The needs of mission are huge, and Carlile College continues to look for new ways to offer a relevant  training

Wario works as an evangelist in Moyale, a town on the Kenyan border with Ethiopia, where more than 90 per cent of the population are Muslim. Wachira lives in Nairobi in one of the largest slums in Africa; and his church is so poor that it cannot afford to gather its youth group together for a cup of tea.

Thierry is a Burundian man involved in discipleship training among refugees in the huge refugee camps in Tanzania. Gordon comes from the town of Lui, in southern Sudan, and has often had to abandon his home because of the civil war, on one occasion living outdoors for over six months.

These are just a few of the students who have recently trained at Carlile College, in Nairobi. They demonstrate the role the college plays in training evangelists and others who will be working in mission situations in eastern Africa.

Unique

The college has a unique role, offering a three-year training programme which focuses specifically on mission and evangelism. It draws students from seven East African nations and last year had a total enrolment of nearly 100 students. 
Many of these students leave the college to work in their home parishes and diocese as Church Army evangelists. But some are involved in specialised mission ministries. For example, a Somali man recently graduated from the college to work with a gospel radio ministry, broadcasting the good news of Jesus Christ in the Somali language.

Relevant

But the needs of mission are huge, and Carlile College continues to look for new ways to offer a relevant mission training to equip men and women to fulfil the Great Commission.

From September, 2002, the college will be starting two grassroots training programmes. The first will be a certificate course training youth leaders for ministry in churches. The second will be a certificate in urban mission, a one-year course designed especially for pastors living and working in slums such as Kibera and Mathare.

Kibera, on the edge of Nairobi, covers an area of about five square kilometres and is home to more than 500,000 people who live without drainage, sewage or clean water and in conditions of desperate poverty. Yet, within Kibera, there are hundreds of thousands of Christian people, and many hundreds of churches.

The Carlile College certificate in urban mission seeks to offer training to leaders from these churches, to equip them better for the work of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Crosslinks magazine November 2002 index