“May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double edge sword in their hands.”Psalm 149:6 NIVThe April trip to Kenya and South Africa was amazing. 

It is such an incredible experience to watch God work and to be in what I think is the center of His will.

April 2024 saw a 4-week trip to two countries in Africa, Kenya and South Africa. It was my second visit to Kenya and the first visit to South Africa.  While the cultures I experienced are different, they are also similar. They are both wonderful.
First, some numbers:

• Cities visited: 5
• Direct involvement in DCPI Trainings: 6
• Leaders trained: ~465
• Partnerships engaged: > 8
• Presentations/sermons: 7
• Denominations represented: > 50
• Seeing God events: Innumerable

 
Two other Dynamic Church Planting International (DCPI) global office leaders were along for parts of the trip. Bishop & Doctor Francis Kamau and Partnership VP Brandon Becker. Two friends from Daybreak Church in Oceanside, CA also joined us for part of the trip.
 
The Kenya trip included visiting existing friends and meeting a lot of new friends.

The trip was centered around training  20 national leaders from a new  partnership with Joshua Nations. This will result in DCPI’s “House Church Planting (HCP)” track being included in their 2 year Bible Training Center program which involves approximately 80,000 people a year in more than 14 countries. 
 
In addition to the formal inclusion of HCP, the delegates also were certified to train, and they requested to engage with the other tracks as supplemental training programs.
 
The next formal partnership event was with International Christian Ministries – African Theological Seminary (ATS) at the Kitale campus. Two of their other 8 campuses also sent their Vice Principles and the 70 participants represented pastors who are obtaining degrees and other local pastors and bishops from at least 30 denominations. The leaders have committed to adding the DCPI system of curriculum to the ATS program at the three represented campuses and training it to their other campuses. Additionally, the four ATS leaders are also bishops and denomination leaders, and they  enthusiastically plan to add DCPI’s system as their church planting implementation programs in those groups.

While in Kitale, I visited Bungoma about 2 hours away by car. We were able to share a vision with the leadership and then about 40 members of a federation of 175  pastors from multiple denominations. This group hosted a training in March 2023 and has been hosting trainings since then.

We were able to brainstorm about using the DCPI system to have consistent growth trainings, to develop a self-funding mechanism and to encourage them over tea and lunch. 
 
An amazing event back in Nairobi involved introducing the recently updated “Healthy Church Dynamics” training to the Eastern and Southern Africa World Zone. An event hosted in Nairobi saw 230 leaders trained from throughout Kenya including denomination leaders and bishops. Another 50 people attended part of the training due to work responsibilities and will be trained in the remaining materials they missed. Multiple training events were generated from this event.
 
We also were able to launch a collaborative vision casting breakfast that included 40 leaders across the spectrum of Christian organizations. Attendees included senior leaders from six universities/seminaries, Bishops from approximately ten denominations, and regional leaders from at least seven Christian NGO’s serving in the areas of community development, children’s ministry, church planting and evangelism. At least 4 delegates traveled by bus overnight to attend.
 
The time in Nairobi also included two informal gatherings of friends from Kingdom Coalition for Kids (KC4K). These generated another level of connection and were a joy in our fellowship. The events are now expected to become a consistent monthly gathering.
 
Thanks to a grant from a KC4K partnership with “Mission to Kids” based in Temecula, CA., two KC4K partners were able to host significant children and youth events for me to participate in while I was in Kenya.
 

One of these KC4K partners was “Everything Kids Ministry” from South Africa. Neville and Gail Fannin, and their sidekick Thuli, led a 10-day children’s ministry training that incorporated pastors, children’s ministry leaders, parents, youth and children. The impact was incredible with over 130 children accepting Christ and being baptized into the Holy Spirit. They also were able to train pastors, children’s pastors, parents, and teenage leaders over the ten days. Over 500 children were treated to a full fun day with a healthy lunch, bounce houses and the gospel message. The next day, over 160 children returned to the church campus for a two-hour crusade and lunch. The recently trained teens helped coordinate much of the event.
 
This event was a result of a DCPI training event the Fannins hosted in South Africa in November 2022 that was led by Bishop Ken Karanja. At the event, Bishop Keranja saw the power of their training and brought them to his church in Nairobi. While the Fannins and I have been prayer partners and team members with KC4K for almost 4 years, this was the first time we have been together in person.
 
Bishop Karanja’s church already has a children’s ministry serving approximately 300 children, but he expects it to grow to 1,000 by the end of 2025. He explains that the average age in Kenya is 19.9 years old and 75-80% of the population is under 35 years old. Obviously, these adults are in their childbearing years. He feels that the 300 churches he oversees must be focused on youth and children or they will become irrelevant with no audience in the next 10 years. He also subscribes to the Fannins’ philosophy that “children are the church of today, not tomorrow. They are the evangelists who can reach people that adults cannot reach.”

