Hey everyone….
We have made it to Mpeketoni Lamu, Kenya. We have been here for a couple of weeks and our ministry is going great! The land is beautiful and so are the people. God is doing amazing things in us and thru us here. We are being stretched in awesome ways for His kingdom. We have pretty limited internet, so blogging and keeping in contact with family has been harder. We have 2 more months in Africa so it may continue to be a struggle, but there is value in all things.
Our ministry here consists of Bibles study cell groups, the first day we led ours a woman came to know the Lord. I think it kind of surprised Katherine and I, but what a tremendous blessing to be the one that gets to harvest the fruit. Sometimes you only get to plant the seeds, it’s a blessing to see someone come to know Christ and share in that joyful experience with them.
Next we have door to door evangelism, I can’t say that this is my favorite thing, but it’s growing on me. We have met some incredible people. We have gotten to share what God is doing in our lives and what He is doing in their’s. The hospitality of the people is wonderful. They just invite you into their home and Carl and I have been blessed with the eaters. I don’t know maybe they just see us and think…pull out the food. We always have Chai tea, becoming a favorite, and often times mango or oranges and if we are lucky Chipati (kind of like home made really good tortillas). I love to see how God works in our lives. We met one man and he wanted to take us to his pastor. We agreed and ended up meeting a beautiful woman who is doing incredible things for His kingdom. Come to find out, we were looking at some pictures the bishop had of a ceremony he participated in and the woman is actually married to his uncle. God just places us in the path of really incredible people while trusting him to guide us. I love it!
We have been working with kids at a few schools. We even had the opportunity to teach a little sex education to kids between 10 and 18. How awesome! You are often limited in America as to what and how you can say it, and here they allowed us to speak to the kids however we wanted to address the issue. This is definitely a subject close to my heart. They have had outbreaks of sexually transmitted diseases among girls as young as 10 yrs. Old. We stressed the importance of including God in your decisions and the joy of a life lived with purity. We also spoke about having someone you can trust to talk to if you have touched in an inappropriate way. Having had these same talks with my own kids, it still amazes me how much is left unspoken in families. It’s in that area of secrets and darkness where sin breeds. I am thankful to God for the openness I have with my children, I hope that it prevented a little bit of the struggles knowing that they had someone to talk to. Someone who would not judge them, but love them thru the process and give them honest answers.
We have also been doing a lot of preaching. Every night at fellowship, we have had opportunities to share the word of God. Not only then, but on Sundays we divide up and travel to different churches to preach. My dad is going to love this one…I’m preaching Sunday! Prayers are very much appreciated!
