We are planning on returning to Kenya the last week of July 2012 and staying for almost a year for this time around. WIM is calling this our "Exploratory Trip" for training, experience, and learning.
Tim wants to disciple young men and lost pastors. Many of the pastors and preachers in Kenya have either started churches as a business and preach the prosperity Gospel. Also, short term missionaries have came to preach, save lives, helped start a church, and then left, and many of these pastors that step up to lead the church, they don't know the Word of God, they don't know how to preach, they don't know what it means to be a follower of Christ, they are still lost. Tim wants to disciple these men and teach them the Word of God.
We also feel very led to help take care of the orphans and widows. God has placed that need on our hearts and shown us how important it is to care for those children through His Word. My desire is to also work with the street children. I am not sure what this will look like yet. We may have a children's home or work some type of program that places displaced children. We will just see what direction God leads us when we get there. I will also be volunteering in a few different clinics and health centers for several months, learning more, with a vision to possibly start one in the future in an area where there is not health care and it is desperately needed. I'm hoping it might come to include basic healthcare, immunizations, burn and wound care, malnutrition rehab, etc.
While in Kenya, We'll work with different children's homes and organizations and families to try to learn the most effective, scriptural, and spirit-led way to minister to the people, help in the poor living situations and care and love orphaned children and widows. There are other things that God has placed on our hearts to do but has not revealed us much details about them yet, which is probably good since they are his plans and they are always better when He is the planner! We will just take it on one step at a time as God slowly prepares us, molds us, and opens doors and reveals HIS plans.
Right now we are planning on working with a Kenyan friend named Willis outside Kisumu in his school, orphanage and community. We are praying about working in Kitale related to what my previous host family has told us about it- the street kids in the cities get picked up and dropped off in Kitale, usually nearly6 hours away, because evidently the government doesn't want them "trashing" up the cities. So a lot of young homeless children there fending for themselves. And they need someone to be Jesus' hands and feet to come care about them, and to show them what love is, so that they may know love, and that HE is love, and HIS love is so much bigger than ours. We just want to love them, care for them, and teach them about Jesus, disciple them, so that they may have hope, faith and a relationship, and continue the cycle of love. We want to take care of "the least of these"(Matthew 25). Our hearts are in Kenya, and we have a passion to do this. Sometimes, however, it can be somewhat a frightening thought not knowing what to expect, what could happen, but that is where faith and trust in Him come in. Walk by faith, not by sight. We know that this is Gods will for our lives, and its what He has had planned for us, and its what we want to do, and He will fill us with His strength and love. He will give us peace and joy, we will run and not grow weary. Jesus tells us to carry our cross, to lay down our lives, to put away our own human desires, and pick up the desires of Jesus. To walk down that path He is directing us in. We asked God what He wanted for us, and made ourselves open and available to His plans, and this is what He has brought for us so far. We are so thankful that we can be part of this.
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