The American Church and Africa

I will make this short and simple, but I have hopes that many will be interested in the idea.

We have all seen that huge amounts of foreign aid pouring into Africa through the years has done relatively little to make the lives of Africans better.  They still lack some of the basic things like access to clean water or reliable food supplies.

At the same time, I imagine many American Christians have also been part of small efforts to provide money to dig wells, build small bridges, and other attempts to improve the quality of life in Africa.  It seems to me the time has come to push harder on this front.

Through personal relationships formed by American pastors and missionaries with African pastors, we should be able to directly channel aid to our brothers and sisters in Christ (and thus to the communities of which they are part) without encountering the corruption and waste through which foreign aid seems destined to pass.  I mean, who needs the U.N. when we have the Kingdom?

I would love to hear in comments about people who have been involved with this kind of activity or who would like to comment upon the wisdom (or unforeseen challenges) of the idea.