A second youth event was hosted at Gospel Celebration Center Ministry in Kayole, a poor part of Nairobi near the airport. This is a recently planted church that was equipped by a training event we did in Bungoma, Kenya in March 2023.  Thus, I was able to visit one of the churches that was planted using the equipping of the training we did last year. The event was a two-day event where the church hosted 70 youth and youth workers to receive DCPI’s NEXGEN 

Challenge training and 20 more became certified trainers. The event included feeding all of the participants and many of the young children from the neighborhood who the youth are serving in their Sunday School and outreach programs. NEXGEN Challenge is designed to be a one-day track that leads youth and young adults to think missionally and to be involved in church planting.  It was amazing to hear these young teens talking about using the NEXGEN Challenge training to start youth clubs in their schools and neighborhood.
 
The trip to South Africa on April 23-29 included Bishop Karanja and Neville Fannin representing DCPI with me. It was centered around a new partnership with the Shekinah Fellowship in Garden City, a very tough borough of Cape Town. This includes a developing relationship with the denomination they belong to, The Full Gospel Church which has over 1000 churches in South Africa. We also met with a multi denominational group of pastors, and with a new contact from Namibia who leads Fatherhood Fellowship and several other children and family-oriented programs in Namibia. Overall, there are plans underway to expand the presence of DCPI, Everything Kids Ministry and Royal Family Kids Camps in South Africa significantly and to initiate the involvement in Namibia over the next 6 months. The activities for the week also directly included Neville training children’s pastors including a team hosting a weekly food distribution & Gospel Outreach Center for children. 

   
 
The House Church Planting training that we did for the church members resulted in more than 30 groups being developed to plant neighborhood cell churches. Most of these expect to open afternoon neighborhood children’s programs and/or food distribution centers.
 
I was blessed  to give sermons in two churchs and to four groups during the trip. God was so gracious to give me a message about findiing peace in His Yoke of fulfilling the great commission, locally and internationally. It seemed to be well received. Three of these were using translators.

The church families and groups were wonderful to me and blessed me greatly. I was also able to visit the church I spoke in during the 2023 trip and was encouraged by the warm reception I received from people who recalled me being there.

There wasn’t a lot of sightseeing on this trip as one might imagine from the description. But during the trip, I was able to see the Great Rift Valley as it crosses the Equator when we traveled from Nairobi to Kitale. I also saw the ocean and several beautiful cities and countryside and experienced the rich culture of two countries. The only tourist type of activity was to host a group to attend a professional rugby match between Cape Town’s Stormers and the league leading Ireland’s Leinster in the national stadium in Cape Town. I must admit that it was great. When trying to buy the tickets during a very bumpy car ride in Nairobi, I accidently bought 16 tickets instead of 6. They were still a bargain in USA terms. God ended up using this “accident,” to allow us to felllowship with a group from our host church including a young man who accepted Christ at a Men’s Ministry meeting we attended in which Neville and I spoke. 

 
The prayer and financial support of many partners made the ministry what happened possible. Several churches were involved and a couple of KC4K partners participated in the funding. We also were blessed by a dozen or so individual supporters directly contributing while over 80 individual partners make my activity at DCPI possible with their monthly financial support.
 
The partnership of multiple local individuals and groups in Kenya and South Africa also made the events possible. One of the exciting results of the trip to both countries was a buy-in on the concept of funding coming from local congregations and similar resources on a consistent basis.
 
The Body of Christ is incredible!

“The path of the righteous is like the morning Sun, shining ever brighter ’till the full light of day. “Provberb 4:18 NIV
July 1-5 Royal Family Kids Camp – Mission Viejo 
September? Uganda trip
September 30  GACX – North Carolina 
October 6 DCPI World Zone Leader Conference – Vista, CA
October 21 Exponential West – Castro Valley, CA

The South OC Care Collabortative also had a second gathering in May. More than 15 ministries & 50 people gatehered and worked on inititatives.The nexty event is being schedueled for September. 
The Asia Collaborative Summit Vision Task Force is working toward an initial event for 500 attendees in Thailand in November 2025. 

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward the love and good deeds,”     Hebrews 10:24 I was blessed to spend much of April with Bishop Peter Ambuka. He was a central leader in most of the Kenya trainings. He drove the team to Kitale and we had great fellowship over the week. He is leading the task force for the Kenya Collaborative. And he is a dear friend, a wise counsel, and an amazing inspiration. He also invited me to speak in his church. When the translator had trouble with my “California accent”, he jumped in on the fly and translated.  Peter also is championing the cause of Kenyans financially supporting the DCPI ministry by helping supporters be involved in the great commission through sponsoring a pastor a month being trained. He is a great visionary.  He and Rev. Ruth have a thriving church. He is also a regional bishop with amazing leadership and management skills.