My Journey to the Midwest – Emmanuel Kwizera

Emmanuel is the International Missions Director at African Enterprise International, since 2015. Emmanuel served as the national missions director for African Enterprise Rwanda for nine years. Evangelism and developing a disciple-making culture in the local church are things that he holds dear. After losing hundreds of friends and family during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a country that was said to be 90% Christian at the time, he had so many questions about the Church in Africa. Here is Emmanuel’s testimony of how God has led him to the Midwest, where he is pursuing his dream of equipping the church with a proper transformative disciple-making evangelism approach.

1. Changed Life

My journey to the Midwest (USA) has been a stepping stone to God’s amazing plan for my destiny. My spiritual experience started with my family, where we were seven children, and our parents were ministers in the Presbyterian Church of Rwanda. My dad, who was an evangelist, had a significant influence on my life. At age 10, I knew how to present the message of the cross of Jesus Christ through The Jesus Film and preaching. At 14, I left the church and became rebellious to God and my family. In 1998, at the age of 21, I was invited by my sister to a local church near our home. I heard the gospel for the first time and decided to follow Jesus by inviting Him to be my Lord and my Savior. Since then, my life has never been the same again. Dreams of the Kingdom of God were born in my life. 

• Life in Africa

In 1994, there was a genocide against the Tutsi in my country, Rwanda, and over one million people were killed. My wife and I had over one hundred relatives who died during that horrible period. We both survived miraculously. It was after that period that I started questioning God. This led me to have a deep reflection on the role and the mission of the Church, particularly in Rwanda:

 “Before the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, Christians were over 90%. What went wrong with the mission of the church? Where was the Church before and during the genocide?”

“If God is a loving God, why does he allow innocent people to be killed? Why did he allow Genocide to happen in Rwanda? Why suffering, yet we have a loving God?

Over the last 20 years, I have been wrestling with such questions, reflecting, and researching on the Church in Africa. As Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1:12-15, “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him.”

• Moved to Midwest

            In 2021, I received good news that I was awarded the Billy Graham Scholarship to pursue my master’s in Evangelism at Wheaton College in Illinois (USA). The journey to the Midwest started from there. My family and I packed our luggage, traveled 7,717 miles, and moved to the suburb of Chicago. I graduated from Wheaton College in May 2023.  After that, I started my doctorate program at Trinity International University in the fall of 2023.

I remember previously going to Singapore in 2008 for training on Advanced Leadership and Evangelism hosted by the Haggai Institute. We were asked to state the vision of our lives. I wrote this: “I dream of seeing the church (the body of Christ) knowing the What, the Why, and the How of Evangelism, and then evangelizing and discipling nations effectively.” At that time, I didn’t know how God would continue orchestrating my life to fulfill that dream.

I got married in 2007, and later that same year, I started working with an evangelistic organization called African Enterprise as the Missions Director in Rwanda. In 2015, I moved to Nairobi to serve as the International Missions Director of the same organization. This has been a journey of my spiritual formation of growing and serving the church in Africa for the global mission. Over the years of serving the church in Africa, I discovered significant gaps and challenges in my ministry despite the success and achievements. In early 2017, the need and conviction to be academically trained in evangelism became strong in my life, and that’s how I moved to the Midwest in 2021 to be equipped so that I could equip others.

• Opportunities or challenges of the church in Africa

I love Africa, and I believe the time has come for Africa to arise and shine. Over the last decades, Christianity has grown tremendously in the global South, particularly in Africa. According to the Lausanne Movement[1], Africa became the continent with the most Christians in 2018, and by 2050, half of evangelicals are expected to be Africans. These factors are changing Africa from a mission field to a mission-sending continent.

However, most churches in Africa and other continents grow through transfers (Christians moving from one church to another) rather than conversion (Evangelism). Evangelism is not yet a culture in local churches and in the life of every believer, which also affects our discipleship strategies. In addition, most theological schools are not evangelistic-oriented, and those who consider themselves evangelists have yet to be theologically and systematically trained. Personally, I was an evangelist with no formal or academic training in Evangelism and theology.

Egocentric Christianity, Prosperity gospel, syncretism, heresy, cults, Bible illiteracy, nontheologically trained pastors and evangelists, and the lack of discipleship are significant issues affecting the African Church.

And from all this flow these questions of reflection;

• If Africa is expected to be the future of Christianity, what kind of Christianity will Africa offer and bequeath to the rest of the world?
• Africa is experiencing tremendous Christian growth, but what are the dynamics behind church growth in Africa?
• What gospel are African evangelists preaching?
• Where is the role of the ministry of evangelists in Africa for the global mission?

