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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Back to Kenya

Well, we had another team leave today to work with our mission church and school in Kenya. It broke my heart that I wasn't going with them. They will have an incredible experience.

As many of you know, the Lord has given our church an open door to begin to share the Gospel with a previously unreached people group, some of whom live near our partner church in the Chafisi area of Kenya. I can't name this group of Muslims online, but those of you who attend our services regularly know them well.

We are currently sending nearly fifty orphans, many of whom are from this unreached group, to our Christian school each day. We are also providing them with some clothing and basic nutrition. And thanks to many of you, that number is going up every month.

One problem, though, has been that we are running out of room in the present school buildings. The school already had a large number of students before we started bringing in students from this Muslim community.

Michael George, our Kenya liason leader, called me about three weeks ago while I was on vacation and said we really needed to provide more space for the school. He said it would cost a minimum of $10,000. I told him we weren't really in a place where we could make any kind of big appeal for funds since so many people in our church were currently sponsoring the orphans. We decided we would just pray, share the prayer request and see what happened.

Well, within five days someone came around and asked if $5,000 would help. We were off to a good start, but $5,000 wouldn't build the structure that is needed. So Sunday I briefly mentioned it to the church as a prayer request. By the end of the day we had collected another $6,000!

So the Kenya team is taking some very good news to Chafisi Baptist church and school!

I am so thankful for our church and our willingness to put the needs of lost people on the other side of the world ahead of the things we could do here that would only benefit ourselves. This year our church will invest over $70,000 in our mission in Kenya. People, including some very hard to reach Muslims, are coming to Christ because of the sacrifice that is being made.

Be in prayer for our mission team as they travel. They left the church this afternoon around 1:30 and will arrive in Chafisi around 5:00 a.m. on Friday. It is a long trip. Pray for their strength and patience.

Pastor Noel

Thanks to all of you who sacrifice every month to sponsor one of these kids. Thanks to those who have given to make sure this new school building gets built quickly.