It is no wonder that Africans, yearning for the treasures that Allah promises to offer, are converting to Islam en masse.

Citizens of every African nation face a legion of formidable challenges. The will to live is tested—usually more often than not.

Subsistence farmers watch their families grow weak from starvation when months without rain leave crops to wither in the desert heat. In nations where rainfall is plentiful, flooding spawns diseases of epidemic proportions. Many of these diseases, curable with simple antibiotics, devastate entire populations for lack of basic medical care. Malaria claims more lives than AIDS.

Millions of innocent men, women and children are murdered in bloody tribal warfare that aims to annihilate targeted ethnicities.

The suffering has prompted the United Nations, foreign aid and humanitarian organizations to pour billions of dollars into the continent…and the lack of improvement has caused members of these same organizations to shake their heads in frustration. Does hope exist for Africa?

Perhaps the answer has less to do with economic factors, and more to do with the spiritual condition of the continent.

Millions of Africans languish in a spiritual bondage of such magnitude that it compels them to engage in heinous acts of witchcraft to appease "spirit gods." Altars, erected in almost every home and temple, are regularly stained with the blood of animal and human sacrifices. In a never-ending cycle, each new generation is born into the nightmare.

Throughout my travels in Africa I have been continually bombarded with the notion that the spiritual and economic degradation in African nations would cease if only their governments were not as corrupt. Yet every spiritually educated African believer is aware that satanic bondage, manifested as witchcraft and false religions, is what truly represses the continent.

In contrast, the selfless love of Christ, embodied in African Christians, can transform nations and people. Those who have been set free through the power of Christ want to take the gospel to those in spiritual darkness, but lack the financial resources and proper training to do so.