Christ the King Welcomes Jason Bergmann on Global Mission Sunday

By Judy Hill, Global Mission Team Member

​Christ the King’s Global Mission Team is excited to welcome Jason Bergmann as our 2021 Global Mission Sunday speaker. His global perspective is an important part of his role as the Executive Director of Operation Bootstrap Africa (OBA), a Minnesota-based non-profit foundation that has been working with Africans in educating their children since 1965.

Jason Bergmann is a Minnesota native and graduate of St. Mary’s University in Winona. He has found inspiration for his life in a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior: “What are you doing for others?” He previously worked at Mercy Nursing Home and was the executive director of their foundation for five years.

He came to Operation Bootstrap Africa in 2018, feeling called by their mission to build African partnerships and strengthen their future through education, healthcare, agriculture, and other long-term development. As their name suggests, OBA has a self-help philosophy, working with local groups, using local resources, and following local priorities. OBA has worked with partners in Kenya, Tanzania, and Madagascar and is interdenominational.

In October 2020 Jason Bergmann received a text with pictures from OBA schools in Southern Madagascar. He had known about the prolonged drought there, but had not realized that famine had set in. The pictures showed children with obvious signs of malnutrition. Because of the global pandemic, Madagascar had closed its borders to international travelers.  OBA did, however, get special permission from the Malagasy government to enter the country for humanitarian reasons. He will share some of his experiences from this and other African trips, both in the day’s sermon and in the 11 am adult education forum. Please join us in listening to Jason Bergmann’s stories.