2013 has seen a lot of
wonderful happenings. Here are some of the highlights.
ECLEA is born!
Community Church-Appleton is
part of Converge Great Lakes. ECLEA was present at CGL’s annual meeting in the
Fall. Brenda Hernday, the head of CGL’s Short Term Ministries Initiative, likes
what ECLEA is doing, wants to become more actively involved, and is planning
her first trip to East Africa for April 2014. I have also spoken with CGL
pastors who want to explore the possibility of partnering with ECLEA.
Conferences and TOTs
I believe my personal impact
will be maximized by spending more time teaching smaller groups of
pastor-teachers (TOTs) who can then teach their own people and other church
leaders, instead of concentrating on teaching at larger church-leader
conferences. I still teach at conferences where my presence is requested and
valuable. However, even though I travel to East Africa five times a year, I can
only be in relatively few places. Thus, equipping indigenous teachers who have
the ability and desire to teach others is my priority.
In 2013 I led the following TOTs: Burundi: 1-Biblical
Stewardship; 1-First Timothy. Kenya: 3-Biblical
Theology; 2-Forgiveness & Reconciliation; 1-Biblical Interpretation; 1
Biblical Stewardship. Rwanda: 1-Expository
Preaching. Tanzania: 2-Biblical
Theology; 2-Expository Preaching.
In 2013 I taught at the following church-leader
conferences: Burundi: 3-First Timothy; 1-Biblical Stewardship. Kenya: 1-First Timothy. Tanzania: 3-First Timothy; 1-Biblical
Stewardship. Uganda: 1-Biblical
Stewardship.
This year’s mix of
conferences and TOTs reflects my priority, as it is weighted toward TOTs. Even
at the conferences, however, I make sure that 2 or 3 Africans teach with me. This
year’s activities also reflect the fact that ECLEA has established itself in
many places in East Africa. Because of this, I am able to introduce other
courses that build upon what we have already done instead of concentrating
solely on our “core” courses of First Timothy and Biblical Stewardship.
All-African conferences and TOTs
ECLEA takes its name seriously: we truly want to “equip” East African church leaders
so that they can teach their own people—and other church leaders—the excellent
material that we provide in their own languages and cultural context. If ECLEA
is to have a long-term impact, it cannot ultimately depend on me, or Dr.
Cummings, or any Westerner. Rather, the Africans will have to “own” and
transmit our vision and teachings.
That we are succeeding in
this is shown by the fact that the number of all-African church-leader
conferences and TOTs more than doubled
over the number of all-African conferences and TOTs in 2012! In 2013 there were
80-85 all-African conferences and TOTs in Kenya and 25-30 all-African
conferences and TOTs in Tanzania. Additionally, ECLEA-trained teachers even led
conferences in Democratic Republic of Congo. ECLEA helps to financially
facilitate these all-African conferences and TOTs.
Other happenings
Frank Cummings continues to travel regularly to East
Africa teaching biblical counseling.
He has now developed an advanced counseling course to complement his basic
course. And, consistent with ECLEA’s vision of equipping the East African
church leaders, East Africans are now beginning to teach the basic course to
other African church leaders!
An important part of ECLEA’s long-term impact is
getting our material translated into the major East African languages. This is an ongoing project, but several Kiswahili
(the most widespread East African language) translations will be completed
soon. Additionally, efforts are underway to translate into Kinyarwanda and
Kirundi (the major languages of Rwanda and Burundi), the major tribal languages
of Uganda and Kenya, and French (which is spoken in Rwanda, Burundi, and
Democratic Republic of Congo).
I could use help in proofing the translations. You don’t have to know the language, because I am
proofing for format. This is a very important task, and it needs to be done
before we place the translations online and distribute them to our East African
partners and friends. If you would like to help with this important ministry,
please contact me!
ECLEA now has leadership
committees/structures/organizations in each of the countries of the East
African Community. In Burundi we have
partnered with an indigenous ministry, Rema Ministries, to work with us and
teach our material. As the local ECLEA organizations develop and grow our
impact will increase. This is an important part of the process of the East
Africans “owning” this vision and ministry. Further, our goal is that our
committees be interdenominational, inter-tribal, and include both genders: we
want ECLEA to model both sound biblical teaching and Christian community.
 |
| ECLEA-Rwanda Committee |
 |
| Rema Ministries/ECLEA-Burundi Team |
 |
| Joram Ibrahim & Dickson Laizer: ECLEA-Tanzania Coordinators |
 |
| ECLEA-Uganda Committee |
 |
| JMM and ECLEA-Kenya Coordinators |
Looking ahead
As an American, I always tend
to want things to be done “now” (if not “yesterday”), as opposed to what we say
in Africa: “slowly by slowly.” ECLEA is still developing, but we have laid a
good foundation.
One significant “growing pain,” however, is this: because the importance of what we do is recognized by
the East African church leaders themselves, the demand for and tremendous
expansion of all-African conferences and TOTs has exceeded our financial
ability to meet the demand. We are working closely with theECLEA-East Africa
committees to bring the cost of conferences and TOTs down and to increase the
African share of the cost so that we can help facilitate more and more. We are
making progress in those regards, but even so there have been some planned
all-African conferences and TOTs that we simply were not able to facilitate
because of lack of funding.
This underscores how much we depend on
you—who want to make a long-term, significant
impact in the lives, churches, and communities of East Africa. Please consider
partnering with ECLEA financially. Dr. Cummings and I welcomethe opportunity
to speak at your church or to interested groups of individuals.
Tax-deductible donations can be made through ECLEA’s website via credit card or PayPal. Brenda Haase
(920-732-5523; ccappleton@att.net) can give you the necessary information to
enable you to establish automatic fund
transfers from your bank account to ECLEA. Or you can send checks, payable to ECLEA, to me at 714
S. Summit St., Appleton, WI 54914. And please remember: 100% of your donated
funds go to the work of the ministry; nothing is raked off for my personal
support.
Finally
Those of you who regularly
pray for me and for this ministry: I thank you! I need and appreciate your
prayers. I have seen the results of prayer when I am in East Africa. This
ministry would not succeed without you and without your prayers.
God bless you, Jonathan Menn
