For the last three weeks Doreta and Lidia have been in Embu, Kenya, at the Angaza Bible School which is a branch of the Torchbearers Bible schools. It is for people from 18 to 25 years old. Angaza in Swahili means, “enlightenment” or “illumination.” What an apt name for a Bible school! Students come from not only Kenya but from Malawi and parts of the West for a month of intensive teaching and ministry experience.
Doreta has been on staff. She is leading a “family” group of female students together with Anne who has been one of the Kenyan students and who studied in Ersekë last year. These groups are aimed at helping the students not just to get to know each other better but to be able to share deeply with one another. She has organized practical work teams at the center where they are staying but her main role has been in an outreach team to the area around the Family Worship Church in Embu. This team has been sharing the gospel to anyone who will listen in the neighbourhood. Many of the young men that they have spoken to are hooked on “khat” a leaf that is chewed to produce the effects of a drug and is addictive. Doreta was able to purchase some Swahili New Testaments and has given out 15-20 so far. Please pray particularly for Gideon who has received a Testament and for whom Doreta has prayed (see photo). Pray that as the team of students and staff love, serve and spend time among the local community while sharing the gospel that there will be fruit. Pray for the members of the local church helping them. Pray that they will continue to follow up contacts and be willing to disciple any who become believers.
Pray particularly for young men from the Embu Rescue Center who are meeting at the Family Life church for teaching. All are addicted to glue and khat and are homeless. Some if not all will have been abused sexually. Pray for salvation, for freedom from addictions and for housing. Pray that these young men will become part of the local church.
Lidia has been a student during this time. She has been able to hear both Western and African teachers and has been part of another ministry team as well as being able to use her musical gifts in the times of singing and prayer at Bible school. She writes as follows about what she has learned from this experience:
- To appreciate God’s full character and how sovereign He is.
- To depend on God’s leading, one step at a time, even when it doesn’t look like the right direction.
- To pour into other people, despite how long you spend with them.
Will spent just over a week in Embu. His first task was to preach at the Family Life Church on what is saving faith from Genesis 12. Then he began to teach on the book of Colossians at Angaza. It was encouraging to see how the students engaged with what was being taught and had intelligent questions about it. Indeed during the whole time the students bombarded him with personal, practical and theological questions. Some asked to spend time with him individually and it was so precious to spend time with one young man who feels called to pastoral ministry.
Will was then asked to lead a session on purity with the student body. The school has organized seminars that are extra-curricular but based on the questions and needs that the students have expressed. Will prepared a seminar not knowing the barrage of questions that would await him nor how explicit they would be! Nothing could have prepared him for the terrible things that some of the students have experienced at such a young age. After this session, which ran from 9:15 to 11 PM separate sessions were organized for young men and women and many more issues came out in these! What struck him was:
- How the world is educating young people in the area of sex rather than the church.
- How much the values and norms of the West have infiltrated the church and how this is damaging our youth.
- How much shame young believers are carrying from their past and how broken they are by their experiences.
- Yet how powerful the gospel is to break through immorality and addiction to transform lives. Some young ladies shared their testimonies and have been free from addiction for 2/3 years and are walking with the Lord!
Will also taught 8 sessions on the work of preaching to a group of pastors in Embu. This year there were slightly higher numbers and it was encouraging to see some younger men coming to the conference. The first day, quite frankly, was hard. People did not seem to engage with the materials and there was an edge to the atmosphere. Will decided that night to change his approach and to use small group discussions more.
The next day was incredibly different. Men lit up and engaged well with the materials. They opened up in conversation between sessions and shared some of the burdens and dilemmas they are facing. We were able to give each pastor a book on how to preach through a particular part of the Bible as well as full notes from the sessions in booklet form.
A number of things made a real impression on Will:
- How Biblically illiterate pastors are in rural areas- one man could not find Colossians in his Bible and another did not the difference between the new birth and redemption. He did not really know what either word means. If pastors do not know the truth what hope is there for the churches.
- Many churches are defenseless against the prosperity gospel and other forms of false teaching- you can hear elements of this teaching even in the prayers and teaching of good men who are pastoring.
- How much pressure pastors are under pressure to conform to cultural expectations. Pastors shared that they would lose their church if they did expository preaching because people are expecting shouting and ranting not a sermon.
- How hard pastors find it in communities that are just about surviving on farming.
Will then preached at Embu University (see below). Despite it being a bank holiday due to Kenyan liberation day and there being many students away, there were around 60/70 students- mostly post grads. Will preached on the new birth and then had a follow up session with some first years. What a thirst they had for the Word and how earnest they were. They wanted to know our impressions of their meeting and what could be done better.
The next day he returned home exhausted but full of joy. Please pray for the following:
- For the remaining week or so of the Bible school that God would bless the teachers, students and all whom they are serving. Pray that this experience will be used by God to raise up young people for His harvest fields!
- Pray for Doreta and Lidia to have energy to thrive in an incredibly busy schedule and pray that this time will impact them deeply.
- Pray for future plans for the Angaza School. Pray that God would guide and provide for the next steps.
- Pray for the Family Worship church in Embu that they will be fruitful in evangelism, dedicated to discipleship and active in service. Pray for their pastor, Jim, that God would use him and his assistant- Joseph.
- Pray for pastors in Kenya that they would preach the Word faithfully and be prepared to pay the price of losing popularity. Pray that they might grow spiritually, theologically and in character and that they would be examples to their flocks.
- Pray for plans for next year- Will has been invited to visit another town around half an hour from Embu to minster there as well as speaking at the pastoral conference. The conference next year will be open to young men that pastors are training and to pastor’s wives as there is nothing in the area for them!