SOMA Kenya has been a delight to work with throughout the visit. Even after the official programme was over Archdeacon Gilbert, one of our hosts in Nairobi, connected us to the Bishop and Sub-Dean of Mombassa Cathedral and we were able to join them en masse as a family, for the Palm Sunday parade and celebrations. More on that in the next post.

The climax of Toby and my time on mission was to attend the first in person SOMA Kenya board meeting, which proved to be a fulfilling occasion showing ambition and direction from the newest national body to join the SOMA family. Toby was pretty spent by this stage and graced the Bishop’s waiting area happily, enjoying the wifi and his iPad for some well deserved R&R. But I was welcomed in to the meeting to provide some outside context to the recent SOMA International journey and to make our two proposals for SOMA UK and SOMA Kenya to partner in the new Learning Cohorts initiative and the next phase of META Youth as Stu begins the ‘training the trainers’ programme which will begin the first phase of META being resourced and run around the world. By the end of the meeting the board had identified the five people who would attend that training (good mix of ages and gender, including the Provincial Director for the Anglican Church of Kenya on all matters missional: Rev John Mark Odour, who is already hosting a summer youth conference for 2-3000 teenagers and is keen to have META visit there).

Conscious of the perceived collapse of the church in England the Kenyans were very open to the idea of Learning Cohorts where teams from the UK are trained and sent to engage in real mission overseas that exposes them to the spiritual realm in a way that is increasingly necessary in the UK. These missions will be done in a way that enables them to consciously learn from the host nation who they join as co-team members. One of the great hopes for this project is that is brings great hope and inspiration to emerging, new and established ministers and lay people through seeing God at work in a context far removed from their own, enabling them to read their own culture better as they travel. Encouragingly, while I am away I read reports via Gavin Calver from the EA of the Bible Society survey that suggests an encouraging quiet renaissance (if not revival) in church attendance among 16-25 year olds in the UK. The greatest surge of this seems to be among those of Global Majority Heritage. There’s hope for these islands yet, and the Global Church may be key to seeing that breakthrough.

But special mention in all of this must be made of the SOMA committee and especially the Chair and National Director. The Chair Bishop Moses was introduced in the post on Mbeere, and Revd Tom Otieno featured in the Nairobi post, but it was a joy to get to know Tom more on the way home as John Mark, Toby and I travelled with him back to Nairobi where we would link up with Nicola and Ella.

I got to hear some of Tom’s very moving personal story and then interview him for our Learning Cohorts videos. If only for that you should sign up to Learning Cohorts, as we have a fantastic amount to learn from this humble man who was described to me several times as the go-to man for deliverance ministry. That is partly because his personal story included real breakthroughs, but as you listen to him what you hear is love for anyone in need of help and deliverance. It is a great reminder that love is the true hallmark of Holy Spirit ministry, not power.

The committee included lay and ordained women and men with a purpose and vigour. It was a joy to meet with them and a faith building exercise for me. I can’t wait to introduce more of you to them all.