Ministry Update April-June

We have many exciting ministry opportunities to share with you all. First of all, we want to say thank you to each of you who have partnered with us in this ministry here. It is only because of your generous giving that we have been able to provide this help and support in Jesus’ name. Many times after we have helped someone here they are so thankful to us and I always tell them that it is because of our friends and family back home who are so generous that we are able to bring this help to them. They always say “Please tell them we are so thankful”. So, I am telling you, those you are helping here are SO THANKFUL!! We praise God for the ability to help and provide for needs here. To Him be the glory!

One opportunity I think I shared about last time was that we were going to build a chicken coop for a single mom here in the community that we know who is supporting her four children. We have been able to build the chicken coop and just a couple of weeks ago we were able to purchase the baby chicks. We are working with a man who works for the Department of Agriculture here in Kapsowar and he is keeping the chicks at his home for 8 weeks and then we will transfer them to their permanent coop. Please pray for this project as we are trying our best to make this a profitable business for this family. Pray that the mother would be able to be educated and learn how to properly care for these chicks so that she can have a thriving business. I hope to have pictures to post by the end of August of the finished coop and the chickens….Lord willing!

Another exciting ministry we have learned about here in Kapsowar is a Bible Translation and Literacy program that works in the smaller language groups of Kenya to help translate the bible into their “heart” language and then teach them how to read so that they can read the bible in their original language. This is a ministry of Wycliffe Bible Translation which some of you may be familiar with. We have become good friends with one of the pastors who works with this ministry and have been able to financially support the ministry projects here in the Marakwet community. They have finished translating the New Testament and are currently working on the Old Testament. In the picture below is a copy of the New Testament in Marakwet, which is the “heart” language here. We are very excited to be able to help support this ministry and be a part of helping people better understand and be able to have full access to the entire Bible in their own language. 

We mentioned in our previous ministry update the great need for help with school fees. Since our last update we have been presented we numerous opportunities to help needy families with this need. I will share a few of the situations in which we were able to provide help. We helped three boys at our church whose parent’s had died. We again provided help for the single mother we know personally. Another child’s mother had died and the father was struggling to provide. Another single mother whom we attend church with was in need of help for her child. We were also able to provide for a high school student from a needy family who would not have been able to keep going to school had we not been able to assist his family with these fees. Again, we thank all of you for your generous giving which has allowed us to help these families in their time of need and provide encouragement for these children who have already experienced much loss. School is so important here for many reasons. We are thankful that we are able to help these children get the education they need. Recently, we were presented with an opportunity to help support a student at a Bible College who is studying to become a pastor. He is in his third year and struggling to pay his tuition. Thankfully, we were able to give support to help him complete this year of schooling.

Also in the previous ministry post we shared about a young man who had experienced kidney failure and whose family and community was struggling to provide for the overwhelming hospital bills for his care. We were able to provide more financial support to this family and they have been so grateful and thankful for this act of love and support.

There are still more opportunities and projects to share with you all, but I will save them for another post. We are working on getting some equipment for the hospital and have been helping with some other projects. More on that next time! Please forgive me for not giving more frequent updates. The blog was neglected the last few months, but hopefully I can get on top of things again as we try and finish strong with our time here in Kapsowar. Thanks again for your support and faithful giving! May God be glorified in this work and in all our lives.