A Providential Alignment
Birthdays have always been moments where I pause to ask deeper questions: Am I aligned with God’s will? Am I walking in my calling? What is the next season? This particular birthday came at a time when I had been carrying internal tensions—questions about the nature of my assignment here, and how my past journey across nations connects with my present reality.
It is within this context that the retreat ministered to me so profoundly.
A Life Shaped Across Nations
To understand why this retreat spoke so deeply to me, one must understand the journey God has taken me on.
I was born in Kenya, raised and shaped in East Africa, and later trained in Malawi. My early ministry in Kenya involved open-air crusades across the country, preaching in buses, and walking long distances to reach Maasai communities—often gathering under trees or in simple mabati churches. Seasons of fasting in Karura Forest and Ngong Hills marked deep spiritual formation.
In Malawi, my journey expanded into theological training, student chaplaincy, and exposure to national leadership circles. This season broadened my worldview and sharpened my understanding of leadership and influence.
From there, my ministry extended into Botswana and South Africa, where I spent significant years engaged in church planting and building apostolic networks. These were years of active leadership—mobilising, preaching, raising leaders, and fathering ministries.
Then, in 2022, I relocated to Australia.
This transition has not been simple. While I have been serving faithfully—within the NDIS space and as an Associate Pastor in a multicultural context—there has been an ongoing internal question:
Is this the fullness of my calling, or am I in a season of transition?
At times, I have felt the tension between what I know I carry and what I am currently expressing. That tension formed the backdrop against which I came into this retreat.
When Scripture Became Personal: Acts 1:8 Reframed
It was during the teaching on Acts 1:8 that something shifted deeply within me.
As the framework of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth was unpacked, I began to see my own life reflected in it:
- Kenya – Jerusalem: Foundations of ministry, evangelism, and spiritual formation
- Malawi – Judea: Training, leadership development, and broader exposure
- Botswana & South Africa – Samaria: Cross-cultural ministry, church planting, and apostolic networks
- Australia – Ends of the Earth: A global assignment still unfolding
In that moment, something settled.
Australia is not the end of my story; it is part of the unfolding of a global apostolic mandate.
What I had sometimes interpreted as limitation began to look like positioning. The question is no longer why am I here? But what is God establishing from here?
Symon Kariuki
Camberwell Baptist Church
.
