Glory Outreach Assembly, headed by Kenya’s Bishop David Thagana, has taken the Gospel for the first time to the Samburu, Turkana, Marsabit and Boni tribes of Kenya. But that didn’t happen until something else happened first.

World Parish Ministries taught us that we should view people the way God views them. That changed our thinking. But we had a problem seeing all people as potential worshippers, particularly the Samburu people. These people cut the necks of animals and drink their blood. They worship a God who lives in water, so they keep moving to look for water. We had absolutely nothing in common with the Samburu, so we thought they could never know God.

But when World Parish Ministries taught us that God wants a restored relationship with everyone, and that all people are potential worshippers, we realized that God loves the Samburu. They can worship God and be restored, just like we were.

And that gave us the motivation to begin taking the Gospel to them.

But we were afraid.The Samburu people have no Bible. They had not seen a Christian before. They had never seen a church. The first time I went to the Samburu people, I preached a passionate message for an hour.

Then someone lifted a hand. I thought they wanted to give their life to Christ. But instead, this person said, “Before we support what you are saying, tell us: What position is this Jesus that you are talking about? We know our past president. We know our second president, and we know our third president. So what number is this Jesus? Where do you put Him?” I told them, “Jesus is at the top, above of all the presidents.” And then they said to me, “If Jesus is at the top, why has it taken so long for you to come and tell us that?”

That question almost made me not have any more words to say. I felt like I had to first ask for forgiveness for not coming sooner. But I realized in my heart, that it had taken us so long, because we had not had the right perspective about other people, and because we had not had a strategy to reach the world.

Since then, we have begun to realize that when people are well equipped and trained to do the work, our own people can be very effective missionaries--to take the Gospel to Samaria and to the ends of the earth.