Youth Leaders from a local Baptist Church in Nairobi
Hello Friends!
August was a good and busy month of starting back school for Kelly and getting back into ministry for Matt! Matt had the privilege of training several leaders of youth ministries around Nairobi. It’s been interesting and exciting to see how many churches have reached out and asked Matt to train their youth leaders on how to use biblical principles in discipleship and evangelism. Historically, we’ve been more focused on establishing youth ministry where there is none, so this seems to be a possible new facet of the ministry.
Matt has also been invited by some people from the country of Niger in West Africa to teach at two different seminaries there. We have never done any ministry in West Africa, so this would a brand new door into a historical spiritually dark area. It is very expensive to travel there, around $1000 for a flight, and too far and difficult to drive. If we feel that God is leading us to expand in this direction, our desire would be to lay some ground work there, with the hope that a full-time missionary would come to follow through on training the nationals there.
At the beginning of the year, Matt trained a pastor from the Maasai bush area. One of the principles we teach is evangelism in the form of “chapati evangelism”- equivalent to “pizza evangelism” in the U.S. (Chapatis are round flat breads commonly eaten here). It’s a way for youth to help evangelize in their community. The pastor called Matt and said he had started a youth bible study, and his youth were now implementing this “chapati” evangelism. The youth contributed their own money to buy flour and oil, cooked the chapatis themselves and then took them out to friends they know are not saved. They then took those friends to church to eat more chapatis, and a member of the youth ministry preached the gospel. It has been a very effective and fun form of evangelism for this pastor and his church. The pastor was excited to see youth being saved and his youth taking ownership of evangelism. We are thankful to see pastors implementing the practical principles that we teach to reach others for Christ!
Thank you all for your continued prayers and support! We appreciate you!