- 29 training topics written and prepared. Check!
- 4000 pages of training materials printed and collated. Check!
- 32 trainees from 11 countries traveling to the training locations. Check!
- Visas. Tickets. Bags packed. Check! Check! Check!
Africa, here I come!
Keith drove me to the airport. Then he drove home. I, on the other hand, flew to Accra, Ghana as part of a training team. A few days later, we will fly to Nairobi, Kenya for a second round of training.
We are embarking on the next step in a massive, faith-stretching opportunity. Our Global Technology Team is partnering with the Go North project to train thousands of pastors and church planters to plant thousands of churches across the Sahara Belt of Africa by 2020.
The Go North strategy leaders expressed a need. How do we train thousands of pastors and church planters in thousands of towns and villages in a dozen countries? International Leadership University-Kenya had experience in life-transforming training, so they produced Pastors Training in Leadership. The Global Technology Office had an idea: use the most common communications device in Africa today — a mobile phone. Together we developed the solution to the need.
These next weeks will represent the culmination of 2 years of development, testing, planning, and praying. Mobile phone training using ILU-Kenya curriculum has been tested in several locations for 18 months. Pastors tell amazing stories of how their lives and their leadership have been transformed.
We will train 32 coordinators from 11 countries. In the next few months, 100 to 300 pastors and church planters in each country will be trained. In the following months, we prayerfully expect this training to spread to 20,000 pastors and church planters who will plant 50,000 churches across the Sahara Belt of Africa.
Right where Islam is spreading southward. Right where sectarian violence is growing. Right where people desperately want to know about God’s love and his release from shame and guilt.
So, how does a seasoned missionary and global traveler feel about this next adventure on her own? I am honored to be able to help these leaders learn a new method of training the pastors of their countries. I am excited to be back on the continent of Africa, a place that God has given me a special love for. I feel strange to be leaving Keith behind, but confident in traveling with good friends and co-laborers.
