Missionaries to Cameroon, West Africa

We are Seth and Kaitlin Folkers, missionaries to Cameroon, West Africa. The Lord is leading us to work alongside and behind pioneer church planters to see new believers grounded in the faith, particularly through training up national pastors and teachers to lead these young churches. Eph. 4:11-16 is the heartbeat of our ministry.
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In November 2018 we returned from eleven months in Cameroon, where we worked with veteran missionary Tom Needham and others. Our plan was to follow up on the many new churches that have been planted in the Akwaya jungle region in particular. We would do this traveling in a circuit, teaching Bible classes in three different village locations. Although unrest in the country upended many of our plans, the Lord had better ones! He still allowed me to teach Bible Institute classes on Soteriology and Pneumatology, in four different locations instead of just the three. The response was encouraging and the churches helped. My wife taught the children, and also helped at a deaf camp. In our final months, as fighting hindered us from reaching those locations again, we were able to spend much time in our home with various young men, teaching and mentoring them. The need for faithful leaders in these churches is dire, but there are a number of young men coming up who have tremendous potential.

When we finally had to leave our home because of the deteriorating war-zone conditions, a part of our hearts was left behind. God used our time there to burden us deeply for Cameroon and to knit our hearts with the believers and other missionaries. By God’s grace, our desire is to go back as soon as possible. In the meantime, the doors are still open just across the border in Nigeria—where thousands of Cameroonian villagers are gathered in refugee camps—and over on the French side of the country, both with the native French-speakers and thousands more English-speaking refugees. We plan to locate in one of those areas this fall, Lord willing.

I was raised in a godly home from birth. After salvation, the Lord brought me to the place of surrender to His will at 13 years old, and I distinctly sensed His call to foreign missions. I completed three years of Bible training through Pioneer Bible Institute, a school for training pastors and other church workers in the Midwest; it was started and led by my grandfather, with whom I was privileged to work closely for a number of years. In further preparation for missionary service, the Lord led me to the seminary at Baptist College of Ministry, where I graduated in May with an M.A. in Bible. I am also nearing completion of the M. Div. through the same seminary.
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Kaitlin was raised Catholic in a small SD town, but when she was ten years old a church-planter led her and (subsequently) her family to the Lord. As a teenager, she became deeply burdened for missions. After high school graduation and completion of a three-year Bible Institute program (through Faith Bible Institute), she spent four months teaching in Ghana. She then returned to Ghana as a long-term missionary, but a tragic change in circumstances on the field forced her to return to the U.S. in August 2015. While waiting on the Lord, she served in her home church in SD, teaching a children’s SS class and beginning an outreach Bible study with young women. However, she continued to have a deep burden for the foreign mission field.

In January, 2016, we began a long-awaited, long-distance relationship under the authority of our parents and pastors. The Lord’s blessing upon it was evident, and on July 23 we were engaged. We were joyfully married on October 7, and look forward to the blessing of serving the Lord together the rest of our lives!

I have had opportunity to teach Bible Institute classes in Uganda and South Africa, as well as here in the U.S. I’ve also been deeply involved in the ministries of the various local churches of which I have been a member, and I spent two years working at a home for troubled young men in Vanduser, Missouri. Kaitlin has had experience teaching women and children, and will continue to do so as we minister together. She has a burden for the deaf as well—in Ghana she learned and taught in Ghanaian Sign Language—and this may be part of our future ministry as the Lord directs.

Our goal was to raise about half of our support before leaving for Cameroon in December of 2017. The Lord blessed, and we returned to the U.S. in November of 2018 with only 25% left to raise. We are still seeking the Lord’s direction as to where he would have us to relocate, but we plan to be back in Africa by the fall of 2018. The need for bringing Bible teaching to the village churches, so that men can grow in their knowledge of God’s Word while continuing to serve in their local churches and raise their families, is the specific burden the Lord has laid on our hearts. The open doors are wonderful, and we look forward to returning to the work!

We appreciate your prayerful consideration of our ministry, and your partnership with us as the Lord leads.

The Lord’s grace be with you,
Seth and Kaitlin Folkers