“I wish I had known this training ten years ago.”
Redemption of tea plantation workers
Years ago, our key leader in Kenya, Kefa, grew up at a tea plantation. His parents worked and lived there and he attended school at the premises. When he was young, he started to work at the plantation as well. He and his parents received a very small wage. One day he was working in the field and prayed after work for a long time. He made a decision to leave the tea plantation so he could find a better live. After some time Kefa started a bakery business and a restaurant and started to plant churches.
Six months ago, he stumbled across some people at this same tea plantation while he was selling oranges. He met one of the leaders there, Joab, and started to talk and shared the gospel with him. He found out that several workers were holding a prayer meeting everyday. He challenged them to make disciples and go out by doing door-to-door evangelism at the tea plantation. Today, there are 20+ house churches started.
To empower these people and help them become self-sustainable, we trained 30 workers from the tea planting in a Pioneer Business Planting consultation in December 2022, led our local Kenyan leaders.
Training impact
During a meeting in a small house with ten different leaders, we prayed for every person and they were touched by the power of Holy Spirit. We asked them what did they learned and how did God changed them. Most of them said “I wish I had known this training ten years ago.” As a tea plantation worker, they receive very little pay and a lot of them take a loan from the company. After some months, the money of the loan is gone and the money to pay back the loan is deducted from their salary. This had been the world of the workers there; they feared leaving the job. But after the training, their perceptions are changed and guided with the courage to engage into business while planting churches.
Local businesses visitation
The team also visited some of the existing local businesses of our local leaders there that are doing very well. Listed below are the few of them:
- Finley’s barbershop
- Peter’s second hand clothing shop
- Alloy’s second hand clothing shop
- Kefa’s bakery
"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."
Kenya’s church multiplication and business planting continue to grow. This is the power of the Seed of the Kingdom. To God be the glory!
