LCMS World Mission sent its first missionary to Guinea in 1996 to work with West African refugees who fled to Guinea to escape civil war and persecution in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The mission continues its work among the largely unreached Maninka people group, as several missionaries began to learn the language and culture of these Muslim people.
Refugees also established work among the Kuranko people in 2001. The Kuranko are nominally Muslim and speak a language similar to Maninka. The Gospel is being taught and proclaimed in six different languages with the potential of reaching more than 1.2 million people.
Currently there are three main areas of LCMS mission work in Guinea:
- Leadership training conducted by Guineans and Liberians, mainly among the Kissi people from Liberia, continues to take place on Market days in the Gueckedou and Kissidougou areas; these men then go back to their villages and teach others.
- Medical mission work, which includes nutrition and pediatric care as well as nutrition education takes place near Gueckedou among Kissi refugees from Liberia, in Kissidougou among the refugee camps in the north and among the Muslim Kuranko people that those refugees are reaching out to, and into the Parrot's Beak (the land area that juts into Sierra Leone) in N'Zerekore' among the Pelle people.
- Outreach to the Maninka people of northern Guinea, near the border of Mali, is led by LCMS missionaries living in Siguiri.Roughly 2 million Maninka, a Muslim people group, live in Guinea. The Maninka people are a numerous and widespread Muslim people group found throughout West Africa totaling 4 million persons. They are part of the Mande people cluster, all totaled, about 22.5 million people. Most Mande people groups, including the Maninka people, identify strongly with the religion of Islam but many continue to practice and mix in their traditional (animistic) beliefs. Maninka Christians represent less than a fraction of 1 percent of the population. The Maninka are an unevangelized people group. Two LCMS missionary families live among the Maninka and are teaching the Gospel to villages, where permission is granted by the elder, the local Imam, and other leaders to do so. Presently work has quickly expanded to twelve villages and several nationals have begun teaching as well. Teaching is done through chronological Bible story teaching begining with Abraham and the prophets through the time of Christ. Teaching is also done in conjunction with literacy lessons, using Bible memory verses as texts. The N'Ko language is spoken, but few know how to read and write it.

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Under the blessing of God, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Guinea continues to open many more preaching stations among the refugees and now the Guinean people as well. However, the total number of members declined recently due to the fact that many Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees returned to their home countries. In 2005, there were a reported 140 congregations and preaching stations in the Forest region of Guinea. The church operates 16 primary schools with an enrollment of approximately 1,312. Eight of these schools are in Lofa County, Liberia, but are administered by the Guinean Church Council.
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