OMS beginnings in South Africa are shrouded in obscurity. Following a two month stint there in 1967, Wesley Duewel stated that Mrs. J. F. Kiber, a Dutch Reformed minister’s wife, was the first known OMS contact. He believed she became acquainted with the Mission about 1930.

Miss A. M. Buitendag, a schoolteacher in Boksburg, learned of OMS work in China and started collecting money to transmit to OMS headquarters in Shanghai among fellow teachers. With the gift, Miss Buitendag included a list of donors. Bud Kilbourne responded at once, telling Miss Buitendag that God had obviously chosen her to represent OMS in South Africa. While initially unsure this was true, once convinced, she purchased a typewriter for easier communication between Shanghai and the developing new constituency and the OMS South Africa office opened.

Miss J. D. du Plessis, a nurse in Cape Town, learned of Miss Buitendag’s work. Suddenly and unannounced, she appeared on the school teacher’s doorstep with the surprising news that God had sent her to assist her in representing OMS. The two women acquired larger working space and also began to consult with a local clergyman who became an unofficial council of reference.

About 1938, God spoke to Eunice Marais, a young woman converted under a YWCA worker in Cape Town, Aletta Jacobsz. Miss Marais went to China in the autumn of that year as South Africa’s first OMS missionary.

World War II interrupted the work of the small office and, while contact remained between OMS and South Africa, it was not until 1978 that the next career missionary from South Africa, Louisa Horn, went to Spain 1978. In 1984 Annette Theron (Rosell) also went to Spain as a career missionary. It then became obvoius that OMS needed a properly established office in South Africa and Alan Sylvester, together with his wife Jeanne, was appointed as the first Executive Director in South Africa. In 1988 Johan and Neeltjie van Heerden along with their family left for Taiwan as career missionaries.

Since then several other South Africans have gone as OMS missionaries to other countries.

In November 1999, OMS approved the Into Africa proposal which originated from the OMS South Africa Board. The Into Africa Project is intended to minister among the refugee and immigrant communities of central and southern Africa who relocated to South Africa following the dismantling of the Apartheid government. The project focuses on these refugee and immigrant communities, but has been broadened to include other ethnic groups not indigenous to South Africa, including the expatriate Chinese community as well as relocated non-Christian communities.

OMS partners with numerous other South African churches in the areas of evangelism, church planting and leadership training. We praise God for what he's done through our Every Community for Christ (ECC) teams in 2007:

• Teams: 2
• Team members: 33
• Decisions for Christ: 267
• People in discipleship or lay-leadership training: 30

 For more information, please visit South Africa's website.