Hi all!
We are in the thick of ministry and school. Kelly is getting ready to wind down the year at Rosslyn. Zeke has really been enjoying his 3 mornings a week preschool and is set to join Kelly at Rosslyn in preschool next year! We're starting to acquire quite the artwork collection already!
Matt has been very busy in ministry, as you'll read below. We'll be heading to the States at the end of May for family vacations and fundraising, so we hope to see many of you!
Pamoja House
Praise God with us for our Pamoja House Ministry revamp! A while back we raised funds specifically for this, as the current location was too small and it was in disarray due to a variety of factors. We've been able to find a new and better location, and the revamp process has been ongoing after the generous support of some individuals. It's a bit of a mess right now, but we're excited for the future!
Kuza News
God has been opening HUGE doors for Kuza recently. A local radio station named Pearl Radio in Nairobi started playing our podcast regularly. We also have our Kuza devotions from our app read daily in Swahili through Lulu FM's radio station. Pearl Radio & Lulu FM broadcast to tens of thousands of daily listeners. We've also been able to make partnerships with some Kenyan Christian musicians (See pic above). We’ve created partnerships with five musicians to post our content on their social media platforms. These partnerships have enabled us to triple our potential reach on social media. Before these musicians, we had a total following of 522,017 people. We have now added 1,636,263 followers, bringing the total to 2,158,280 potential consumers of Kuza’s content. All of this has happened in the last three weeks. It is pretty overwhelming how fast and wide God has opened the doors for us to have access to this many youth and young adults. Please pray for us as we write and record content, that all these young people will see the glory of Jesus above everything else in their lives.
Story
Through our online ministry, Kuza, we’ve seen more people come to salvation. In the last few weeks, we’ve had five total young people from Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria receive Christ through watching our gospel videos. After watching the video and receiving Christ, they are prompted to send their contact information. We then, in turn, send them an automated email that gives them the next steps in their journey with Christ. We also call them on the phone to encourage them on their next steps in faith in Christ. Please pray for these five young people that received Christ.
New Beginnings Crisis Pregnancy Center
New Shelter
New Beginnings (NB) has recently seen some "new beginnings". We were able to start a shelter for some young women that are pregnant and uncertain about their futures. It has been a prayer of our staff to help these young pregnant ladies struggling financially and unable to get the basics like food, during their most desperate times. We are grateful that we could host our first young lady in our new shelter this past month.
Story
One young lady came into NB earlier this year. She had attempted five abortions, but all of them failed to kill the baby. Eventually, she realized that this baby was strong and that God himself wanted it to survive. She decided to come to NB to meet with our staff. She spent several hours pouring her heart out to one of our counselors and eventually realized that she needed Jesus. Her outlook has changed entirely and has decided to keep her baby. The baby was born healthy and is doing well by God's grace. Her mother is also thrilled to have a healthy baby in her arms despite everything.
Hiking at Aberdares National Park
Hanging Out with Student Discipleship Ministry Staff
Hanging out with Matt's Mom and Dad over the Christmas Holidays.
Prayer Requests
Ministry
Our 4:12 ministry, which equips churches to reach youth, teaches 33 conferences this month. Please pray for the churches they train to start youth ministries.
Pray for our Student Discipleship Ministry staff as university students return back to school from their holiday break, that they will continue to have boldness to share the gospel with students one on one. Pray for the students in their Bible studies.
Pray for more people to find Pamoja House's new location and hear the gospel preached.
Pray for our Kuza staff to be humble and focused on Christ, with a renewed passion as we walk through the new doors that God’s given us.
Pray for New Beginnings to reach more ladies through their crisis pregnancy ministry.
Personal
Please pray for Zeke- he's developed some asthma since we moved back to Nairobi. It's not too bad (no real asthma attacks), but he does seem to have minor issues almost all the time and we've had to use an inhaler quite a bit. Pray for healing and a good way forward.