Last week Tuesday, I started a gauntlet of three back to back classes at the Africa Theological Seminary that will carry me until the end of October. The one day off per week that I do get (usually Sunday) is filled with driving to Kakamega or Eldoret to do continuing work with the groups there. My evenings are filled with reading and writing papers for my Masters, so my time is very full. [I know what some of you are thinking - good, then you won't miss Michael as much. But it doesn't work that way. :) ]The current class is a Training of Trainers session, this time with 28 students. I thought that it might be a bigger class but you never know until the day of, and this time, most of the people who said they were coming actually came. [This presented some problems, as I only had 12 textbooks, but we made due.]
What was so exciting about this class is that this time the two other churches in the pilot project showed up with strength. The Deliverance Church not only brought three more trainers from their church but also four other pastor from area cities to begin this work as well. The Anglican Church of Kenya sent three delegates from St. Mark's Church in Eldoret to become trainers. In addition, a number of other pastors and business leaders from Kitale and a number of cities are also in this class, including two pastors from the Christian Reformed Church of East Africa! We now have over fifty churches involved in this work across Kitale, crossing many denominations! There has been great debates and discussions. I am loving it.
In addition, there are now three simultaneous business classes going on - one in Kakamega and two in Kitale, with a total of about 85 businesses, all run by partner churches. The trainers are working together and sharing the load to get the best training out to our participants.We had a Trainer meeting on Thursday and had 29 trainers present! When we look back and see how we started, it was great to see a room full of trainers who are passionate about this work. And they had such great input as to how to make this program better and better. It was exciting.
And so, we are off and running. Please pray with us that Church based Business as Mission will continue to spread in a way that will bring glory to God. We want to be part of "discipling the Nations" by discipling the Marketplace!
A prayer for all of you foolish people out there like me - this spoke to my heart:
