The Rev. Paul Machira has been leading high-energy song and Bible lesson gatherings for children in apartment complexes around Nairobi, the Associated Press reported this week.
The “Balcony to Balcony” ministry was started in mid-March by Machira, who also serves as resource mobilizer for All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral, and since then has presented services 16 times at large apartment complexes around the Kenyan capital. Families come out on their balconies to listen to him, singing and dancing along with the music. Government-imposed coronavirus lockdowns have been severe across Kenya, which currently has about 1,000 COVID-19 cases.
Machira sees the balcony gatherings as a natural opportunity for evangelism, saying, “I think this is the greatest opportunity that has ever arisen to the Church, reason being we have got reason to go out on the streets. … Jesus sometimes would go to the temple but his main ministry was out in the fields, out in the streets.”
Lillian Mbere, a Sunday School teacher who sparked the idea for Machir, said the services are having a major impact. “I have seen a lot of growth in the children,” she said. “When I sometimes delay and I am not in my balcony by 2 p.m., they usually come asking if they are having a service today. It’s like a way of life for now … Sometimes when I am in my house I can hear them singing the songs we have taught them.”
Read it all.
