Article: The East-West Africa Connection

When we visited East Africa early in June this year, we had no idea that God was going to transform that first visit into something bigger than we could ever imagine. It was a dream come true to finally break through into visiting our fourth family of churches on the African continent.

My wife and I really bonded with especially the singles in East Africa during their International conference in Kisumu, a beautiful part of Kenya, the same region where Barack Obama’s father is from. While concluding the three-day retreat, I remember announcing that West Africa will be organizing their International singles retreat in November this year in Ghana and they are welcome to join.

Surprising to find out that a number of them, mostly sisters, had resolved in their hearts right there to attend. It was humbling and profoundly encouraging to see that 11 singles in total from East Africa participated in this year’s west African retreat thereby transforming it to an East-West conference, to say the least, and foreshadowing an African conference come 2020 in Nigeria.

I am amazed that such a trip and such a piece of information can yield what we experienced this past weekend in Accra, Ghana. The more we interacted, we realized that we are part of one Big Family of God and of Africans – the wealth in culture, diversity in food, languages, accent, styles of worship, dance, dressing, nature etc.

It became clear that an exchange program between the east, west, central, south and even north Africa holds amazing treasures that remain untapped. We can overcome the challenges of human boundaries, travel costs and many others to enjoy the wealth God has given us on the African continent and beyond.

May God bless this new-found connection. God bless Africa!

*Ephesians. 3:10-11, 20-21*

Gilbert Kimeng