For many missionaries COVID-19 changed a period of their lives that they thought was set in stone. Many had to cut their missions short or cancel them altogether and had to rethink on how they could share their faith with the world.

The pandemic “shifted the needs” of many communities, with mission experts believing that the COVID-19 pandemic will have a lasting impact on the way Christian groups do missionary work.

Despite the fact that COVID-19 slowed down the mission work, many ministries and churches quickly took the advantage and reshaped their mission work, strategies of reaching out, and some went further as training in new ways to do ministry and mission under lock-down.

2 years down the line, and the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines, the lifting of the Ministry of Health Protocols, and the progress made in containing the spread of the virus is gradually making traditional mission work possible again.

A team of 14 students and staff of International Leadership University (ILU), Nairobi, held its annual community mission in Ilkilorit, Kajiado County.

The missionaries were fully set to reach out to the community in a holistic manner. For one week the team shared the gospel with the locals, conducted training for youth and church leaders, showed the Jesus film, and engaged community leaders.

On Wednesday the 6th July 2022,  which was the first day of the mission, the team met with the local leaders and elders to talk about some of the issues affecting the community and emphasised the role of Christians in helping to solve those community issues.

On their day 2, they went for a door-to-door evangelism in the areas of Ilkilorit, Nendrogo and Saikeri. On Friday, a session with the youths on the basic principles of evangelism and importance of having a relationship with God was held in Ilkilorit.

The local market in Saikeri, hosted the open-air crusade while public educational institute Ilkilorit Primary school was the venue for the Jesus’ Film Series. The evangelistic approach adopted by the team of showing the “Jesus Film series” ensured that all the locals they interacted with were exposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In a unique session themed, “Christmas In July” the children were given stationery, sanitary towels, and toys. They played games and had a lot of fun.

The culmination of the 5-day mission week was on Sunday when the team from ILU visited the local churches before embarking on their journey back to Nairobi.

During the mission 50 people got saved, a true testament that “Found People, Find People.”

John 1:40 (NIV)  Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. ⁴¹ The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). ⁴² And he brought him to Jesus.

Mission is really the heartbeat of the church. It’s taking the gospel to places and people that have never heard it and serving and loving them and trying to meet their needs.

International leadership University https://kenya.ilu.edu/ is a world-class Institution for Advancing Biblical Values through academic excellence and transformational leadership development.