Church Catalyst Director David Giles has been crunching the numbers and is really happy at the results he’s seeing for church plants and baptisms in the division’s fields last year.

“We estimated that we would plant 59 churches in 2011,” said David, “but I just got the numbers from Kenya so I have the total – 80 church plants in 2011 in CC fields!”

Highlights worth noting:

• There were 13 church plants and 1,026 baptisms in the Turkana, Kenya, churches in 2011.
• The Community Christian Church of Kenya planted 38 new churches in the Maasai and Turkana areas.
• The Maasai churches added 661 new members in 2011.
• Ten churches were planted in England through the Church Planting Task Force; three of the Great Britain field team members work with this partnership.
• Eighteen churches were planted in Ethiopia – 13 among the Oromo people and 5 among the Gumuz. There were also 200 baptisms in the Gumuz area in the last six months of 2011.

Other Church Catalyst fields such as Tanzania (5 new churches, 300 baptisms), Ivory Coast (1 new church) and Ukraine (8 new churches) also experienced significant growth in 2011.

“I’m thrilled with these reports,” said David. “These are the results of the Holy Spirit working through CMF missionaries, national church leaders and effective field partnerships.”

God is using CMF and the Kristos Andinet Church (CMF’s national partner church) in western Ethiopia for His glory! The Kristos Andinet Church totals 70 churches with 8,000+ believers.

After a recent conference at the Kiramu center for the 53 Oromo churches, local people were invited to a revival. During this revival, 2 local witches/spiritists died suddenly, as did 2 animals – a python and a hyena – kept as part of their “worship.” The people were awestruck by God’s power, and immediately 14 people expressed their desire to follow Jesus Christ. These churches are also partnering with CMF missionaries to begin an exciting new ministry among college students in the town of Nekempte.

Among the Gumuz – an unreached people along the Nile and Blue Nile rivers – national evangelists are traveling farther into rural areas and reporting a great response in villages that have not heard the Gospel before. A young, remote church in Aygali maxed out its new building this spring as around 80 adults and 40 children faithfully attended services each week. On May 1, 4 local people and 2 people from about 4 hours away accepted Christ; 21 others are in a baptism class. A mini-conference that weekend filled the building to capacity with 20+ outside the building looking through the windows. The oldest Gumuz church in the town of Yasow (with attendance of 600+) is building a branch church across the village (similar to a US multi-campus church) to accommodate their growth.