Kenya has one of the largest numbers of missionaries of any country
around, I think second only to Japan... And that's created certain
problems. The fact that even though the church is as large as it is,
there are still so many missionaries involved, it creates a certain
degree of dependency on missionaries, which is not healthy for the
church, and yet will always be there as long as there are that many
missionaries there. We used to discuss the influence of the American
missionary and put it in terms of this. If you have a committee of ten
people and one American on that committee, and the rest are
Kenyans, the committee will always decide the way the American
thinks. And that's a combination of how strong we as Americans are
in the way we put forth our ideas, and how gracious the Kenyans are
in not wanting to disagree. So the need as I see it is for some of
those many many missionaries to kind of pull back out of
decision-making positions and decision-making roles, and let the
church call some of its own shots, even more than they do today.
Excerpt from oral history interview conducted by Archives staff in
1985 with Kenneth Shingledecker. Shingledecker grew up in a
missionary family in Burundi, and worked for Inter-Varsity Christian
Fellowship in the United States (1974-1980). He joined Daystar
Communications in Nairobi in 1981 and later Daystar University
College, where he continues to work. Shingledecker graduated from
Wheaton College Graduate School in 1985. More information about
Shingledecker and the interview with him is described in the guide to
Collection 297, which you can review by
clicking here