Many of the African Enterprise city-wide missions begin with a component called ‘Serve the City’, in which the mission teams undertake a project to clean or fix up a part of the city. This helps to demonstrate their commitment to the wellbeing of the people they will meet throughout the mission, but also provides some immediate opportunities for evangelism.
During the recent Love Nairobi mission in Kenya, a team from International Christian Centre Imara of 73 people went out to the Imara neighbourhood and cleaned up a ditch of about one kilometre.
As the street cleaning took place, some of the locals stared from afar, while some approached the missionaries and asked questions.
Kelvin’s story
A young man named Kelvin approached one of the evangelists who was cleaning. He asked him who the team was and what made them to come to their neighbourhood and volunteer to clean it up.
The evangelist told Kelvin a lot about Jesus, and that He is the reason which led all of the team, local and visiting evangelists, to participate in the cleaning. As the conversation went on, Kelvin didn’t take long: he willingly wanted to receive Christ as his Lord and Saviour!
Afterwards, Kelvin was interested to join the team in serving the city, but first he asked the evangelist if they could go to his friends and tell them about Christ. So, they marched to Kelvin’s friends! The evangelist shared another story about the mercy and the goodness of God, and 10 people received Christ immediately.
This really lit up Kelvin’s heart and he again asked the evangelist if they could go and meet more of his friends. Not far away, they found them playing drums beautifully. When Kelvin’s friends saw him, Kelvin asked if they could allow the man that accompanied him with to speak to them. Again, the evangelist spoke about Jesus, and again, the friends heard the gospel and asked to receive Christ!
After his friends accepted Jesus, Kevin then joined the team in serving the city and later on he gathered with the team for lunch.
Through Kelvin receiving Christ, 20 more came to the Kingdom. Kelvin has been welcomed into ICC Imaara where he will be discipled as a follower of Jesus.
Henry’s story
Alice is a Kenyan lady who worships at ICC Imara. She decided to participate in serving the city and as she was cleaning the streets of Imara, she kept on praying to God that she would get the chance to speak to someone about Jesus.
While carrying out her task, Alice spotted a man standing behind her and the man asked what was causing Alice to have such a big smile on her face. Alice took the opportunity to tell this man, named Henry, about Jesus.
As it turned out, Henry had previously become a Christian, but had undergone many struggles since then which left him in doubt if God really exists or not. He didn’t understand why God would allow him and his family to undergo such troubles. Henry had lost hope in life, and that day he was just walking in the streets of Imara not knowing where he would end up at.
Henry mentioned that he was a Kikuyu man, so Alice decided to win Henry’s trust by speaking to him in their native language while sharing the gospel of Christ. And after this conversation, Henry decided to receive Christ again and his heart was unloaded and he managed to smile like Alice.
Now Henry too is a new member at ICC Imara. Alice has agreed to keep on following up Henry and assist him to get a job.
During Serve the City, the team were able to reach 150 people, 42 of whom gave their lives to Christ, and the team were also able to give out about 1000 tracts to all that used the Imara Route. A team member shared, “By the time we were done with the cleaning up, we left the neighbourhood clean, and the people of Imara in joyful feeling.”