How God is Moving in Local Churches Across East Africa

This July, Living Water International partnered with our friends at The Crossing—an innovative multi-site church in St. Louis, Missouri—to impact one thousand East African church leaders through The Genius of One Conference.

Previously, we’ve joined The Crossing in sponsoring this life-changing conference in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Sierra Leone. This year, God called us to reach even more people. Over the course of two weeks, our team helped host three separate conferences in Kampala, Uganda; Nairobi, Kenya; and Kigali, Rwanda.

The team from The Crossing and other pastors from St. Louis and Ferguson shared powerful insights from Pastor Greg Holder’s book, “The Genius of One,” and from their experience in ministry.

In each country, bishops, pastors, educators, and other women and men of God from the local, district, and national levels came together to fellowship with one another and develop as leaders.

In Rwanda, we were joined by members of the Living Water Board of Directors and a team of faithful partners from Liquid Church in New Jersey. God brought us all together to learn from one another and to pray and worship as the Body of Christ—the unity that Jesus wants for his Church to live and operate in.

The contexts in which these leaders work and share the gospel are often challenging. Now twenty-five years after the Rwandan genocide, I was inspired by the resiliency of this country’s church leaders and how they model forgiveness and compassion for one another.

Together, we learned about how to better develop unity across countries and continents, and we discussed important topics like avoiding gossip, embracing an inner circle of advisors, and seeking conflict resolution.

So what does coming alongside the global Church have to do with sharing safe drinking water?

Living Water International is mobilizing local, district, and national church leaders to become engaged in WASH (water access, sanitation, and hygiene), which allows local churches to be more relevant and visible in their communities.

The local Church is our primary partner in sharing safe water and living water—the gospel of Jesus Christ. National organizing efforts like The Genius of One Conference intersect with our integral mission approach of meeting both the physical and spiritual needs of thirsty communities.

At these conferences, many leaders personally told me, “Only Living Water is getting behind the local Church. We can see that Living Water is committed to sharing the gospel and making disciples of all people.”

God is doing something amazing in our midst. I’m grateful for the deepening relationships between church leaders in the United States and across the continent of Africa.

Working as one body, we can transform the lives of thirsty people with water, for life, in Jesus’ name!