The contrast between the north and south of Kenya is substantial. Gerald and Louise Mwangi recount the challenges and unexpected opportunities in the vast, arid north, where Folk Islam and African Traditional Religion are the majority religions.

Our ministry began in 2016 with the pioneering of a sixmonth residential youth discipleship programme as a ‘gap year’ for high school leavers before they joined college or looked for work. This programme was based at iServe Africa, and we served there happily for about 6 years. During that time, we saw many young people come from far-flung areas across Kenya. We started praying and asking God to show us how we could walk alongside the church in Kenya to empower their workers to reach out to more young people.

We started to explore different opportunities and then received the go ahead from Archbishop Ole Sapit to work with the Anglican Church of Kenya. We felt challenged to focus on churches ministering in hard, poverty-stricken areas, like the Diocese of Marsabit. Due to the harsh climate and poor soil for agriculture, the communities who live there largely depend on herding animals for their livelihood.

There are many communities who reside within Marsabit: the Gabra, Boran, Rendile, Samburu and Turkana. Most of these communities practice Folk Islam (Islam incorporated with native folk beliefs and practices) or African Traditional Religions (rituals that demonstrate loyalty to ancestors and beliefs that have been handed down over many generations).

Our ministry in Marsabit is two-fold. As a family, we visit twice a year in April and August to join a team who train 80-100 people. The journey is about 13 hours by car (with three small ones!), so it’s pretty exhausting. But there isn’t really a substitute to teaching in person, and it’s a privilege to watch people grow in their skill and character.

We also regularly train a group of ten leaders who travel down from Marsabit to Nairobi for two weeks of intensive training at our centre. It helps them to be in a different context, with fewer interruptions, as well as giving them refreshment and a restful change of scene. These leaders are now beginning to take an active role in leading the training for the large group; it’s enormously encouraging to see them grow in confidence and passion for the young people of their communities to know and understand God’s word for themselves. Our focus on training youth and children’s workers from the Diocese of Marsabit was precipitated by the following challenges and opportunities.

Lack of trained workers

The parish of Kargi is a typical Marsabit parish. There are three churches spread over 60km. They are served by one minister and there is no youth or children’s worker. Three churches would be plenty for any pastor, but the distances between them are significant and travel adds to his burden. Serving alongside a trained youth and children worker would ease his workload, as well as give the many children in his churches access to the gospel of Jesus.

Recently, we received a request for Christian workers to serve the community of a recent convert. She said, ‘we have received Jesus as Saviour, but we do not know how to read and write. When we meet, we open the Bible, put a stone on it and then pray to God to reveal to us what is in his word – we need people to teach us his word.’

Spiritual openness

Many communities practice African Traditional Religions and Folk Islam. Yet while some are resistant to the gospel, many are ‘spiritual’ and have an awareness of God and the spiritual realm. Often, beliefs passed down aren’t clear and there’s no room for questioning. People can be more open than they initially appear so there is a need for people who can teach sound doctrine with simplicity and clarity.

The prosperity gospel

This ‘gospel’ teaches that when you come to faith in Jesus, your health and wealth will improve. The prosperity gospel thrives where people are more economically vulnerable; some false teachers take advantage of this in Marsabit.

Lack of resources

Marsabit is hot, arid and sparsely populated. Due to the lack of reliable rainfall for agriculture and adequate food for their animals, many within the diocese live below the poverty line. A church with hungry people does not have disposable income for training and equipping their workers; they will spend most of their resources on surviving. Our youth and children’s training course is designed to address most of the above issues. The programme focuses on three fundamental areas of a faithful gospel worker:

Faithful Bible teaching

In a context where people teach contrary to Scripture for personal gain or out of ignorance, there is a huge need for raising a generation of teachers who will do it rightly and faithfully. People will teach faithfully what they know so our intention is to deepen our participants’ Bible knowledge. We work through a book of the Bible to understand the intended message to the initial listeners, look at the issues of their day, and then see how they apply to us today. This happens through a discussion-based Bible study and a ‘micro-preach’, where participants are assigned a passage to prepare and teach, and then receive constructive feedback to grow them as gospel teachers.

Servant leadership

A faithful Bible teacher serves as well as teaches. We don’t want our participants to leave with heads full of knowledge that bear no impact on their lives and character. We point them to Jesus, our perfect servant leader.

Discipleship

Having equipped our participants for ministry, we seek to continue walking alongside them in their service, mentoring and cheering them on in their love for God and service to his people.

Those with eagle eyes will have noticed that the lack of resources is something we’re unable to help with. If you felt able to give to the ministry in Marsabit, how big or small your contribution, the many youth and children’s workers and the many young people they teach would benefit enormously. Our prayer is that the youth and children’s workers we have trained will go to lead more young people to repent of their sinfulness, realise their need for a Saviour and be excited about the promise of eternal life where all suffering and pain will end.

Gerald and Louise Mwangi, serving in Kenya