Pastors' Training Program: Woliso, Ethiopia

Sorry for the delay in reporting on the launch of the Pastors' Training Program in Ethiopia. Immediately following the launch in Woliso, I flew back to Nairobi to finish the Romans Project translation work. For three full days I was frantically working to finish up with editing and sending recordings. The Lord allowed us to complete the 18 sessions of Romans in Luganda and Luo (Ugandan languages) as well as 20 sessions of the Gospel of Luke in Oromo (Ethiopia). Tigrinya (Ethiopia) still has 5 sessions of Romans to hand in. I am hoping to receive those in the next week or so.

Back to the Pastor's Training Program, I must admit that I was a little hesitant as to whether the launch in Ethiopia could be as good as it was in Kitale, Kenya. I was pleasantly surprised that it did go extremely well. Praise the Lord!

We had 29 pastors gather in Waliso, Ethiopia for 3 1/2 days of intense study. These men, along with the two leaders - Kebede and Beza, are incredibly dedicated to the work of the Gospel and eager to learn.

 The first night we started with a time of introduction. We asked them: 1) their names, 2) the length and mode of travel they took to the training site, 3) the number of congregations and members they have, and 4) if they had ever had formal Bible training. This was incredibly eye-opening. These 29 pastors had traveled anywhere from 1 hour on foot to 9 hours by walking and riding some sort of vehicle. The further ones first walked 2-3 hours on foot to reach a paved road where they could then take transportation to the training site. These are definitely "rural" pastors. Collectively these men are pastoring over 50 congregations with a total of over 6,200 members. Three of the pastors came later that evening and we neglected to record their full information. Of these pastors, the vast majority had no previous formal Bible training.

We covered the same subject in Woliso as we did in Kitale, Kenya: How to Study the Bible. One major difference about our training time in Woliso was that we needed translation for all the sessions. Teshale, a local pastor who had studied at a seminary in Nairobi and thus knew English, translated for Johnathan and me. Johnathan began each day teaching from Philippians and then I followed with instructions on how to study the Bible.

The pastors broke up into smaller groups and used Philippians as the text for practicing the skills. It proved to be a very successful model of training for them and by the end of our time they had made great strides in learning the steps of observation, interpretation, and application.

We began studies at 8:30 each morning and finished at 5:00 in the evening. (Ethiopian time, that would be 2:30 to 11:00 during the daylight hours.) We had a tea / coffee break mid-morning with strong Ethiopian coffee in small cups and black tea along with roasted grain for snacks. This was a great time to mingle with the student-pastors and do my best at learning their names and trying to learn their language - Oromo. Lunches and dinners were spent together as leaders / teachers. They were great times to enjoy fellowship and evaluate the day's progress.

Kebede and Beza, along with two more colleagues, will follow up these pastors each month until we meet again in February. They received the same assignments as those in Kitale and were encouraged to work both individually and in study groups between meeting times.

Kebede (left) and Eremias (right)

Beza

We traveled back to Addis Ababa on Saturday and had lunch with Eremias's boss, Girma, before flying back to Nairobi. Girma, who is over the church planting efforts for "Great Commission" (the name for Campus Crusade for Christ, or "Cru", in Ethiopia), was very pleased with the launch of the Pastors' Training Program. He explained to us that half of the pastors were chosen from one church planting center in the city of Ambo and half were from their work in Woliso. At present they have 34 church planting centers throughout Ethiopia and are on track to have 60 by September of 2016. Presently they are working with about 1,500 pastors and expect to double that by next year. It's not too difficult to grasp the immensity of the task before us, nor that we are barely scratching the surface of this great need.

PLEASE PRAY that God would allow us to focus on thoroughly training these 29 pastors this year. The temptation would be to rush the process because of the great need. But Ken, Eremias, Johnathan, and I believe that we should faithfully focus on equipping these men this year while at the same time fervently praying for God to raise up a team of men that next year we could train to be trainers of future groups. Please pray with us that God would cause a movement of multiplication to take place in order to train all these pastors.

One verse that guides my prayers for these pastors we are training through the Pastors' Training Program is 2 Timothy 2:15. "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth."

Pastors Training Program: Western Kenya

By God's grace, we've just launched the Pastors Training Program in western Kenya 12 kilometers outside of Kitale. It went incredibly well. There were approximately 24 pastors attending along with six women who are leaders of women's ministries in their churches. It is common that a pastor has several churches that he has helped to plant and thus oversees. They told me that among the pastors present they had over 50 churches, or congregations, represented and over 1,000 members in total. I hadn't even considered those possibilities when we first agreed to invite 24 pastors to take part in the training. God is blessing us above and beyond what I could have imagined.

We arrived Wednesday at noon to the training site (a compound named "California" which previously had been a school and now is the location of one of the churches) and started right away with introductions and lessons. We had expected to start Thursday morning, but were encouraged by the enthusiasm of all present and couldn't pass up the opportunity to get started. Saturday, 3 1/2 days later, we concluded our first course in the training program on "How to Study the Bible". This was the first formal training that most of the pastors had ever had on how to study the Bible. For three of the pastors, this was their first ever opportunity to receive training for ministry.

The four of us (Ken Onywoki - Kenya, Eremias Bekele - Ethiopia, Johnathan Todd - USA, and I) worked as a team in our training time. We marveled at how the Lord put this team together and how we were able to complement each other in the various aspects of training.

Johnathan began each day teaching a portion of Philippians chapter 1. Philippians was the textbook for learning the skills of observation, interpretation, and application. Johnathan not only fed the pastors from God's Word, but also gave them an example of how the fruits of their study would prepare them to preach God's Word.

While we agreed to teach in English, because most of them had been through a high school equivalent education, yet Ken would still often summarize sessions in Swahili. Ken is also very discerning as to the incorrect or unhealthy influences on pastors and their congregations here in Kenya and thus often addressed those issues and practices in connection with what we were learning from Philippians.

Eremias's strengths are in the area of encouraging people one-on-one and also keeping us on track with providing clear assignments and goals for the pastors to be working on during our training time. Eremias would spend time getting feedback from pastors during the break times and also made sure we provided very clear assignments for the pastors to work on before meeting again in February.

My primary role was teaching the steps of how to study the Bible. This is a course I have taught numerous times in the past and was able to modify for these rural pastors. Because the aim is to train these pastors, we formed study groups in which to practice these skills after receiving instruction. So, I would cover one or two aspects of how to observe, interpret, or apply a text and then they would break into their groups and work together on these skills. Then they would report back to the main group on their progress and we would confirm or correct them as needed. The pastors responded very well to this format and worked exceptionally hard at studying Philippians.

PLEASE PRAY that these pastors and six women would continue to work through their assignments during the next months to become competent in studying God's Word. They formed five regional groups at the end of our time that would enable them to  meet every other week for accountability and prayer. Each group appointed a leader that will maintain weekly contact with the members. Ken Onywoki will maintain weekly contact with each leader.

Their assignments are: 1) to study the entire book of Philippians using the methods we taught, 2) to preach what they learn from Philippians to their congregations, and 3) to begin reading through the entire Bible as a year-long assignment.

PLEASE PRAY that the time in God's Word would transform not only their own lives but also the lives of those in their congregations.