionaries working in Burundi or in The Democratic Republic of the Congo. The DRC is the third largest country on the Africa Continent. Nearly 80 million people live in these two countries. We have accepted the call and God has placed howFar Ministries in these two countries. To date, we have planted two churches in Burundi and one in the DRC in the Kivu District. Our plan is to push deeper into the heart of the DRC this summer with the saving gospel message of Jesus Christ.

The northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a difficult place for missionaries. Ongoing clashes with Rwandan Hutu rebels has caused a destabilization of the region. However, the gospel message must continue to go out and, in times of trial, hearts are open.

Here is an update on the situation in the area near Gome where we are working in partnership with Congolese leaders.


GOMA, 1 March 2010 (IRIN) – For the many thousands of people displaced by conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kivu regions who have returned to their villages, home has its many hardships.

“Return has not always been durable, as the reduction of food rations in camps [for displaced people - IDPs] and the arrival of the new planting season rather than any improvement in security have led people to go back,” the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) stated in a 24 February report.

“Many people returned home to find their land occupied, while renewed clashes in return areas also forced people to flee again soon after their arrival home,” it said.

Across eastern DRC, “access to basic necessities … has deteriorated over the last year in the context of military operations and reprisals and continuing abuses against the population. The vast majority of IDPs and returnees have no access to health centres and schools, or to clean water, food, seeds, tools or building materials,” according to the report.


A boy pokes his head through a hole in the tarpaulin that acts as the wall of his classroom in an IDP camp in Minova, DRC Photo: Aubrey Graham/IRIN
During 2009, according to IDMC, about a million people returned to their villages in North and South Kivu – about the same number who fled because of clashes, mainly between government forces and Rwandan Hutu rebels.

In North and South Kivu, there are 1.36 million IDPs, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).


A woman on the road to the market Photo: Nicholai Lidow/IRIN

In the North Kivu capital of Goma, some 77,000 people live in IDP camps, against about twice that number two years ago.

“Many have gone back to their land, and we are getting noises that more want to return,” Masti Notz, head of the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, in North Kivu told IRIN.

“Positive change is progressively taking place in Eastern DRC,” Alan Doss, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, wrote in the East African newspaper on 1 March.


Please pray for our work, for the believers in the DRC, for our Batwa church at Mudja and for a harvest in the region.

First Annual Celebration Banquet
howFar Ministries and The How Far Foundation
April 23, 2010
6:30 TO 9:30 PM
The Community Center at Cross Pointe Church
1800 Satellite Boulevard
Duluth, Georgia 30097

"I Love You Jesus, You Are My Savior"

I was thrilled when the boys of Standard Two chose this song when I asked them to sing for me. Lake Jipe Baptist Primary School, in western Kenya, was founded in 2006 by our ministry. It is now operated in a partnership with The How Far Foundation and the Education Ministry of Kenya. Approximately 120 Maasai students, in 6 grade levels, attend the school.