On our 12-day Africa trip, often we experienced God’s miracle-working hand acting on our behalf. Miracles manifested themselves as we filmed Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry in Swahili, and as we met with our African leaders who told us “book of Acts-like” stories of their lives. Hopefully, this account will give a brief glimpse into God’s miraculous work through Reach Out’s ministry in Africa.
Enjoy this one-minute video for a start.
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Swahili Filming Completed
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Rosemary Ambokah's Impact Story
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For our Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry Online project, we successfully filmed in Swahili 16 Content Segments with nine African presenters, and nine Impact Stories—all expressing the essential characteristics of JFYM by youth leaders and pastors who have implemented it.
AND…post-editing of ALL videos by Todd Slocum, our videographer, and his team was completed before we left Kenya! With English, Spanish, Russian and Swahili finished, we have completed the year-long video filming phase of the JFYM Online Project!
Miraculous indeed!
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Zemen
in Ethiopia:
Our ministry used to overwhelm me. I had never seen any youth ministry resources until one of Reach Out’s leaders came to Ethiopia to train me. The JFYM training has become so well recognized in Ethiopia because it is the
only
youth training materials churches have! People are begging me for it. I have no need to recruit for training.
In July he trained 80 leaders, and he said that with enough resources he can train that many more every month at his Training Center.
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Country Leaders’ and Kenya Regional Leaders’ Summit
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Our Leadership Summit brought together all 37 invitees. Thirteen Country Leaders came from Tanzania, Zanzibar, Zambia, Rwanda, Botswana, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Ethiopia. And 24 Regional Leaders attended from Kenya.
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Over meals we heard story after story resembling the Book of Acts! In harsh conditions and unimaginable difficulties these leaders have brought many young people to Jesus who have become growing disciples. Repeatedly, the leaders told us how JFYM “changed my life and ministry forever.”
Miraculous stories at every meal!
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In our Leaders’ Summit sessions, we walked through an in-depth personal process of them expressing how they desire for the Lord to influence them, and then how they envision influencing others. On a Country/Regional level, they created an
Indigenous Sustainability Plan
. Those completed plans revealed their visionary and practical leadership, with each one taking ownership of multiplying JFYM in their countries/regions.
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2019 African Leader's Summit
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Gerard—a Rwandan refugee in Burundi, survived extreme trauma to become a medical doctor who ministers to refugees. He found out about JFYM, received the training, and in his first Forum 60 youth leaders, pastors, and bishops were trained. Since then he has conducted 6 JFYM Forums. Gerard explained:
During the JFYM training it was like scales were removed from my eyes. I used to see youth as lost, but now I see them with love. Before our church implemented JFYM, we had 150 members, now we have over 400 members.
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Africa Ministry Multiplying
Each leader set their own goals for taking ownership of multiplying JFYM in their countries and regions in the coming year. Beginning in September on through 2020, across 13 African countries, they will…
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- Conduct 134 Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry Forums.
- Engage 1,320 new churches in applying Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry.
- Involve 223 new Country/Region Leadership Team members
…resulting in over 4,000 new youth ministry leaders trained in Africa.
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Leadership Legacy--Charles, Barry, Obadiah
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Laurence, the first leader in Botswana trained in JFYM, put it into practice in his youth ministry--but also it became the growth strategy for the entire church. In the last three years over 1,000 teenagers have received Jesus, and his church has planted three new churches.
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Hopefully, you can envision the future with us—in Africa and beyond.
Once Jesus-Focused Youth Ministry Online is available in Swahili,
our leaders’ capacity to equip leaders will expand exponentially to villages and cities not now physically reachable. With your partnership, we can do the same in English, Spanish and Russian speaking areas of the world.
And then together we can say with the Apostle Paul,
…All over the world the gospel is bearing fruit and growing. (Colossians 1:6)
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