OLD MISSION PARTNERS, NEW SUPPORT
Kairos Prison Ministries and Churches for Namibia are well known to most of our Christ Church members. Our partnership with these missions spans many years, and a number of our members have been (and still are) actively involved in their work.
Kairos is an interdenominational Christian ministry whose discipleship programmes are designed for Medium and Maximum Security sections of men’s and women’s correctional institutions, juvenile institutions, and the outside families of prisoners. The ministry is conducted by volunteer teams who are selected, trained and certified by area governing bodies of Kairos and approved by correctional institutions as citizen volunteers. The purpose of Kairos is to establish strong Christian communities among the population of correctional institutions that fully support the rehabilitation programmes in our prisons.
Christ Church Somerset West supports the work of Kairos at Drakenstein juvenile prison, currently led by Gavin Cooper, with Jonathan Griffiths (one of our many talented drummers!) having recently joined the team for the 2025 programme.
Churches for Namibia is a grouping of REACH SA churches in the Cape that trains and supports the pastors and ministry workers of Reach Namibia churches. It began with a small team visiting Namibia in 2003 to explore the possibilities of a missions trip the following year to support the Anglican Evangelical churches in Ovamboland, before REACH Namibia was formed. This was the beginning of an annual missions outreach that counted its 18th trip in 2024, currently led by Ross Bartholomew of St. Matthew’s Table View. From its fledgling beginnings in 2016, REACH Namibia currently consists of more than 35 churches, but the young denomination remains in need of practical support and well trained ministry workers.
New Support:
After considering the specific financial needs of these two partners, and the vital gospel nature of their work, our Church Council has decided to expand our support to include a monthly financial contribution to them.
An amount of R5000 per month will be allocated to Pastor Kambauh of New Jerusalem church in Ongha, and R1000 per month to Kairos Drakenstein. This will allow Pastor Kambauh to serve his church as a full-time minister, rather than part-time, and Kairos will allocate the funds to their many operational costs.
Our church council also recently approved an inflation increase of about 6% on average to all our financially-supported partners. Together with the new support to Kairos and Churches for Namibia, this brings the total financial support to our missions partners to R47,850 per month, or R574,200 per year.
The graph below provides a picture of our total support for 2025.
More information on the budget or the church’s missions activities is available from Amy Allen, Herbert Schröder or Freddy Ward of our Missions Action Team.
