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St Francis Magazine Vol 9, No 4 | August 2013
1. Introduction
A PROVIDENTIAL PERFECT STORM –
THE INTERNET PROVIDES GOSPEL ACCESS TO SOMALIS
Ben I. Aram
The term “perfect storm” entered popular usage in 2000 through the American film by that name.
Based loosely on the true story of a fishing boat sinking in the North Atlantic in 1991, it depicted the
confluence of several unrelated weather fronts with a hurricane. Since then, this term is used to
describe a situation when multiple, seemingly random factors dramatically coincide and combine for
dramatic (and usually disastrous) consequences. As Christians, we confess that all human history
takes place under God’s sovereign control, including the advance of the Gospel and the growth of
Christ’s Church. Seemingly unrelated or random events are actually orchestrated within God’s
eternal plan. The impact of Gospel communication to the Somali people via the Internet is a case in
point. The results are fairly dramatic although I hope to avoid both triumphalism and exaggeration.
With the eyes of faith, we recognize that separate cultural factors and historical events have been
combined by Divine Providence into a “perfect storm” for His gracious purposes, taking place against
a backdrop of tragic upheaval and national disintegration.
2. After a century of missions—meager results
While there is evidence that scattered churches existed on the periphery of Somali territory over a
millennium ago, by 1500 the Somali people were entirely Islamized 1 . The modern missionary era
began in 1880 with French Roman Catholic missionaries of the Capuchin order establishing work in
Berbera and Seylac (Zeila) in British Somaliland. Protestant missions began in 1898 with the arrival
of the Swedish Evangelical Mission (SEM) at the port of Kismaayo in British East Africa 2 , 1500 km
to the south 3 . While a statistically exact study remains to be done, a general impression of the first
century of modern Christian mission work among Somalis is that results were more meager than in
comparable efforts in other majority Muslim lands. A rough estimate of Christians in 1990 (both
Protestant and Roman Catholic) would be less than 1,000.
2.1 Somalia as a failed state
In late January 1991, the 22 year regime of President Maxamed Siyaad Barre collapsed. The civil
war had begun in 1978 as disgruntled army officers attempted a coup after their disastrous defeat by
Soviet forces during the 1977 Ogaden War. This conflict simmered in remote rural areas until mid-
1988 when it finally exploded to full-scale warfare at Hargeysa in former British Somaliland.
Following the fall of Barre’s government, Somaliland has seceded and has become a reasonably
stable, although unrecognized, nation. The rest of Somalia has lacked a truly effective government
and has earned the dubious ranking of the world’s most extreme case of “failed state” 4 .
1
Ben I. Aram. “Somalia's Judeo-Christian Heritage: A Preliminary Survey”, African Journal of Evangelical Theology Vol. 22
(2): 3-28, (2003).
2
This border area was later ceded to Italy and became part of its Somalia colony.
3
Frank-Ole Toresen. The Church as the Reconciled Community of Suffering Disciples of Ciise Masiix: Towards a Contextual
Somali Ecclesiology, PhD thesis. MHS School of Mission and Theology, Stavanger, Norway, (August 30, 2012), Chapter 4
summarizes mission history for Somalia.
4
The efforts of African Union peacekeeping forces to support the Transitional Federal Government and the election of
Professor Xasan Sheekh Maxamuud as president provide glimmers of hope for the rebuilding of this shattered nation.
St Francis Magazine is published by Arab Vision and Interserve 33