A Vision Received, A Vision Passed On The History of EMS 1948-1998 - Paperback By Panya Baba The Birth and Growth of the Evangelical Missionary Society of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (EMS of ECWA) Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.’ Ezekiel 33:11 The Bible gives a clear picture of God's heart concerning lost sinners. If the condition of the lost is clearly understood, those who believe in Christ will do all they can to see that this Gospel of the Kingdom is preached to as many as possible. One of the ways this has been accomplished is through the establishment of mission organisations or agencies that work alongside churches to facilitate the proclamation of the Gospel. The Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) is one such organization whose first missionaries had the burden to reach the interior of Africa, especially the geographical area known, prior to colonial rule, as the Central Sudan. They arrived in this land, now known as Nigeria, in the year 1893. After years of faithful witnessing and teaching, churches were established and the converts assumed the burden and responsibility to take this Gospel of the Kingdom to others. They developed a lifestyle of evangelism and took the message they received to those around them. They moved out first to their relatives and neighbours, and then to more distant places to those of different tribes and cultures from their own. In order to facilitate the evangelism outreach of African Christians, SIM helped to organize a mission society for Africans. It was first known as the African Missionary Society (AMS) of the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM). AMS was born out of the early burden and vision passed on to the believers in the newly established SIM churches. The churches were eventually organized into a denomination called the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA).