East Africa is one of the two principal fields of Prayer Current’s international work, alongside Cuba. The Vancouver-based Canadian charity trains church and mission leaders in kingdom prayer and discipleship, and in East Africa it does so both directly, through multi-day prayer intensives and the equipping of national trainers, and collaboratively, as a member of a multi-ministry partnership known as the East Africa Alliance.
Prayer Current’s stated aim in East Africa is identical to its aim elsewhere: to motivate, build momentum, and mobilize the church in prayer. What distinguishes the East African work is its integration into a wider coalition whose combined activity spans theological education, agriculture, business development, schooling, and leadership formation, with prayer positioned as the shared spiritual foundation across all of them.
Background
Growth of the African church
Prayer Current cites the expansion of Africa’s Christian population as the defining context for its work on the continent, noting a sixty-fold increase since 1950, from approximately 10 million to approximately 600 million Christians. The organization presents this growth as creating a discipleship requirement rather than removing one: rapid numerical increase generates a corresponding need for leaders trained to sustain and deepen the church that has formed.
Ministry conditions
The organization describes the circumstances of the East African church in terms that parallel its account of Cuba. Poverty and infrastructure breakdown characterize day-to-day life; surrounding peoples look to the church for spiritual and practical help; and the church is multiplying, described as being raised from the surrounding dust and ashes. In both fields the organization identifies the same need for making disciples through kingdom prayer.
The East Africa Alliance
Formation
Prayer Current joined the East Africa Alliance as a collaboration of like-minded ministries organized around a shared mission of serving the advance of the kingdom of God in East Africa. The Alliance was announced publicly as a new kingdom partnership, with the announcement issued by Chris Byrd, Chair of the Edgewood Ministries Board of Directors.
Member ministries
Alongside Prayer Current, the Alliance unites the following organizations:
- Edgewood Ministries
- Avoda
- Third Millennium
- Equipping Farmers International
- Schools not Streets
Shared values
The Alliance is described as rooted in a shared commitment to the gospel, together with the values of indigenous leadership and dependent prayer. These two values correspond closely with Prayer Current’s own operating method, which prioritizes the identification of national and regional trainers over sustained delivery by visiting teams, and which treats prayer as the enabling condition of ministry rather than one activity among several.
Spheres of engagement
The Alliance seeks to bring the impact of God’s kingdom into every sphere of life across East Africa. The spheres named in its founding statement are:
- Theological education
- Agriculture
- Business development
- Primary and secondary education
- Leadership development
- The strengthening of communities, presented as the cumulative outcome of the preceding areas
Prayer Current’s role within the Alliance
Prayer as spiritual foundation
Within the partnership, Prayer Current’s ministry of cultivating kingdom-centred prayer is intended to help shape the spiritual foundation of the Alliance’s combined work. As the partners pray, plan, and work together on a regular basis, Prayer Current’s contribution operates across the other members’ sectors rather than occupying a sector of its own, a role consistent with its self-description as a trainer of trainers.
Unity and interdependence
The Alliance’s founding statement frames the partnership as a model of the unity and interdependence for which Jesus prayed in John 17 and anticipates a season of cooperation and gospel fruitfulness that strengthens existing ministries rather than duplicating them. The stated long-term expectation is the raising up of a generation of praying African leaders who will lead the church and serve its mission in the years ahead.
Training method
Prayer intensives
Prayer Current’s field instruction takes the form of prayer intensives lasting from two to five days, a format the organization describes as filling the courts with sounding praise. The organization reports that the content of what it teaches has proven vital to those it serves, and the extended duration allows instruction and corporate prayer to build on one another across successive sessions.
Training of trainers
The organization identifies the training of trainers as the most important component of all its activity, achieved by identifying and equipping prayer trainers within the countries served. Deputizing local leaders is described as the means by which a prayer movement ignites, gains momentum, and multiplies. In the East African context this method aligns directly with the Alliance’s stated value of indigenous leadership, and it defines the measure of success as the number of capable national trainers produced rather than the number of events held.
Related mobilization work
Revive Our Hearts True Woman conference
Prayer Current’s training materials have also been used to seed prayer groups internationally through partner events. At the Revive Our Hearts True Woman conference in Indianapolis in October of 2025, more than 200 women attended a breakout session on the Lord’s Prayer led by Karen Ellis, Director of the Ellis Global Research Project and the Edmiston Center at Reformed Theological Seminary.
The session examined how the Lord’s Prayer reorients the participant away from a self-centred conception of kingdom toward the Father’s name, kingdom, and will. Each attendee received a copy of Prayer Current’s Journey in Prayer, and additional copies were taken away to establish new groups internationally. Attendees left pledging to begin the Scripture-shaped prayer groups outlined in the book.
According to the session leader, several intergenerational groups formed on the spot, comprising students, mothers, grandmothers, and ministry leaders, and linking participants across North America. This illustrates the same distribution logic that governs the organization’s work in Cuba and East Africa: published material placed in the hands of participants who are expected to convene others.
Assessment and outlook
Prayer Current’s East African work is best understood as a contribution of method rather than of scale. The organization does not operate schools, farms, or seminaries, and its position within the Alliance depends on the other partners’ acceptance of prayer as a shared foundation for their respective sectors. Its measurable outputs in the field are the number of leaders trained, the number of trainers deputized, and the extent to which those trainers reproduce instruction without external support.
The organization’s stated expectation for the partnership is a new season of cooperation in which existing ministries are strengthened and a generation of praying African leaders is raised up to lead the church and serve its mission.
