East Africa

One of the greatest joys in my life is meeting and spending time with missionaries, preaching biblical challenges, and discussing missiology with them. Another joy for me is traveling internationally and learning new cultures and contexts. Add one more, that of going to places I have never been, and you have the makings of a trip of a lifetime for me. That is what my recent trip to Kenya was.

The East Africa cluster of the IMB invited me to preach for their Annual Group Meeting worship services, teach through my book Reaching and Teaching, and lead workshops on critical contextualization. The missionaries of Southern Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya were in attendance and the atmosphere was the unique blend of family reunion and professional annual business meeting that every IMB missionary knows. The missionaries were so encouraging, both in their thankfulness for my teaching and the reports of the ministries they are leading in their countries. I am always encouraged by the quality of the IMB missionaries, but these servants exceeded anything I was expecting. The leadership of the East Africa cluster is not only efficient and wise it is visionary. The insights of the leader (a former MK!) and his team of missionaries enabled them to stand their ground amid pressures to relinquish certain strategies a few years ago. “Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” Great blessing to East Africa and beyond will be the legacy of those who made hard decisions and stuck by them when they were not popular.

Being with these missionaries reminded me of our annual mission meetings and year-end retreats in Ecuador. I miss those times, those missionaries, and those memories are some of my most precious treasures. I am so thankful for the time I was able to share with these missionaries in Nairobi and to share with them in the memory building. Some of the missionaries were in their first year on the field and were going through the struggles of culture shock and adjustment. Others received 30-year pins and one of those couples was honored with a retirement tea. No one will forget the week.

We celebrated the Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection while I was there. On Good Friday evening I was honored to share in the Lord’s Supper with these choice servants of the Lord. On Resurrection Sunday we began the day with a sunrise service and continued to meet at other times during the day to worship and praise the One who called us to Himself just as He also called us together to celebrate such a rich time. My prayer is that the missionaries were half as encouraged as I was. They challenged, taught, inspired, convicted, and invigorated me. Thank you!

After a thoroughly encouraging week, David Crane made sure I was sent home in style. As if all that had happened were not enough of a blessing, David arranged to take me on safari to a game park before dropping me off at the airport. We saw giraffes, rhinos, water buffalo, baboons, impalas, wildebeests, etc. etc. etc. It was phenomenal, and totally unexpected; I did not have that on my agenda. Yet, like all of the other blessings of the week, God has a way of blessing beyond what we could ask or imagine. Whenever you are in the presence of serious-minded, Christ-focused, missionaries who love the Lord and the life He has given us, remarkable things happen. I think I was made for reaching and teaching the world and enabling others to do the same. I am never more alive than when I am doing so. Thank you, IMB East Africa Cluster, for a wonderful week at the paradise that Brackenhurst is and the choice servants of the Lord that you are. Thank you, Mary, for your encouragement in this ministry. And thank you, Lord, for all of this and heaven, too.