29th May, 2025
Dear Rev Ricky Chelette,
RE: THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING THE INAUGURAL ANNUAL CONFERENCE AND MISSIONS
Your visit to our country and continent for the very first time was very providential. It was a great encouragement to the team to have you as part of the main speakers at the Mzazi-IP inaugural conference excellently delivering as the Key Note Speaker.
Your sharing set the pace for future conversations addressing the personhood of the people we are seeking to rescue. In the past as we have done the work since its inception, the conversation has elucidated emotions of anger, fear and hatred for the persons behind these anti-family onslaughts. Largely our approach has been on the level of awareness of the vices. We all felt the need to move the conversation further to the solutions we need to inject in this conversation. You provided for us a Christ-centered framework of the Gospel for these conversations going forward. Mrs Ann Mbugua (Chairperson ACPF-Africa Christian Professionals Forum and a leading Advocate of the High Court of Kenya) in her summary points did say that you have given a personhood to this quest and that this is not just about policies and laws but about real people who are struggling and need to be rescued and brought home to the Father.
My team of leaders and co-laborers were inspired by the astuteness with which you engaged the audience with evidence based content and statistical findings that were simply astounding. Parents listening to you found both a bearing for their present circumstances and biblical content to begin having the conversations around sex and sexuality with their own children. Your emphasis that this is the first and most important mission field right in the household provided a worthy challenge that all can begin to engage.
You observed well our challenge to speak about these topics including in the church. This brought deep conviction in the leaders present. Bishop Shadrack Ndhuli (Gatekeeper Mzazi-IP Coast Region) verbalized these in his summary points at the Mzazi-IP parents’ seminar in Kilifi. He confessed that he had never engaged his many audiences through what God says about sexuality, he confessed not knowing “how to have the conversation”. He further committed that going forward these are conversations that must he had and heard from the pulpit and he expressed interest in doing the IBS course. Your testimony is a powerful weapon in God’s Hands.
God did His work of transformation through you and this was a huge complement to our work. Several people have expressed interest to take up the IBS training and we look forward for how things will unfold since the need for the Church to address itself to matters of sexual and relational brokenness is evident and this by providing equipping for clergy, ministry leaders and parents. The ministry you do in LHM is very much needed here and we look forward to a collaboration that would increase the reach of your ministry to our continent and country. I hope that you would consider such an enduring collaboration with Uzao/Mzazi-The Intentional Parent. Many people are struggling with finding safe spaces to share their struggles; through collaborating with you, we would be able to begin to transform church leaders to transform their Churches into these “safe spaces.”
I am blessed as a person to have had my IBS Coach come to visit my locality and see the world through our eyes. I believe this, too, will go a long way in shaping the project conversations that would further enrich this experience. There is a great need for capacity building of leaders, equipping parents on Biblical parenting, and providing children with the very basic educational needs.
My deepest gratitude is to you and the team that supported you in every way. Looking forward to more such impact trips as God will enable.
In Christ’s service,
Antoninah Achieng
Executive Director