Brief History of the Ministry
PACE was founded in 1989 with the purpose of providing spiritual and economic development to the poor rural and urban communities among people of African descent in Africa, the USA, the Caribbean, Brazil, Australia.
Perspectives from PACE Founder, Wachira Ngamau
When I came to America in 1984 my goal was very simple: To receive education in pastoral ministry and return to my country to help build my church. In my undergraduate studies, however, courses in American history and church history changed my outlook about myself, my people, and society in general. Church history introduced me to the way my people in Africa were exposed to Christianity. American history introduced me to the American people, specifically African Americans that I had never met before and of whose history I knew nothing about prior to my coming here.
By the end of my second year, I had changed my focus from pastoral studies to missions. The more I learned of the misery and struggles of African Americans, the more I felt the need to search some of them out and verify what I was reading. Before this portion of my education I did not know any African Americans and felt no pressing need to initiate a contact. But now everything had changed. I started looking for African churches, friends, and homes. By the time I completed my undergraduate studies I had introduced myself to one African American family and an African American Church, but still had no African American friends.
Toward the end of 1988, my church history professor stated that American-born Chinese and African-Americans are poorly accepted in the countries of their ancestral origin. This statement threw my academic curiosity to another level and I wondered why he didn't suggest what we should do to help these people to be accepted in their countries of origin. After all, these people have more in common with their ancestors than with anyone else. Since he offered no bridge to this awkward situation, I decided to conduct my own research to either prove or disprove his statement.
It was 1989, and I was attending Rock of Our Salvation Church, a mostly Black congregation in Chicago. I approached Pastor Raleigh Washington, who barely knew me at the time, about taking a team from his church to Kenya to minister among my people and to document the African response to Black Americans. Pastor Washington agreed to support my mission, and preparations to send a team to Kenya were started. While the team was in Kenya we took them to various tribes in order to register a wide range of responses. Everywhere we went, the questions were the same: 'Where have you all been? Why has it taken you so long to return? Why do you have to go back? We have enough land here for you all to send for your families!' I came back to the US and started putting together a team of leaders that would stand behind this mission. Since then, the Lord has repeatedly affirmed this Mission with His blessings and we have not lacked a team since 1989.
After working between the Africans and African-Americans for five years, I decided to find out how the rest of the Pan African Community was fairing compared to what I had already seen of the African Americans. Trips to more African countries, the Caribbean and South America confirmed that the condition of the Africans of the diaspora were not much different from Africans themselves. Since 1995 we have been taking American teens to this part of the world, and every year the Lord is helping us to break down the walls of alienation and isolation that the people of Africa experience wherever they are in the world. So, I have found that contrary to the assertion of my college professor, not only can African-Americans be accepted in the lands of their ancestral origin, but both Africans and African-Americans have always had a profound impact in each others' countries. In the future, we plan to bring the Pan African communities of Indonesia, New Zealand, and Australia into the fold. Today, PACE is preparing and sending Africans and Africans of the Diaspora to serve in each others' countries. Together, we're trying to understand our common past, repair our present condition, and build our future.