92. Nairobi Gathering #6 – Aila’s Story

Dr Aila Tasse first received Jesus’ forgiveness as a teenager and is now catalysing movements across Africa. He has seen 42 movements* birthed across east Africa with over 18,000 churches being planted.

In this podcast, Aila shares his story and shares some of the keys to seeing movement happen. He finishes by encouraging us in the West to humbly pray and intentionally obey God to see him move in our context. 

Aila’s journey 

During Aila’s Muslim upbringing in Kenya, he started to ask “who is Allah?”. He was challenged about the message of Jesus from a Christian teacher whilst Aila was dying of yellow fever and cerebral malaria. Aila soon asked Jesus to forgive his sins.

After being rejected by his Muslim family for his new faith, Aila had an encounter with God where he was asked, ‘Can cabbages grow in the dessert?’. God gave Aila a vision for 14 unreached people groups (UPGs) in Kenya. These were the cabbages God was going to grow. 

Aila went back to the town where he had accepted Jesus as a teenager and started a church. Movement was birthed out of this with Aila pursuing God’s vision of doing the impossible amongst UPGs (cabbages in the dessert) ever since. Today, all 14 of these tribes of northern Kenya are now being engaged with indigenous leaders and movement being catalysed. 

Aila’s vision soon expanded to include the remaining 26 UPGs across Kenya. These days, Aila catalyses teams engaging each of these tribal groups. The vision has now increased to the 320 UPGs across eastern and the horn of Africa. 157 of these groups are being engaged with 42 movements being birthed over the last three years.

The keys of these movements

  • Prayer – since movement is a work of God
  • Using scriptures through a discovery process
  • Multiplication comes out of obedience
  • God uses ordinary people
  • Coaching, not just training – no leaders, no movement
  • People of peace respond to practical love

But what about the West?

  • A paradigm shift is needed to believe movement can happen
  • Pride versus humility and hunger 
  • Intentional obedience is the catalyst.

Aila says, “Movement is God himself moving, using ordinary and obedient people like us”

* Aila defines a movement as one that consists of 100 churches down to at least 4 generations. The average movement in Aila’s context is 10 generations deep.