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Counselling mission workers at Tumaini

Psychologists and Psychiatrists. We need you! Could you use your professional counselling skills to serve and support mission workers across Africa, from Tumaini in Nairobi, Kenya? Have you got a minimum of three years professional experience that you could use on the mission field? If so, this could be the opportunity for you.

Background

Since 1991, AIM and Wycliffe Bible Translators International (WBTI), have worked cooperatively to provide counselling and support services for missionaries at Tumaini Counselling Centre in Nairobi, Kenya.

After 25 years of service in Nairobi, Tumaini Kampala opened its doors for counselling in March 2016. Tumaini Counselling Service in Kampala, Uganda, offers confidential clinical services which are available to any Christian missionary working in Africa. These range from clinical care to simply helping missionaries normalise the challenges and frustrations of missionary life.

The missionary life can be an adventure. People go with a calling and enthusiasm and a set of expectations. They dive into ministry and make an effort to balance this with the many facets of life — marriage, family, relationships, responsibilities, and their walk with God. But no matter how long people have been overseas, many aspects are still foreign.

Could you walk this path alongside those who need your support? We’re looking for deeply committed professionals who can integrate their Christian faith with their counselling practice. The goal will be to strengthen missionaries on the path that God has called them.

Ministry & type of work

Tumaini is a Swahili word meaning ‘hope’. Tumaini Counselling Centres serve the members of AIM, WBTI, SIL and also missionaries from over 160 like-minded agencies throughout Africa. Their mission is to provide preventative and restorative mental health services and pastoral care, in order to enhance missionary resilience and fruitfulness. In 2002 they moved into a facility designed to facilitate their functioning, both in confidential counselling ministry as well as their more public preventative care ministry and as a conference centre. In 2016 they opened a new Tumaini Counselling Centre in Kampala, Uganda, to better serve missionaries working in central Africa.

We need people to provide psychiatric evaluation and treatment, psychological or psychotherapeutic evaluations and treatment, and people who can assist with and lead workshops and seminars on related issues.

We’re also looking to develop the team of clinicians serving in Kampala. We’re looking for people willing to commit at least two years of service. As well as psychiatrists and psychologists, we need marriage and family therapists. To increase the fruitfulness of ministry we are seeking to help missionaries develop resilience. Could you support them by:

  •  Providing counselling to individuals, couples and families
  •  Assisting or leading workshops on mental health issues
  •  Providing information and advice to teams and team leaders regarding family and marriage issues
  •  Being available to provide advice to AIM leadership?

Experience & Qualifications

You will need to have appropriate professional qualifications and accreditations for the role you wish to fulfill

It would be great if you have previous missions experience, including cross cultural living and ministry, and have worked in a team context. It would also be good if you have experience of working in a multi-disciplinary team, of working with children and youth, and of distance counselling.

Other Information

We’re also looking for short term support in both Nairobi, Kenya and in Kampala, Uganda. If you or someone you know is a trained counsellor, therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist, who would be willing to give up a shorter amount of time to serve in this way, then you can contact us to find out more. Email Debbie at stc.eu@aimint.org

FAQS

We believe that God will provide for those he is leading into cross-cultural mission with AIM. The first step is to be praying, and to share your needs with your church and supporters, so that they can be praying with you that your needs would be met. Once your assignment is agreed and confirmed, a detailed budget is prepared for you which outlines the overall amount needed to be raised or pledged for your first term (2-3 years depending on location). You will need to have 100% of this amount pledged before you can travel.

The budget is shared with your sending church and we will work with you and your church to help you think about this further. Our European Based Orientation programme provides some training on partnership development, and we will provide other resources for you to share with potential supporters too, such as a prayer card, a page on our website with an online giving form and a standing order form (if needed).

Listen to a pastor talking about offering support:


 

Every mission organisation is different, and no one organisation is necessarily better than another. It’s more about finding an organisation that’s a good fit for you, where your calling and the organisation’s calling and values are a good match. AIM’s emphasis is on reaching those who have yet to hear the gospel, and all our ministry - long and short term - is designed to see Christ-centred churches among all African peoples. Regardless of how long you serve for and the different gifts, skills and experience you bring with you, your ministry will be part of that bigger goal. That may mean going to difficult or hard to reach places to share the gospel. Working in partnership with the local church in Africa, we labour for the over 300 million people living in Africa who have little opportunity to hear the gospel, and even less to be discipled as a follower of Jesus. Is God calling you to go to them?

Listen to Tim Matthews, one of our Mission Advisors, explaining why we’re passionate about reaching those who have yet to hear the gospel:

Team assignments generally last between one and three months, whereas individual placements last from three months to one year.

MORE FAQS

Mark Phippen

Good member care can make the difference between flourishing and merely coping on the mission field, between retiring strong and retiring bitter or disillusioned, between a whole career and a single term. And it can make the difference between another generation following in our footsteps or taking one look at missions and deciding it’s just too costly a path.

Interested? Get in Touch

Hi, my name is Debbie. If this opportunity interests you, or you have any questions, please do get in touch.​

Interested in serving form

Short term (under a year)

There are many ways to serve short term. Whether on a team, as an individual, on a medical elective, or as a Bible college placement, short term with AIM fits into our long term ministry of reaching Africa’s unreached with the gospel. LEARN MORE

Long term ( Over a year )

Our passion is to see Christ-centred churches among all African peoples. Currently there are over 1,000 people groups in Africa or 316 million people, who are waiting to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. Our vision is to engage with these unreached people, partner with churches in Africa to raise up gospel workers and equip African church leaders to strengthen the church. Could you play a part?. LEARN MORE

Uganda

80% of Uganda is engaged in agriculture. The healthy economy of the 1960s was crippled in 1972 by the expulsion of the Asian business community, and then virtually destroyed by tyranny and wars. It has steadily improved since 1992. Under previous government regimes there were restrictions on persecuted Christians, but there is now freedom of religion. LEARN MORE

Kenya

Kenya gained independence from Britain in 1963. Since then British tourism has been a key element of Kenya’s economy, however, unemployment, poverty and crime remain high. Whilst the majority religion is Christianity, Kenya’s ethnic diversity and vast countryside means there are still many unreached with the gospel. LEARN MORE

Support, Logistics & Pastoral Care

Seeing unreached people reached is fruit of the body of Christ in action. That can mean pilots, qualified counsellors, administrators, photographers all helping and supporting the task of making Jesus known. LEARN MORE
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