Southeast Africa Area Map

We have been asked and wondered ourselves which countries comprised the Southeast Africa area. This map is a little small but by double clicking on it you can enlarge it. Caution: it might take you away from this post requiring you to navigate back here.

You can see that it starts with Equatorial Guinea and Gabon up in the northwest, then proceeding east includes the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) and Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa). Continuing east is Uganda and then northeast through Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and the Sudan. With that as the northern border countries, you can include everything south to the Cape of Good Hope. Don't forget the islands in the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, the Comores, Mayotte and who knows what else. Whew! In all, about 30 countries, a lot of territory to cover but there are several of the countries that do not have organized units nor missionaries yet. If I am not repeating myself or if the numbers haven't changed, my understanding is that we have 230 English speaking units, 103 French speaking units and 17 Portuguese speaking.

I discussed our work load with Jan and suggested the following: we could split the English speaking units evenly. Then because I have the stronger background in French, I could handle the French units. That would leave only the 17 Portuguese speaking units and with neither one of us speaking Portuguese, I thought Jan should learn Portuguese. How hard can it be! There's only 17 units! (Her response is unprintable and best left to your imagination!)

My first job after graduating from BYU was with the International Division of the Carnation Milk Company. (Surely you remember the canned condensed milk from "contented cows".) I was the marketing manager for Africa and the Middle East. I traveled to many of these same countries but that was back in the early 70's. I suspect that there will have been many changes in the past 30 years. I am looking forward to seeing what can change in that period of time. I think that in some of the more backward countries of Africa, I'm not going to notice too much improvement.