Dear ministry partners, thank you so very much for your faithful prayers over the past three weeks filled with very significant ministry. God honored your prayers, and I’m excited to report to you some of what He has been doing! My travel partner Kyle and I landed in Nairobi, Kenya, and we participated in a worship service the next day (Kyle helping with worship and I preached). Check out this fun video of Kyle and the praise team singing “Hakuna Mungu kama Wewe” (There is no God like You!)–>

The next day, we made our way to very rural southern Kenya, to the town of Matiliku. I offered a refresher workshop for 50 Pathways master trainers and those ministry leaders they had trained, and then we conducted a graduation for the whole group. What a joyful experience to see Pathways Bible Training embraced and spreading through this region!

Our coordinators in Matiliku, Pastor Shadrack and Pastor Onesmus, are dear friends I have grown to love for many years. In this three minute video they share about the need for Pathways in their region and throughout Africa:

In addition, when not doing training, we led services at churches and in schools, and even spent part of a day hiking up a very high rock hill called Mt. Nzaui.

Following our time in Matiliku, we returned to Nairobi to launch a new Pathways network. Silas is our local coordinator in this location, and it was exciting talking to him about future possibilities not only in Nairobi but perhaps also in a large refugee camp to the north of over a million people including Somalis, Ethiopians, Sudanese, and others. We both share a passion for getting God’s Word into the hearts and minds of the unreached, and this would be a fabulous way to do it.

From Nairobi we transitioned to the second largest city in Kenya, warm coastal Mombasa. This network is run by a school called Tyrannus Bible School. Tyrannus selects young couples and singles from various indigenous groups to be trained in church planting through a seven-month training program, and then they are sent to difficult, unreached areas. This appeals to me as I am trying to move toward a more “unreached people group” focus in Pathways. I have distilled portions of our first four workshops into a hybrid version since I only get four days with these church planters. They have a challenging road before them, but they absolutely delighted in the Bible training I offered them. One of the coordinators shared, “Your training with Pathways is some of the most challenging the students receive. I don’t know how you did it, but they really captured what you shared. The principles for Bible study are desperately needed, and the students were thrilled to share with me all their new knowledge of how to study the Scriptures.” Here are some of their comments after the training:

• Muhammad – “Now I have learned skills to study and understand the Word verse by verse rather than just sharing my own ideas.” (He has an internet following with whom he is using Pathways.)
• Habtamu – “I have a great passion to preach God’s Word but I didn’t know how. Now I have learned what I need.”
• Christopher – “I looked it up on a map and see that you come from so far away. Thank you for the good training you have brought us. I am truly encouraged. Also your relationships and your teaching methods were so helpful for us.”

For security reasons, I’m not able to post pictures of any of the students without blacking out faces, but please keep them in your prayers as they are on the frontlines of ministry in some of the most challenging places on earth. We heard several dramatic testimonies of how God saved them out of false religions, primarily “Is*am,” through dreams, persecution, and much suffering. Many are still embedded in these traditions, with family not knowing they are now followers of Christ.

Thank you again, friends, for your “partnership in the Gospel.” For more information about how to join our team of partners, please click the tab at left “partnership info.” Grace and peace to you.