In 1982 a team comprised of four Harding couples decided to settle with the Kalenjin people of eastern Kenya. Thirty years later three couples from that group returned to Harding to teach and share their experiences with others seeking to accomplish the same type of work, creating a legacy of eastern African missionaries.
The original team was comprised of Monte and Beth Cox, Amos and Anne Allen, Steve and Donna Jo Meeks and Oneal and Betsy Tankersley. While the original group lived with the Kalenjin people, two more couples joined the group; Steven and Claudia Greek and Kevin and Susan Kehl. Four members out of the group became part of Harding faculty: Dr. Monte Cox, dean of the College of Bible and Ministry, Oneal Tankersley, director of Harding University Tahkodah, Kevin Kehl, assistant professor of Bible and Susan Kehl, assistant professor of Nursing.
“Africa, it’s Africa that brought the team together,” Cox said.
Gailyn Vanrheenen, a professor of missions visiting from 1977 to 1978, influenced the original team to work with the Kalenjin people by discussing his work with the Kipsigis, the largest dialect of the Kalenjin people. According to Cox, the talk of the Kipsigis by Vanrheenen was endless, and he never expected to go to that region.
A group leaving for Mbulu, Tanzania, this January to be with the Iraqw people and restart a church-planting ministry that began in 1990 sought the guidance of this veteran team.
“There are a lot of things of ‘how to’s’ and there are a lot of things that are not really conventional, and sometimes when people think of teams they think ‘OK, here are the steps you take and here is what the Eldoret team did’,” Kehl said. “Well, if we kind of look in there and see what the Eldoret team did, it’s more like what God did with the Eldoret team.”
To encourage future students to go to the missions fields, the two teams are speaking at the Global Missions Experience, Sept. 27-30. The group is using a mock interview set-up, having the Mbulu team ask questions to the Kalenjin team about such things as formation, meeting, choosing a site, what the group learned about the Kingdom while in the field and having to work together. They are hoping to create more additions to the legacy of the Kalenjin team.
“We are just common people who were allowed to do uncommon things,” Tankersley said.
The original team has influenced more than just the Mbulu team. A team traveled to the Makonde tribe in southeastern Tanzania that was formed by two of the children of the original 1982 team, as well as one who was born in Kenya at the same time, that traveled to the Makonde tribe in southeastern Tanzania. That team is still thriving in the region and will be in touch with Mbulu team from time to time forming a net of connection.
