GO AFRICA – 🇰🇪 Kenya – First Meeting, School Ministry
July 9, 2026
The gathering that had been planned for the first day
ended up being pushed past the worship time because one of the vans arrived much later than expected.
Since we went straight into the worship venue,
the first meeting of the more than fifty team members took place the following day.
Once we arranged the chairs in one large circle,
it really was a huge circle.
More than fifty people from different countries.
We took turns greeting one another in English and briefly introducing ourselves.
Some of the team members who weren’t comfortable with English said they were sweating through it.
I really enjoyed this time.
Even though these were faces I had never seen before,
and this was a place I had never been to,
I had this feeling:
It feels like it’s been a long time.
It felt as though I had missed these people for a long time,
even though I was meeting them for the first time.
Although we said we would keep the introductions short,
it still took quite a long time to introduce all fifty-plus people.
Afterward, we moved to load the Kubamba sound equipment from the containers onto the vehicles.
How can everyone be new, yet feel so familiar and welcome?
That thought kept coming to me.
As we unloaded an incredible amount of sound equipment,
one person especially caught my attention.
The youngest after Roah,
Cory’s son,
a ten-year-old boy named Judah.
He had so much energy, as you would expect from a ten-year-old,
but I kept wondering how he could work so hard moving all that equipment,
how he could be so excited even in piles of dust,
and how he could keep going without even taking a break.
He was such a beautiful and wonderful boy.
And in the middle of it all was the shining oldest member of the group,
75-year-old Dennis.
It was also very meaningful to see him joining us.
When I was in Kona, he had served at the front desk of the Go Center.
We spent quite a long time unloading and loading equipment,
and during that time, once again, I met children running and playing
in playgrounds and parks across this vast land.
I really love meeting children.
After that,
we moved on to our first official ministry together,
with the whole team finally gathered after we had joined the tour.
It was school ministry.
Because more than fifty people is such a large number,
we divided into teams and went separately to three different schools.
There were some words on the schedule that I didn’t understand.
HYPE.
What was this?
I wondered why the word “Hype,” which I knew, was written there.
But the Kubamba team set up their sound equipment
and got the children who had gathered so excited and energized.
I guess Africa really is about dance and music.
Then came a skit.
It was similar to Everything, which I was already familiar with,
but at the same time, completely different.
It was expanded,
more honest,
and more bold.
That kind of skit was performed.
Wow... that is bold, I thought.
It was powerful.
The acting was so good,
and the message came across even more strongly.
Then came the time to share the message,
and that was powerful as well.
It was our first ministry together,
and since one of our team members had raised questions about Kubamba the night before,
I watched everything more carefully, one thing at a time.
It was strong,
but also humble,
and they shared the Gospel just as it is.
Simply, grace.
Simply, Jesus.
After all the ministry was finished,
we were told that anyone who wanted prayer could come forward,
so I prayed for the children who gathered around me.
The children were so happy when I called them by name.
They were children I would only see for a brief moment.
Names I would soon forget,
names I may have already forgotten.
And yet,
their expressions and the way they spoke remain so vivid.
And their prayer requests.
I know why I came here.
I came so that I could meet these children again in the Kingdom of God,
and so that more children could be invited into the Kingdom of God.
I came to encourage them to become people who share the Gospel,
and even though they are young,
I came to pray for them in the name that is stronger than anything else:
Jesus.
The other team members were also carrying out the same ministry at different schools.
They said that many students raised their hands, saying they wanted to receive Jesus as their Lord.
Our school was the same.
I do think there is a difference between raising your hand and receiving Jesus during a brief moment like this
and the children I met in the military,
who went to church to receive snacks, got baptized, and then went to a Buddhist temple the following week.
But at the same time,
I also think it may not need to be treated as something so heavy.
And yet,
sometimes I see tears flowing down the faces of these children.
So in those moments,
rather than trying to determine what that moment means,
I think I simply need to pray in that name.
Meanwhile,
Roah wore the same T-shirt as our team members.
She wanted to join us,
but because she was still not feeling well, she stayed home and rested.
Sehee stayed home with Roah,
waiting for her to recover quickly so that she could join us in ministry.
We would continue doing this kind of ministry
across several countries
for two months.
What will it be like?
What will happen?
With those thoughts,
and hoping that Sehee and Roah would be able to join us as well,
I found myself praying even more for Roah’s recovery.