Have you ever stepped into a party only to realize that while you were technically invited you may be out a little over your skis. Well, that started for me at 8:30 this morning when General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) consultation with the East Africa Episcopal Area (EAEA) began. Attending the meeting are the presiding Bishop of the EAEA, three United Methodist General Secretaries, two GBGM board members, 10 other General Agency employees, the Vice Chancellor of Africa University, the District Superintendents and Conference Leadership from all four East Africa Annual Conferences, and me. While we gathered and participants mingled and introduced one another folks would look at my name tag with a confused look, but did not necessarily want to ask, “so, why are you here?” Enough about me working through unnecessary imposters syndrome. The bottom line is that in the life of the United Methodist Church in East Africa, this is an extremely important meeting.

A little background…Almost 12 years ago an internal audit raised questions about how funds from the Advance Special were used in the Episcopal office of the EAEA. When GBGM asked for documents to determine if there was any misappropriation of funds the office was unable to produce those documents. At that point distribution of General Agency funds was frozen and an independent audit was required. I am not certain about why it has taken so long to resolve this problem, there are many moving parts both political and otherwise that are outside of what I have learned in Kenya. I want to share one quote from the meeting last January; the meeting that preceded and lead to this meeting. The quote comes from a longer press release from May 2, 2023, that you can find here. “A leadership group representing both the East Africa Episcopal Area and Global Ministries then met in Atlanta in January 2023 to review the assessment and discuss a resolution, an in-person meeting that had been long-delayed because of the pandemic. Parties attending the January meeting met with the mutual intent of moving forward with a spirit of reconciliation and healing.” This consultation connects the decisions of GBGM and the EAEA to the leaders of the local churches in the 4 conferences of the EAEA and is working for a way forward.

From what I can tell this is the first meeting of this type in the history of the EAEA. This meeting is historic because it sets a new direction for the relationship between the EAEA and GBGM. Together both acknowledged their participation in the difficulty of the last 12 years and are obviously committed to a way forward. For me this is so important because at the end of the day it is the members of the UMC in the EAEA that need support from the global church.

As part of the day each of the Annual Conferences presented and we began presentations from the General agencies. It was a long day of listening to hopes, dreams, and the work of the church. What I can reflect is that the members of the EAEA listened well to the General Agencies and the members of the General agencies listened well to the members of the EAEA. Listening well for 10-12 hours is so difficult, and everyone worked hard to listen to each other. More tomorrow…

Peace,

Luke