At the beginning of this year we returned to Kenya and Burundi to run our follow-up programs with the classes that had been trained last year.
Kenya:
Pastor Fred Needham (NZ) did a fantastic job in training some of the leaders from previous years. With his knowledge and years of experience in ministry and leadership what he is able to impart into the lives of these new leaders is truly beneficial. After speaking to many of those who attended his sessions it was clear that they were able to gain a lot of valuable information that will help them in their on going work in communities throughout Kenya.
This time in Kenya I was able to go and visit some of our past church planters in their hometowns and villages. This was a great opportunity to not only see what they had achieved in their business, church and community development projects but also to see what challenges they face and how others perceive them in their communities. The first place we visited was in an area that is heavily affected by the lack of water. This place was truly desolate and water is worth more than anything else to the people of these communities. People living there sometimes walk for up to 15 km in the search of water. As we traveled along we saw dry riverbed after dry riverbed. At one particular “river” we stopped and talked to a woman who was digging in the riverbed itself. Her name was Grace and she and her children traveled here once or twice a day to fill containers with water. She would have to dig until water started to show and then scoop the water into the buckets she had brought. She told us that she had to dig further and further and travel greater distances every week as the rain still had not come as it normally should have. The other issue with the water that is to be found in these rivers is that most of it is polluted and many get sick from drinking it.
We travelled on to another of our church planters. This church planter had recognised that the greatest need for his community was water so he had taken it upon himself to dig a well. This process actually took him many months, but when the community saw what he was doing they all came and helped him and even supplied a hand pump to go on the well itself, making it easier to access the water. That one act of building a simple well has made such an impression on the people of the community and its leaders that it has enabled the church planter to have greater influence in his community.
The next place we visited was a village where the majority was Muslim. The church planter had been in this place for several years and when we arrived he was busy in one of the three businesses he had built. When he had first arrived in this village the people in the community told him that he was not welcome and that “no church would ever be allowed in this village”. The villagers would often throw things at him and his family and they were forced to meet in secret to be able to pray and have “church services”. However as he started his business and brought new ideas into the business sector he was able to win the respect of the people and community elders. He took great delight in showing us his new church building, which had just been completed a few months before we arrived. He told me that the people in the village had all gotten together and had supplied the materials to build this building. They even came and helped him with its construction. He and his congregation can now meet as they wish and everyone in the town is happy to have them there. These are only a few of the numerous success stories that I was able to hear and experience on my trip in Kenya. Like all the others I met, this man has become an agent of change in his community. What impressed me the most was the resilience and love that these men and women have for the people in their communities. Even in the face of great obstacles they have managed to bring real long lasting and sustainable change to all those in the towns and villages in which they live.
Burundi:
Although I was not able to visit Burundi this time (which is a shame as I really like this country) Lindsay Clarke and Fred Needham did. Pastor Fred was able to teach the church planters in this country, as he did in Kenya. It is always a blessing to partner with such great people. Lindsay had the opportunity to visit the church planters and see some of the projects that we have been able to be a part of as well as talk to our partners in this country about new initiatives that we will start near future. These guys are doing a fantastic job in their communities. One of these men saw that people in his community were getting sick from drinking the polluted water and so decided to try and fix the situation. He looked at filters in other places and came up with his own design using two containers and some sand. He has been manufacturing these and has so far given out filters to 80 families around him and has plans to produce many more.
Again there are many stories of how these men and women are changing their towns but what impressed me the most was the fact that they were able to solve most of the issues they were facing through the resources available to them and through innovative thinking.
The future of the programs in these nations is great and we are looking forward to the next church planting training in August this year.
inspirational work!