The Work Continues...

Happy New Year to everyone. Shauna and I have been able to relax, spend time with friends, and even do a little travelling over the holidays. It was a much needed break.
I've continued doing evangelism in Kasarani with Vitalis through the holidays and we are going to have our next celebration service on February 14. We have seen 26 people give their life to the Lord since the second week of December. This is something I never get tired of and continue to be so fulfilled in doing. In addition to this, an opportunity has opened up and I am now doing some writing on missions and evangelism.
Shauna has been doing some classes through our church and is now currently in a Transformation course that meets on Saturdays. She is also slowly starting to prepare to go back to Arizona in March for a few weeks where her brother is getting married. She has started the second semester of kindergarten, where there have been three more students added to her class. One student was a surprise to her and she has handled it so gracefully. She is amazing.
We want to thank you for your prayers and support.

Kibera Clean-Up

The slum of Kibera is the largest slum in the whole continent of Africa with a reported one million people living in just over one square mile. Kibera is the slum most ministries and celebrities seem to go to when they are taping video to help raise awareness and support. Shauna and I have been working with and helping people in this slum for right at a year now.

Last weekend, we were involved with a cleaning project that cleaned up about 1/8 of a mile stretch of dirt road that the inhabitants use as their trash pile. In Kenya, there is no such thing as garbage companies coming and picking up the trash. They have to burn it or it ends up like this and the end result is airborne diseases and alot of sickness. There was such a turnout, even from the community, as we were filling up a truck with trash. At the end of the cleaning, we filled a large 17-ton dump truck to the top with waste. The sights and smells were beyond description, but we were happy to play a part in helping them.

Celebration Service

Every six to eight weeks, we have a celebration service at Berith Life Church in Kasarani. The pastor, Vitalis Nasongo, is who I have been working with doing our evangelism and discipleship since February. We have a service where we celebrate all of the people who have given their life to Christ through our evangelism.

When they receive Christ, we give them a book that further outlines the plan of salvation and the decision they just made. If they return this back to us, they are then invited to come to our service where we provide them with a free bible in Swahili, a certificate, and another book that promotes further growth.

In addition to this, I had the privilege of being able to dedicate a baby to the Lord. The father of this child was someone who had recently given his life to Christ through our evangelism. It was truly rewarding to see this take place.

We ended up giving 25 people bibles, books, and certificates yesterday. We also prepared them chai (favorite Kenyan drink) and mendazis (Kenyan pastry). We then had a delicious lunch which Vitalis' wife prepared for us. It is such an honor for us to play a part in affecting the eternal destiny of people's souls.

Heshima

We had the opportunity to be able to take our kindergarten, and pre-kindergarten, to Heshima Children's Center today. Heshima means "dignity" in Swahili and this center was established by an American lady who wanted to provide a place for severely handicapped children to feel loved, cared for, and to also receive physical rehabilitation.

Our kindergarten engaged the children in finger painting, building blocks, and also in making Christmas decorations. All children involved enjoyed themselves.

11th Grade at Huruma

As the community resource developer at our school, I have the privilege of being able to take our schoool, a grade at a time, into the community to build relationships with those less fortunate. Being a Christian school, not only do we want to provide excellent education, but we want them to know what its like to actually walk out biblical principles and not just intellectually know them.

We want the children to experience the fulfillment that comes when one lays aside their own agenda to help someone in need. Huruma Children's Home is an orphange that has roughly 150 children right now that Shauna lived and taught at from July to December 2008. The home is run by a truly amazing woman named Mama Zipporah. She takes all children brought to her and doesn't turn them away even if they're HIV positive. She said they currently have 18 HIV positive children.

I took the 11th grade today and starting in January, I will be taking one to two grades a month through May to further love on these children and just spend time focusing on them making them feel important. I was really proud of our students, they exemplified true leadership, humility, and love. Afterward, they all remarked on how blessed they felt engaging the children at Huruma. I love seeing our children truly begin to experientially know the principle, "It is more blessed to give than receive!" I always feel as if I am more blessed giving than the one who is the recipient of the giving. We had a great day.

