Jambo, from Africa! I am writing to you, safe and sound from the beautiful country of Kenya. This month we are doing ministry in the capital city, Nairobi with Deliverance Church Langata. We are working with Pastor Ezekiel, who is an amazing man of God and has such a heart and passion for evangelism. I’ve been learning a little bit of Swahili and I found out that the movie, The Lion King, has prepared me more than I realized. “Hakuna Matata” is actually a phrase Kenyans use all the time and it really does mean “no worries” and I found out “rafiki” actually means “friend”!! Thank you, Disney, for preparing me for ministry in Kenya. So far in ministry this month we’ve spent time at a children’s home in Kibera, the largest slum in all of Africa. There are just under 200 orphans at this children’s home and the children have already stolen each of our hearts with their joy and their love.

Other than loving on the orphans at the children’s home, yesterday we had our first African church service at Deliverance, which was four and a half hours long (FPC friends and family, could you imagine if one of our services ever went that long!?!?) and it was AMAZING!! There are about 600 members at Deliverance Church and it’s church body is growing at a rapid rate, where the church leadership is expecting the size of the congregation to double in the coming year or so. Praise God for the work He is doing in Kenya!

I have never seen people so on fire for Jesus Christ. Believers here are serious about the Gospel, sharing God’s love, and worshipping Him. During the four and a half hour service, the 600 of us danced and sang in English AND Swahili and there were times of holding hands, jumping and shouting to the Lord. It’s so different than any other worship I’ve experienced on the Race and I love it so much. I am praying I will be able to preach the sermon during one of the Sundays we are here but as they say, “T.I.A….this is Africa.”

We will find out what the rest of our month will look like soon but I am praying for a lot of ministry work in Kibera. I would love to do door-to-door evangelism in that slum day and night, if I could! God is truly blessing us this month, with a wonderful contact, a wonderful church, and an amazing new team! Yes, that’s right, ladies and gentlemen, we had team changes again. This is the fourth team I’ve been on and let me tell you, God has definitely grown me so much in each of the teams I’ve had the privilege to serve on.

This particular team change was fairly minor, we only lost one team member, Phil Khamoua. While we lost Phil to another team and were sad to see him go, we gained Paul Bell back. Paul was on Team Lovebound with me during the months of Central America, and he is without a doubt my favorite human being. Paul is the brother I’d always prayed for but never received from the Lord…until this year. I am so grateful to God for putting him back on a team with me and back into my day-to-day life. I missed him terribly over the last four months but it is a true praise that I get to serve along side him in Africa and in India. I love you, Paul!!

Lots of changes, I know. New continent, new language, new team, new ministries…but that’s not all the changes. Last but not least, since we are a new team, we decided to have a new team name, too! We are Team Frontline. We chose this name because we have decided that for the next four months we will not slow down, give up, or let up until the Kingdom of God is brought to every place we go. We can sleep and shower when we get home in four months. Until then, the seven of us are officially going to be on the FRONTLINE for Jesus Chirst and bringing the Kingdom of God to East Africa and India. Our verse for the team is one that Paul found in  Can I get an AMEN!?!!?