Jambo from Kenya! We arrived at our ministry site in Kitale, Kenya last Thursday. It has been an incredible week-by far one of the best on the race. We are staying with a family for the first time since we began the trip and it is great to be in that type of environment again. We are staying with Pastor Geoff, his wife Florence, their five year old son Joshua, and two amazing brothers in Christ, Kinyu and Albert. They are an incredible family who do everything they can to make us feel at home.
We are working with a wide variety of ministries this month through Kitale Growth Church. Already we have had the opportunity to make a cement floor for the school kitchen, which before was just a dirt floor with a few rocks to build the fire inside of. We spent two days leveling the floor, shoveling rock and sand and mixing it with cement. Thank you to those of you who donated towards purchasing the cement! The project is almost done and it looks amazing!
We have also had the opportunity to teach songs and play games and sports with the 100 students at the school who are between the ages of three and eight. Playing with them has been some of the most beautiful times I have spent on the race. Yesterday we traveled to a local boarding school for high school students where I had the opportunity to preach. The students then asked us all kinds of questions about God and our team had the opportunity to answer their questions. Additionally, we are preaching at church and singing songs with the worship team (they are teaching us songs in Kiswahili and we are teaching them songs in English).
Over the next two weeks here we will also be visiting rural churches, prisons, and an orphanage. There are more needs this month than my team can provide out of our own pockets. So I want to extend the opportunity for any one of you who wants to get involved to do so. Here are some areas of need that the church has:
a. Providing a 50kg (110lb) bag of rice or corn to children at a local orphanage. The government does not provide the necessary funding for children who are orphaned or abandoned here, so orphanages rely heavily on donations. (Appx. $50)
b. Providing books and school supplies to the children at the church school. The school is lacking in text books and reading/picture books for the children as well as in posters and chart paper. Currently they are using old rice bags to create posters for their classrooms. (Any amount)
c. Sponsoring Benard, a 23 year old orphan who lost all of his family to aids and needs to register with the government to take his exams to graduate from high school. Registration with the government is approximately $60. If you would like to buy him a new school uniform, the cost is $15 (he wears the same one every day to school).
If you feel led to donate in any amount, please comment on this blog or email me at [email protected] specifying to which area you would like to lend your support. I will be pulling this money out of my personal account, so I can give you instructions on how to get the funds to me.
