Barbara & Mark Phippen
After spending time helping at the AIM Care Tumaini Counselling Centre in Nairobi as part of short-term trip in summer 2011, God called us back to the mission field in January 2014.
Mark worked as the Clinical Team Leader at the Tumaini Counselling Centre in Nairobi, and Barbara taught English to theology students and wives, and she helped to lead a ladies’ bible study group.
Before moving to Kenya, Mark has been a counsellor in the UK for over 35 years and took early retirement from being Head of Counselling at Cambridge University to go to Nairobi. Barbara taught adult literacy in Essex for over 15 years, and in Kenya she loved to combine teaching English with sharing the gospel.
‘Tumaini’ is the Swahili word for “hope”. The missionary life can be very rewarding, but can also be tough. There is a real spiritual battle, and, of course, missionaries are not exempt from the physical and mental health problems that can afflict anyone.
The staff, who are themselves missionaries, work to “provide preventative and restorative mental health services and pastoral care in order to enhance missionary resilience and fruitfulness.”
In mid-2016 family circumstances brought Mark and Barbara back to live in the UK, but Mark continued to work as the Clinical Team Leader from a distance, overseeing the administration and staffing of the Tumaini Counselling Centres in both Nairobi and Kampala. They have made trips to Africa once or twice each year, until retiring at the end of 2019.
Steps along the Way 