Lausanne World Pulse – Perspectives Articles – Church Planting and Evangelism: An Overview of Training through the AIC Missionary College in Kenya

By Ray and Jill Davis

The Africa Inland Church (AIC) Missionary College in Eldoret, Kenya, is dedicated to training cross-cultural church planters for Africa. It was opened in 1986 at the request of the AIC (the church founded by the Africa Inland Mission), for the purpose of cross-cultural training for pastors and their wives. It began with three expatriate couples and one Kenyan couple on staff. Twenty years later, the school is headed by Rev. Ally K. Chepkwony, who, along with his wife Ruth, was in the first graduating class. The staff also includes two expatriate couples, a single person, and two Kenyan couples.

Although Kenya is very much a “reached” nation and is strategically placed with (in spite of recent events): (1) a relatively stable economy and government that welcomes missionaries and (2) a population that is high in English speakers, over twenty tribal communities remain unreached due to challenges of Islam and/or remoteness and nomadism. To the northwest in Sudan, there is presently an open door where numerous unreached tribes await the gospel.

Over half of the 250 AIC Missionary College are in cross-cultural ministries.

The missionary college has over 250 graduates. Over fifty percent of these people are in cross-cultural ministries. The AIC has great untapped potential, as there are well over one million members in Kenya. Our goal is to encourage the mobilization of the Church in Kenya (including all evangelical denominations) to make Kenya a powerful missionary-sending nation.

Currently, the program at the college is at diploma and certificate levels and is designed for those who have a diploma from Bible school and two years of ministry experience. Many students have only an eighth grade education before attending Bible school. Student families live in duplex clusters, where they cook for themselves. When students come from mixed communities, they begin to experience cultural differences with one another.

Ray and Jill Davis have served the Africa Inland Church (AIC) in Kenya for thirty-five years as members of the Africa Inland Mission (AIM). After pioneering for twenty-five years among the Turkana and Pokot communities, they have been training African missionaries for the past ten years.