East Africa Lake Region leaders conference in Kisumu

Bible talk and sector leaders from: Kisumu, Kisii, Luanda, Kakamega and Busia

Story by Stella Onyango – ICOC Kisumu Media Team

For the very first time in the History of East Africa ICOC Churches, Kisumu had the privilege to host the Lake Region Leaders conference on 7th and 8th February 2020 at Migosi Primary School in Kisumu.

We had the honour of listening to Evangelist Raymond Musonye and his wife Lily as they took us through the mission of the church in line with Jesus’s vision of the Mission, which according to Mathew 28:18-20 is to seek and to save lost souls.

We had brothers and sisters from Kisii led by Mzee Elias and Margret Aketch, Kakamega under the stewardship of Judah and Irene Emali, Luanda Led by James and Rispa Opwondi, Busia and Chemelil bible talk leaders attend the training.

Evangelist Raymond who was the main speaker encouraged us. ‘As weak as we are God has great faith in us…’ 

He quoted scriptures from the gospel when the disciples of Jesus fell in their Faith but He, (Jesus) still stuck with them and even risked to leave the keys of the kingdom with one of them; Peter. This was in Matthew 16:23 among many other examples. 

 ‘…So the Mission of Christ is to gather those that Christ redeemed on the cross, still lies on us as weak as we are, we got to tap our strength from Christ who promised to stick with us to the very end of the age,’ said the Evangelist.

From Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, up to the ends of the earth, it was inspiring to go through the mission geographically according to Acts 1:8.

Question to ponder;

‘What is my Jerusalem? Where am I geographically? What am I doing to advance the mission of Christ..? It took someone’s selflessness to bring the good news to me…what am I doing to pass it on?

What a nice way it was to start the year in high spirits, motivated, challenged and reminded of who we are and what our mission here on earth is.

Evangelist Paul and his wife Betty Nthei took us through God and money.

It was eye opening to realize how much money has been talked about in the bible. The realization of the fact that over 2000 verses have mentioned money is reason enough to believe that money plays a major role in our spiritual lives. God is so keen to warn us about money since he knows we can easily get to a level where we worship money more than we worship Him.

Betty took us through the practicals of how to make money work better for us. She touched on budgeting, investing, seeking advice, saving, living within/below our means and so on.

On the second day we were taken through Spiritual Leadership by Evangelist Raymond and his wife Lily. Each of us has been called, chosen and qualified by God to carry the mission ahead of the small groups that we lead in church regardless of our age, social status or educational background. We ought to depend on God for leadership as we are accountable and answerable to Him alone.

Evangelist Paul also taught on mentorship, that no matter how strong we are, if we lack guidance and walk alone we are reduced to nothing.

We went through bible illustrations of men who walked with mentors and their outcome was impressive. This was in reference to Moses and Aaron, Elijah and Elisha, Paul and Timothy among others.

The points noted from this class was, “we are better together” and, “a cord of 3 strands is not easily broken” – Ecclesiastes 4:12. 

The church had a Sunday service together on the 9th of February. Ev. Raymond and Lily taught the class of God and Money as a sermon to the whole church and it was refreshing to get that chance to hear it again. It had been taught earlier by Evangelist Paul and Betty Nthei. He called on the disciples to be content with what they have and to resist the temptation of getting rich quickly – James 1:9-12

The women were also not left behind they enjoyed a surprise early morning breakfast treat on Sunday while learning about the role of women in advancing the work of the ministry of Jesus. 

It was great to learn from women in the bible who walked silently and diligently to serve Jesus and meet his needs! What a challenge for women to take up roles and mould the ministry of Christ.

Sister Lily said “Women can be vision Bearers even in silence…”

Ideally it was a basket filled weekend and we thank God for the leadership for seeing the need to come up with such conversations.

We hope that this will be the start of a fruitful re-building of the mission of Christ as we take the conversations down to every disciple.