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When Laura Taylor met Chao Tsuma at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, neither expected that their fast friendship would lead to significant ministry opportunities on another continent.
This summer, Taylor—women’s associate at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention—joined Tsuma in Kenya to lead a women’s leadership conference in Naivasha and a She Stands conference in Malindi, a community that is 90% Muslim.
Tsuma first experienced She Stands when she volunteered at a conference held at First Baptist Mansfield in 2021. She Stands conferences, held regionally throughout the year, aim to encourage and train women in their lives and ministries.
Tsuma felt an immediate connection with Taylor.
“Laura’s vibrant personality and genuine ability to make everyone feel seen and valued left a lasting impression on me,” Tsuma said. “She invited me into the ministry work, emphasizing that it was the Lord’s work and required collective effort.”
Upon the recommendation of Terri Stovall, Southwestern’s dean of women and Tsuma’s mentor, Chao applied for and was accepted to serve as an SBTC women’s ministry intern under Taylor’s direction in 2023. Her role would be threefold: to help amplify the vision for women in the region, to encourage leadership development among women, and to support Taylor and the SBTC women’s ministry through prayer.
Those duties would include helping Taylor expand the scope of SBTC women’s ministry materials into larger conference formats. On one occasion, Tsuma helped Taylor expand written materials used for a pastor-wife conference into a leadership conference.
In August 2023, the SBTC offered a leadership conference in Arlington for some 40 women’s ministry leaders from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. This past March, 50 women attended a similar leadership summit in Beaumont.
Guests at the Beaumont conference included four women from Nairobi, Kenya—part of Chao’s network of friends—who flew in to attend.
“One is a doctor; two are in economic development,” Taylor said of the Kenyans. “They are successful, professional women who came to the states to experience this conference.”
As plans were being made for two more leadership summits the next year, one in the Metroplex and one in the Houston area, an intriguing question arose: Why not also in Kenya?
“Chao and her Christian friends and network in Kenya have been praying for years for this kind of opportunity. The fact that the SBTC gets to be involved is phenomenal.”
Why not Kenya?
Encouraged by the attendance of the four Kenyan women, and with the assurance that there were many Christian women in Kenya hungry for similar instruction, Taylor and Tsuma ramped up their efforts. Tsuma returned to Kenya early this summer to lay the groundwork.
“We worked on both ends,” Taylor said. She and her husband, Wade, pastor of First Baptist Alvarado, left for Kenya at the end of July with a small team from Texas.
Two women’s conferences were held in early August: a leadership summit in Naivasha, and She Stands Kenya in Malindi. Topics included developing a personal walk with the Lord, loving others, and leading other women—all scripturally based.
“In my culture, titles are highly regarded. A woman who leads … is highly regarded. She is a woman of influence. … She has a big platform to influence other women. This is the woman we target,” Tsuma said. “If [that woman] stands in Christ, others will follow. … As she grows, she helps other women. Our vision is to equip this woman with biblical principles for daily living.
“We focus on four pillars for her growth: her relationship and growth in Christ, her relationship with others in her home, her economic growth, and her impact on her community.”
Early response in Kenya has been overwhelmingly positive, Tsuma said.
In addition to the conferences, Taylor, Tsuma, and a crew of Texas and Kenyan helpers attended local worship services, engaged in outreaches including providing potable water to villages, and met with the president of the Kenya Baptist Convention.
Besides the two women’s events, Wade Taylor and Tsuma’s husband, James, taught a pastors’ conference, and Wade—an SBTC Disaster Relief chaplain—also offered basic chaplaincy training.
A planned outreach to school girls on the trip was disrupted due to massive flooding in Kenya.
“People are displaced and distressed because of the flooding,” Laura Taylor said of the need for indigenous chaplains to minister in disasters.
Now that the vision has expanded to Kenya, Tsuma and Taylor hope this is just the beginning of women’s ministry training for that country.
“Chao and her Christian friends and network in Kenya have been praying for years for this kind of opportunity,” Taylor said. “The fact that the SBTC gets to be involved is phenomenal.”
For more information on She Stands conferences in Texas and beyond, click the image or email ltaylor@sbtexas.com.
