Empowering Lives: Teams: Kingsburg Team Upate

Jambo Marafike na Nyumbaini (Hello Friends and Family),

Yes, we finally made it here. We are sorry for not posting an update earlier, but life has been a whirlwind since we arrived. We Arrived in Nairobi Tuesday night with not too much incident. We praised God that all 14 pieces of our luggage arrived safely and cleared customs smoothly. We spent the night at the Mayfield House in Nairobi and Alistair was able to connect and give hemophilia medicine and supplies to the doctor and staff at the National Hemophilia Treatment Center in Nairobi. We then flew out to KipKaren the next day – what an experience! The people had a very warm welcoming ceremony for us when we arrived.

Yesterday, Thursday, was our first full day in KipKaren. We got a tour of the ELI facilities and learned of all the ways they are “empowering” the lives of people in this area through sustainable agriculture training and changing their lives for the better along with sharing the love of God with them. Next we got a tour of the Children’s Home/Orphanage and the Brook of Faith Academy School. This was especially exciting for our 3 teachers on our team. The school is facing its own set of challenges and our teachers have all taken these issues to heart and we prayed with the Headmaster and several teachers.

After lunch we were invited over to Cosmas’ home (dear friend of Kathy’s) and his wife Helen served us chai tea and hotcakes and we enjoyed their 3 month old son Jotham and good fellowship.

In the afternoon, we had a quick tour of the clinic where we saw the facilities where we will be assisting with eye care next week. We also learned about how the clinic works on a normal daily basis. In the evening we got to join the kids at the Children’s Home for their daily evening devotions. Wow! We got to sing and share Bible verses and stories with them before they went to dinner. We were all so impressed and blessed.

Today, Friday, Darol and Alistair are at the clinic to start setting things up for clinic which begins tomorrow. The medical staff at the Cheboiywa Clinic are amazing and wonderful people providing such a valuable ministry of health and healing to the people in the area with a Community Health Center and Home Care Visitation program. The rest of the team is doing a marathon painting project back at the Training Center.

We will get to share in the graduating ceremony of 31 students at the ELI Sustainable Agriculture Community Development Training Program and we will also attend a big fundraising and worship service on Sunday for the building on a new church right next to the health clinic.

We think of you all every day. We miss you lots and so appreciate your prayers. We definitely feel them here and they have truly been sustaining us. Everyone is healthy and doing well. Our daily team devotions and worship have been powerful and we appreciate the personal family devotions very much. We have been praying for each of you and thanking God for your support and prayers. We will post an entry every three days or so.