Teaching leaders to teach people to fish

Answers to questions?

When walking through the slum areas of Nairobi questions always arise: “why do the slums continue without change?”; “Why doesn’t someone help these folks?”; “Why does poverty exist in today’s world?” Often times, there are no real, tangible answers to these questions. Pictured above is a boy that I saw picking up trash in the slum. If you look carefully near his left hand you can see a dead rat in the background. It is not right that people live in conditions such as this.

Through our benevolence ministry, we do strive to help people like this by giving aid such as food and clothes. But this kind of help can only go so far. In the Bible, Jesus said that you will always have the poor among you” (John 12:8). Sometimes it seems like there is a “black hole” of need. No matter how much you try to help, it just gets sucked up so fast and after you give, the need is just as urgent or maybe even greater than before. It can get discouraging sometimes when you are a missionary trying to make a difference. Many missionaries I know feel this way. I have also felt this way too. But what I have found serving in our ministry, World Ministries International, is that our efforts are not an empty gesture. This is because we know that we are also raising up leaders that can make an incredible difference in the nation.

Pictured is our bible school classroom at the Telposta Towers building in downtown Nairobi. Our ministry chairman, Dr. Jonathan Hansen, is seen raising core leaders to focus not only on their own individual concerns, but on a perspective of helping the nation. Our ministry is training and teaching pastors, business people, and citizens who have a genuine desire to improve communities in Kenya. Our certificate and degree programs help Kenyans to step up to a higher level of knowledge, understanding and wisdom to truly make a larger impact in society. Students can earn up to a doctorate degree in Theology.

By focusing on all levels of society, from helping the poor, afflicted, orphan and widow to the leaders of the nation we take a balanced approach to ministry: touching lives individually, through communities, and by reaching key leaders that can have a huge impact on the nation. If you give someone in the slum some food, you definitely help him today. If you teach him how to provide for himself and his family, you are helping him and his circle of influence tomorrow and beyond. If you teach a leader to teach others how to provide for themselves and for their families, you are helping him touch a community and a nation for tomorrow and beyond.

This is why we have served in Kenya for 8 years now and continue to serve. This is the reason why we keep doing what we do. This is the way we roll.