The Relay Trust was established to be the connection between church leaders like this and the resources, training, and support to enable them and their communities to grow and thrive in their Christian lives. Through previous work training lay-leaders in Sierra Leone (2013-2016), Mette and Alex Bjergbaek Klausen realized that in-person training was limited by time, place, and capacity, and a vision for using technology to provide digitally enhanced training was born.

This vision was shared with Neil Smith, an Australian businessman, who officially created the The Relay Trust with Mette and Alex in August of 2016. During a following two-year period, Mette and Alex travelled the globe, creating a network of partners, discovering what methods, courses, and resources were being used by other ministries already, and building a team.

The Relay Trust began preparations to work in West Africa. An office was setup in Sierra Leone, connections were established with clients and partners, and the construction of Mount Zion a new training and retreat centre in Freetown, Sierra Leone was initiated.

Perhaps surprisingly, 2020 brought the most defining changes for The Relay Trust. As the coronavirus pandemic shut down operations across the world, we further developed our digital course structure and tripled our team, as the importance of digital training was confirmed.  Then in 2021 the Relay Trust formed a separate engagement department, the Relay 200, to further develop the Trust’s contacts across the 200 most in need dioceses within the Anglican Communion.

In order to maintain the growth and focus of our ministries, the content production and system development elements of the Trust will separate to form DECIBEL Training in April 2023.  The Relay Trust will continue to  serve as an enabling organisation seeking to support local churches in Africa with practical training to equip their leaders in caring for their communities. Partnering with international and local organisations and seminaries, we continue to work to transform the training of the grassroots levels across the church, enabling the transformation of people and their communities through their growing discipleship of Jesus.