Christian Education Conference 19th - 23rd April 2004

In the midst of songs and dance to the films that we saw together with my leadership team at the conference done on 19th to the 23rd of April, I give praise to God for what He has done for us. Between the planning and having the actual conference was a big gap. It was only because of great faith that I had in God and the trust that I had in Him that made this conference to be a great success. All credit goes to God for what He did for us.

As I begin to write this report, I want to sincerely register my thanks and appreciation to our friends from the US who came under ALARM and Spoken For and agreed to facilitate the conference for a whole week. Friends are great men of God and I thank you so much for great big HEART that you have for the church of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ in Africa. I love you all with all my heart and please know that you are a blessing to my family and ministry as well. May God continually bless you, your families, and your ministries. Thank you for the great sacrifices that you made this conference to be a success.

Scott and the team we want to say a big Thank you to you and SPOKEN FOR team. Thank you so much for accepting to support the entire conference and buying us the books and other resources that we needed for the conference to move smoothly. Your simplicity and love makes us to remember you often. Please know that you are part of us.

Africa Gospel church Christian Education, Kenya celebrates 11 years since the conference was started. So far, this was the biggest conference ever attended by leaders from across Kenya. The leaders who came to this meeting play a big role in the work of ministry in the church. They are the grassroots leaders who work with the local churches that are found in different parts of the republic. I am grateful for the great turn out that we witnessed. It was one of the biggest that the church has witnessed in almost 62 years of existence in Kenya. The 508 and a couple of day scholars who attended the conference was a great boost to the ministry and we want to thank God sincerely for the great work that the Lord has done for us. It is really a great blessing to have leaders who are trained and these ones that we trained will carry the message to the rest who were not able to come because of one reason or the other. The entire denomination has over 1400 local churches spread throughout the republic. All these churches have leaders who were supposed to come to this meeting. Their absence served us in a good way, as we could not handle all of them if they all came over. By the way I was even scared on the second day when the number went up from the 400 to 500 within a very short time. I thought that if my estimate for the conference will jump then I had to send back some because anyway they were latecomers. Those were some of the worries that I had in my mind and I thank my God for the great blessings, which enabled us to have this conference started and ended at the stipulated time that we had planned. My thoughts were that we will eventually go into the negative but the Lord enabled us to have some money at the end of the conference that remained after paying all our expenditure thus my worry was now gone with more blessings from the Lord. Actually, the amount we spend was reduced because we had more helpers and the price of food came down because we were buying them in bulk.
The lack of personnel trained in leadership in the African Churches has served as a limiting force. Throughout the years trained pastors, Christian Education leaders’ staffs have been called upon to do the work of two or three people. Time for sustained involvement in a particular area has been greatly limited. So this has made us to organize conferences every year to at least train individuals who have not been able to go Bible schools and have them participate in ministry with some of the skills and tools for ministry.

We want to repeatedly thank Scott and ALARM for the support that made this conference a great success. The seeds that you planted in the leaders are eternal seeds that we will all witness the fruits in heaven one day. Thank you so much for investing in God’s servants.

The church appreciates the facilitators who came with Scott to this conference who taught five key lessons that will greatly help the church leaders lead well:
David Murphy: taught on the Cat and Dog Theology (It is about Him not about us)
Brad Hughes: Evangelism and Ministry
Scott Werntz: How and what did Jesus Teach, Purpose Statement and leading the Question and Answer Forum with the leaders.
Gabriel Sherman: Who did Jesus Reach?
Eric Sundene: Discipleship I & II

The teachers who were teaching in this conference prepared well and we will love to have them come back again in the future. We want to wish David a happy wedding as he ties the knot January 2005. We really felt much at home with the facilitators who are our new prayer partners now. Thank you again for coming. We do want to thank the school for allowing us to use their facilities for the conference. It this same venue that we use with Rev. MCquity and the team that came over with Celestin in 1999.The venue is cheaper than Hotels and thus we can be able to have more leaders and thus train more leaders. The schools help us with their beddings and we want to thank them for the great love for us.

The highlights of the Conference...

• The great number of leaders we had.
• The church leaders who visited us during our time at the conference.
• The resolutions that we made at the conference (to go back to our churches and use the resources to build our ministries and train others).
• Pr. Kimetto coming and singing in the conference & Scott purchases 15 video and 508 Audio cassettes for all the participants and the leaders.
• The commitment to pray for each other.

Finally, All glory and a thanks goes to God our creator. To Scott and the Team come again. To ALARM, our Partnership had grown the more.

God Bless