{"id":6321,"date":"2012-11-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mwc-cmm.org\/east-african-mennonite-churches-form-mission-board\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T22:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T22:44:08","slug":"east-african-mennonite-churches-form-mission-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mwc-cmm.org\/en\/stories\/east-african-mennonite-churches-form-mission-board\/","title":{"rendered":"East African Mennonite churches form mission board"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Nairobi, Kenya \u2013 Mennonite bishops from Kenya and Tanzania formed a mission board during their annual meeting, held in August at the Mennonite Guest House. \u201cWe are no longer churches which just receive missionaries, but churches which send missionaries,\u201d the church leaders stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>EMM has a 78-year history of working with churches in East Africa. \u201cIt is immensely satisfying to see this expression of the churches\u2019 maturity and passion for missions,\u201d said Aram DiGennaro, EMM\u2019s regional representative for East Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The new mission board, named International Mennonite Mission of East Africa, or IMMEA, reflects the bishops\u2019 conviction that East Africans have what it takes to do missions on their continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leaders agreed that their churches must become more overtly missional. Their first step will be to create a missions training program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To stimulate passion for missions, the leaders are introducing the concept of a \u201cYear of Service for Christ\u201d into their churches, with a goal to train 100 people as disciple-makers by the end of 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A committee of three \u2013 Bishop Philip Okeyo and Pastor Rebecca Osiro of Kenya Mennonite Church, and Bishop Christopher Ndege of Tanzania Mennonite Church \u2013 will take responsibility for the ongoing development of IMMEA. Both churches are members of Mennonite World Conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><em>From EMM release by Debbi DiGennaro<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:200\" class=\"taxonomy-post_tag has-link-color wp-elements-c156640d9bee56933ae7a5b97a71238b wp-block-post-terms has-text-color has-gray-color\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mwc-cmm.org\/en\/stories\/tag\/africa\/\" rel=\"tag\">Africa<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mwc-cmm.org\/en\/stories\/tag\/leadership-development\/\" rel=\"tag\">leadership development<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mwc-cmm.org\/en\/stories\/tag\/mission\/\" rel=\"tag\">mission<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mwc-cmm.org\/en\/stories\/tag\/tanzania\/\" rel=\"tag\">Tanzania<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nairobi, Kenya \u2013 Mennonite bishops from Kenya and Tanzania formed a mission board during their annual meeting, held in August at the Mennonite Guest House. \u201cWe are no longer churches which just receive missionaries, but churches which send missionaries,\u201d the church leaders stated. EMM has a 78-year history of working with churches in East Africa. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":84859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1611,1167,257,1701],"network":[],"eventcategory":[],"class_list":["post-6321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-africa","tag-leadership-development","tag-mission","tag-tanzania"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>East African Mennonite churches form mission board - Mennonite World Conference<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new mission board International Mennonite Mission of East Africa, or IMMEA, started.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mwc-cmm.org\/en\/stories\/east-african-mennonite-churches-form-mission-board\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"East African Mennonite churches form mission board - Mennonite World Conference\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A new mission board International Mennonite Mission of East Africa, or IMMEA, started.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/mwc-cmm.org\/en\/stories\/east-african-mennonite-churches-form-mission-board\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mennonite World Conference\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MennoniteWorldConference\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-07T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-13T22:44:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" 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