Kyalo made it! (the rest of the story) and Leadership Training Conference
After 15 years of being apart and after a lot of paper work, Kyalo (we called him Matthew here, because Kyalo is too hard to pronounce) made it to Slovakia last month (September 17). It was his first time to leave his home country of Kenya by
plane, so he was a bit nervous but fully amused. (You can read part 1 of this story ealier in this “ministry” section.)
He was quite a spectacle here since there are almost no blacks in Slovakia. Everyone did a double take – especially the children! But anyone who took longer to actually meet and talk to him was quickly challenged by his passion for Christ and his dedication to his ministry at home.
The first few days of his visit were pure catching up. I had a million questions about the details of our 15 years apart. godly husband and For me, it was amazing how God had orchestrated each part of those years to guide father, a founder of his own organization and a Kyalo to the place where he is today. And in fact, today he is a pastor, a teacher, a visionary for East Africa. What a work of God!
During the first week, while we were here in Slovakia, he had a personal interview with each person on our Kompas training staff, to get a vision and understanding of their particular work in our organization. That included, summer evangelistic camps, training school, youth leaders conference, training materials, school lectures, and more. Our goal was to show how God is using various means to fuel His movement here in this Slovakia.
We also planned to attend a training conference in the Czech Republic created by our sending organization, Josiah Venture. This is an annual, week long conference for youth leaders across 9 countries of Europe. Kyalo first took advantage of a pre conference seminar called “Growing a healthy church”. What we didn’t realize, was that the teacher of that seminar, Dan Spader, is the president of Global Youth Initiative, which is an organization that mobilizes youth leader training all across the world and AFRICA!! (you can visit their website at www.globalyouthinitiative.com/places_people/africa.asp)
So, immediately, Dan and Kyalo had lots to talk about. And in the end, it seems that this was a major reason for God’s direction of Kyalo to Slovakia at this particular time. Because, Dan is very interested in pursuing Kyalo as a potential national leader for youth leader training and mobilization across Kenya. We were ecstatic when we began to put some of these pieces together. And we are eagerly waiting to see what God’s next steps will be.
The main conference topic was “Christ in me – discipling the next generaration”. Personal discipleship is at the core of Josiah Venture’s approach to ministry, so this was a valuable week of teaching for Kyalo as he develops his own view of ministry for the future. It could not have been a better conference for him!
We also had a great time with Kyalo in our family. He cooked Kenyan food and tea for us, he played with our children, we saw some Slovak national sights, we had some late night discussions and we compared life experiences. But most important of all, we renewed our friendship in Christ, we prayed together, we shared our failures and weaknesses and we dreamed about what God could do with us in the future.
Kyalo is a passionate man with some sharp tools to work in the spiritual fields of Kenya. Please pray with me that he will not fail but find daily strength and motivation to follow God’s leading in the years ahead.
