Alumni Association Award Recipient: Martha Olango
“Martha’s ministry has reached thousands of people with the gospel.”
Martha Olango was this year’s Alumni Association Award recipient due to her outstanding ministry impact in Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) in East and Central Africa.
Martha’s ministry journey took flight when God called her to start working for CEF. She began a job within Mombasa, Kenya, and then moved to Nairobi in 1999 to later work as an education director in 2000. When she felt the need to earn a degree in biblical education, Martha attended Calvary University. When reflecting on her biblical education, Martha states: “With Calvary’s training, I was motivated and equipped to serve effectively, prepared to lead with confidence, and ready to serve with integrity.” After graduation, Martha moved back to Kenya where she worked for a short time as an assistant to CEF’s Regional Education Director and later took on the position full-time in 2010.
In her current role as Regional Education Director for East and Central Africa, Martha has played a wildly influential role in teaching children, training teachers, and developing instructors and leaders for CEF, and has gone into very dangerous areas to do so. A specific ministry Martha has made a great impact on is CEF’s Christian Youth in Action program (CYIA), where she has faithfully trained teenagers to reach other children with the gospel. This training program began in Kenya but has now been developed in Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Burundi and DR Congo. Before Covid, nearly 500 teens were trained each year. Within her local church, Martha has served in children’s ministry as well as organized a ministry to help meet the needs of single, young women in the church, known as EPIC. She has also extended great love and care for those in her local community, helping support several disadvantaged young people and being a light of Christ to those in her neighborhood.
Eidene Anderson, a friend of Martha and former missionary stated: “Martha’s ministry has reached thousands of people with the gospel. She has impacted people personally as well as trained godly leaders who are maturing in their faith so that they too can share the gospel.” Whether it is her impact on CYIA or reaching out to people within her community, Martha is known by those around her as a faithful servant who is continually studying, training others in ministry, and being courageous in her faith. In gratitude for her years of ministry and service to God, Calvary was beyond honored to present Martha with this year’s Alumni Association Award.
