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Evangelist to Return to Africa on Fourth Trip

Lisa Watson McCarty
Publisher

A Gate City-based evangelist is planning another trip to Africa to preach the good word and provide humanitarian aid to a region desperately in need.

Although his trip was originally scheduled for January 2008, Mike Jenkins and a group of 11 others are heading to the Dark Continent Oct. 30 through Nov. 6 to share Christianity with school children, prisoners and orphans.

This marks Jenkins's fourth trip to Africa and each time, he is transformed by the outpouring of love and support he receives from those he sees in Kenya.

"Last year when we visited Nakuru, Kenya, we talked to over 60,000 people during the three-night crusade," Jenkins explained. "That last night I saw 25,000 make decisions for Christ and this gets bigger each time we go. We try to reach as many as we can." The group includes musicians, children's ministers and ministers specializing in prison ministry from all over the country. They will not only be spreading the word of Christ but they are bringing in English language and Swahili Bibles, medical supplies, clothing, sanitary items and more.

Most of the missionaries are from the Kingsport, Tenn. area and are associated with Higher Ground Baptist Church. The group of six men and six women provide approximately $10,000 worth of supplies that they will distribute during the daily visits to schools and orphanages.

"Kenyans are very friendly people who think all Americans are rich," he stated, "which if you think about it we really are. A yearly salary for a worker is sometimes around $200 per year. There are also lots of street kids, who have been abandoned and left to survive on the streets.

"The minute we come into town, these youngsters find us. We feed them and try to take care of them as long as we are there. Some in our group have even "adopted" some of the kids and providing them money for their support." Jenkins said the idea for the crusade began after he was contacted by Pastor Francis Wandera of the Charismatic Revival Church in Kenya, who had read about Mike Jenkins Evangelistic Association in "Charisma" Magazine.

The first crusade began in January 2005 following a meeting between Jenkins and Wandera. That first year, their trip was so successful that the Vice President of Kenya personally thanked them for their efforts and asked them to come back the next year.  In 2006, Jenkins and the ministry touched 51,000 persons over their six-day visit and saw 12,000 accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. It was the first time an outside ministry was allowed into some of Kenya's most notorious prisons. They also continued spreading the gospel at lots of schools.

Last year, the ministry grew with even more acceptance as doors to more schools and prisons were opened to the visiting Americans. Jenkins said they were privileged to open up an additional Children's Ministry and visit the orphanage in Nakuru and once back on US soil, they were anxious to return to Kenya.

Jenkins had planned to take his wife and two sons on the 2008 trip but an uprising that led to civil war in Kenya delayed the trip.

When the ministry visits schools, they are generally allowed to talk to the entire student body with the use of an interpreter. Most schools don't have an area large enough to hold the students so events are held outside the school or in a large field.

"We bring our own sound system because most of these schools still have dirt floors in them," Jenkins added. "But the children are very quiet and respectful and once they get to know you and you have earned their trust, they respond in their own way." Jenkins generally begins his crusade by telling his own testimony of his life, which includes drug addiction, a life of crime, an alcoholic and abusive father and injury in a coal mining accident before he was saved. The story helps his audience to relate to Jenkins as a person with faults and habits similar to theirs and helps him to earn their respect.

"I earn their trust by telling them my own story and how bad things can happen to anyone," he noted. "When I am done, generally these youngsters don't want us to leave. Many of them even ask if they can come home with you." It is in the prison ministry that Jenkins believes he has had the most effect. Unlike American prisons where most inmates receive excellent care, Kenyan prisons are not like their "country club" counterparts in the US. Block wall buildings are built without roofs and no bathroom facilities at all. Prisoners are fed one meal per day.

"Most of these prisons don't have sanitary facilities and they only have holes in the ground for their bathrooms," he said. "They sleep on pine bark beds and the population is composed of violent offenders charged with rape and murder. The majority of them, at least 70 percent, have AIDS. Executions also occur on site, generally by hanging." There is no segregation between ages for male prisoners either, although female prisoners are allowed to keep their young children with them.

"We will visit three prisons this time," Jenkins commented. "We will bring in music and then I'll share the story of my life. We will give them hope that God can change everything if they accept him into their lives." One young Kenyan man sentenced to die has left a profound mark on Jenkins to this day. He carries a note in his wallet that this prisoner gave him the day before he was to die. The prisoner was saved that day and told Jenkins he would pray for God's intervention. A few days later the prisoner won a successful appeal.

"God has opened the doors wide for us to visit Kenya," Jenkins said. "At first it was just schools that we were allowed to visit and then prison and now this has blossomed into a huge crusade." The group brings its own food and medical supplies to keep them healthy during the six-day crusade. And even though threats from the county's civil war are lessened, the country is far from safe.

"This trip isn't as safe as previous years but the warfare has calmed down and I feel a sense of urgency to go to Nakuru," he remarked. "Because of our efforts in Kenya, we have been invited to Pakistan and India." Jenkins continues his focus on school-based ministry and prison ministry in the US.

He is the chaplain for Gate City High School and leads a weekly Bible study for local students at his office in Gate City.

"Every week we have kids who made good decisions and some who didn't," he stated. "I am there to listen and share my personal experiences with them and let them know I can relate to them. They have to understand you either make a choice to change or you continue and you may lose your life." Jenkins and his wife, Denise, have three sons, Jason, a Virginia State Trooper, who is married to Stacie France; Brandon, a first-year student at Mountain Empire Community College and Taylor, an eight grader at Gate City Middle School. They also have one grandson, Carson.

Jenkins is anxious to get to Africa and hopefully to be able to change the lives of those in need.

"There's nothing I'd rather be doing right now than this," he noted. "This is what God intended for me to do."

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