Responding to these challenges, I worked with my organization, African Enterprise, to launch the International Institute of Evangelism in 2022. African Enterprise believes that establishing formal training of evangelists and pastors has never been as urgent as it is today in Africa. As many as 90% of Church leaders may never have received a single day of formal training.

Recently, the Kenyan government put in place a regulation that requires the clerics in Kenya to have either a diploma or degree in Theology from a recognized theological institution, among other requirements (Kenyan Daily). This follows a most recent tragedy that led to the death of over 300 Christians in Malindi, Kenya’s Coastal region. The leading controversial Pastor is said to have influenced his church followers to fast to death, hoping to ” meet Jesus.”

• Why the Institute of Evangelism?

Visiting Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, I read this inspiring quote from James Denney: “If Evangelists were our Theologians or Theologians our Evangelists, we should at least be nearer to the ideal church.” My dream became a reality when African Enterprise asked me to be the Director of the International Institute of Evangelism, with a vision to train over 2,500 pastors and evangelists by 2026.

The vision of the African Enterprise International Institute of Evangelism (AEIIE) is to be a center of excellence for equipping evangelists for the Global Mission; its mission is to equip evangelists theologically and holistically for the Global Mission. I invite you to journey with us in what God is doing through this institute.

• What has been achieved in Year 1 (2023)

Seeing what God can do through ordinary people for His glory in Year 1 of this project is amazing. African Enterprise International Institute of Evangelism (AEIIE) was launched in September 2022 during the Zambia National Prayer Breakfast in Lusaka. The Institute launch saw over 430 leaders from different parts of the world coming together and witnessing the significant milestone of African Enterprise. For the first cohort in year one, 440 students were trained. They have been trained in 4 modules, covering 21 courses on evangelism, discipleship, and missions.

African Enterprise has signed an agreement with African International University, former Nairobi Evangelical Graduates School of Theology (NEGST), to research the state of evangelism in the Sub-Saharan African region. A new project has also been started to get accreditation for the African Enterprise International Institute of Evangelism.

• New goals for the next three years (2024-2026), Implementation Plan

For the next three years, this Institute will focus on these four programs:

Program 1:  AEIIE will seek to see three new cohorts of 440 pastors and evangelists from 12 countries certified by December 2026. In this phase, students will complete the four compulsory modules of Stratified Evangelism and participate in missions. They will be awarded Advanced Certificates in Evangelism and Missions (ACEM).

Program 2:  Launch of Postgraduate Diploma in Evangelism and Missions (PDEM)

The Postgraduate Diploma in Evangelism and Missions (PDEM) aims to equip individuals with other academic degrees in different subjects. These individuals might be in ministry or any other career and need to be equipped in evangelism and missions.

Ministry Contextualized Paper

As the final evaluation exam, students will write a ministry-contextualized paper, integrating what they have learned into their life’s calling.

Program 3: Africa Theology and Evangelism Consultations-ATEC: These Consultations will bring together African theologians and Practitioners in evangelism to reflect on trends, gaps, and opportunities for integrating evangelism into theology. These consultations will create curriculum and theological content to train pastors and evangelists in different theology schools.

Program 4: Research on the state of evangelism in North Africa. In year 1 (2023), African Enterprise will continue to research the state of evangelism in sub-Saharan African countries. In the next three years, the research will focus more on the West and North African regions: (1) to identify unreached people groups in Africa, particularly in West and North Africa and recommend the best model of cross-culture evangelism, (2) to establish the effectiveness of evangelism and Discipleship in Africa,​ (3) to establish the sources of funding for evangelistic missions, (4) to establish the impact of women and youth evangelism, and ​(5) to determine and analyze the future of evangelism in Africa. ​

Program 5: Church Evangelism Revitalization: this program aims to develop an evangelistic culture in the local church by training senior pastors to model evangelism that everyone can imitate. Pastors will create a mentorship cohort to share the best practices. African Enterprise will facilitate coaching and provide materials for the local church.  

• Investing financially to Equip the Church in Africa for the Global mission

The vision of the African Enterprise International Institute of Evangelism is a noble cause worthy of your support through your donations. 

• Prayer Items
• My family to continue adjusting smoothly, settling and ministering in the Midwest,
• Healthy collaborations with all our partner churches and organizations,  
• This institute to bring a kingdom impact in the lives of many people in Africa,
• The process of getting accreditation and planning to build an African Center of Evangelism, and
• Providence for all the needed funds for this dream to become a reality.  

[1] https://lausanne.org/content/lga/2021-03/is-christianity-shrinking-or-shifting