“I have seen a lot of television commercials about the hungry in Africa and feeding the poor,” said Kirk DuBois, an instructor at RHEMA Bible Training Center USA. “I have to say I knew it to be true. But I was never truly impacted until now, because I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

DuBois and Mike Eavey, a 2008 RBTC USA graduate, accompanied RBTC Dean Tad Gregurich in August on his 15th trip to Kenya. The 11-day trek sowed seed for long-lasting results, both naturally and spiritually.

The three-man team purchased several 200-pound bags of corn thatwere used to feed more than 300 orphans and 75 widows whose lives had been impacted by the AIDS virus and malaria. Two acres were also plowed and planted with corn and beans to make future provision for those in need. And the team paid to have a roof put on a bush church in Olengo.

Roofing a church and feeding needy people provided natural help. But the primary focus of the trip was conducting leadership training meetings and church revivals to provide spiritual help. In the town of Muhoroni, the team held leadership training sessions for more than 50 pastors and church leaders. Through this training, the RHEMA team “planted seed” for future spiritual food, since these leaders and pastors will teach others what they have learned.

“Many of the pastors in Kenya don’t have any training,” Dean Gregurich said. “Some of them don’t even have a Bible. Any student who has finished one year at RHEMA would have more training than the majority of the pastors over there.”

Gregurich wrote the curriculum for Trinity Bible Training Center in Kenya in 1999. Since then, 75 students have graduated from the school and most are in active ministry. One of those graduates, Kenedy Ouma from the class of 2009, often traveled on foot to Kenyan villages to minister the Gospel. But because he had to walk, he was limited in the places he could reach, so the team bought him a bicycle.

“Now he can get to two remote villages in one day,” Dean Gregurich said. “He also used to have a 30-minute walk to his church in Kakamega.”

In Luke chapter 4, Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah, “ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor’ ” (vv. 18–19 NIV). The three-man RHEMA team carried out the same kind of ministry that Jesus did—preaching the Good News at church revival meetings in Kakamega and Olengo.

“The church revivals went really well,” Dean Gregurich said. “Our emphasis was on righteousness, who you are in Christ, the authority of the believer, and the Holy Spirit. In Kakamega we saw 15 people get filled with the Holy Ghost, including an 89-year-old woman and her 19-year-old grandson. That was one of the highlights of the trip.

“The church in Olengo is a bush church,” he added. “There were four or five different pastors who came to those meetings. We taught very strongly on who you are in Christ, which is a message that they really need.”

The messages that were preached blessed more than just those present in the services. A woman in the village was unable to attend the meetings because of severe back pain. As she lay in her thatch-roofed hut, she heard the Word being preached. Her faith was strengthened, and she asked for someone to bring the pastor of the church to speak to her.

The Kenyan pastor arrived and spoke with the woman, and she asked him to pray for her healing. Applying what he had learned in the revival meeting, the pastor prayed for her. The next day she was able to walk to the meeting and testify about what God had done for her.

The work of this short-term missions team is just one small example of what RHEMA graduates are doing in Kenya. Four recent RBTC graduates are moving to Kenya to teach at Trinity Bible Training Center. Another graduate has been ministering in Kenya since 1999 and started a mobile Bible school in 2006. One couple has been ministering in the nation for more than 10 years. Their work has included pastoring a church and pioneering a Bible school in 2005. 

RBTC is having the same kind of impact around the world through RHEMA graduates living and ministering in more than 100 countries.

“I would encourage people to continue to support RHEMA and RHEMA Bible Training Center with their faithful giving,” Gregurich said. “It enables us to continue to train men and women to go into these regions and not only get people saved and healed, but also to teach and train them.”