Mitumba Food Delivery

Mitumba slum is situated next to Wilson Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. Though this slum is smaller than some of the other slums, i.e. Kawangware (700,000 people) and Kibera (1,000,000 people) the need here is just as great.
There is a school in Mitumba slum that is serving the community by allowing children to attend without paying school fees. This doesn't seem significant, but because the Kenyan government does not give money to any schools, ALL schools have to charge school fees. If a child's parents cannot afford the fees, their child does not go to school.
When the school first started, there were children running around naked because they didn't have any clothes. These children were also eating dirt to stop the hunger pains in their stomachs. God spoke to a monetarily poor Kenyan man to start a school there and a few years later, there are 400 children benefitting from education and a relationship with God who otherwise wouldn't.
Our school has had relationships with this slum school since last year. We take students to their school to spend time with them and we also bring their students to our school to build relationships. One other way we help is through doing a food drive every October and November that results in us delivering buckets of food to them. Through our school really coming together, we were able to raise right at 200 buckets of food. Though there are 400 children, many are siblings and so we were able to give a bucket to every family that has children attending there.Shauna was able to go with me yesterday and she continued to comment on how great of an experience it was. We also took one child from every grade that helped contribute to raising buckets with us also. This is us right before we left.

The moment we arrived, we were greeted by hundreds of smiling faces. They were very polite and did not shove and push trying to get at the food. Instead they were incredibly humble and eager to help unload our vehicles. They were so grateful and had huge smiles on their faces. Upon leaving, I couldn't get over how I felt more blessed giving to them than they were in receiving it.

Typical of Kenyan culture, the school performed some songs and dances for us. I then spoke and wanted them to know very clearly that white people are not their providers and their source, but God alone! I told them very specifically that the only reason we were there is because there is a God in heaven who is filled with love for them and He moved on our hearts to cause us to do this for them.

I also told them that though the food will only last a short time, the greatest gift we could offer them was the gift of salvation, which is eternal. We also put a book in each bucket that is in Swahili outlining the plan of salvation and the prayer for salvation at the end. It's our prayer that God will move on their hearts.

We spend most of our lives looking for what will bring us fulfillment and we usually think that the more we possess, the happier we will be. I've searched high and low and I have never felt more fulfilled in my life than when I am able to help change and improve the quality of someone's life worse off than me. Shauna and I are so humbled and grateful that God would allow us to play just a small part in affecting change to a hurting world.

Back "Home"

I am finally back with my amazing wife after being away for two weeks! I arrived in Kenya on Friday night after 21 hours of flying on three different planes. God blessed me in London. When I was giving my boarding pass at the gate, they looked on their computer and said that I had received a free upgrade. I was upgraded to business in the first row with all of the extra leg room for free. This may not sound like a big deal, but on a 9 hour flight its huge!
One of the coolest sights I have ever seen was when we were flying over Sudan. It had just turned dark and as I looked outside I could see little "clusters" of orange among the blackness of the ground. I looked closer and could see that they were fires and you could see where villages were by the fact that there would be 20 or more little fires close together. This was so beautiful and unusual to see in the night. Typically cities are outlined by buildings and street lights, but Sudan was marked by fires.
I have hit the ground running in that we are preparing the Christmas buckets and food to be delivered next week to Mitumba slum. In addition to this, we are going to have a celebration service in the beginning of December for everyone who has given their life to Christ over the last couple months from our evangelism. We will be giving them a free bible in Swahili and encourage them to go through the new believer's class. I will also be preaching at this service.
Shauna is continuing to do an amazing job teaching and is getting involved at our church with taking a class right after the service on Sundays. She is preparing for a Thanksgiving party next Wednesday. I am definitely looking forward to the food and watching Charlie Brown's "The Great Pumpkin Patch" with the kids. Even being across the world, there's nothing like some holiday traditions to make you feel close to home!