Elmores Newsletter - September 25, 2025
Hello everyone!
We hope you all are having a great start to the fall season! Currently, it's the perfect weather season here in Nairobi, but we're approaching the "short rains," which traditionally begin in mid-October. Here are a couple of updates we'd like to share with you.
Vision 2030 - Kuza's 5 Year Goal - Access 200 Million
Mark 16:15 states, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation." At Kuza, we are committed to obeying this command of Jesus, strengthened by the extraordinary promise in Habakkuk 2:14, which says, "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."
Kuza's mission is to evangelize, disciple, and mobilize the youth and young adults of Africa. With this mission in mind, we have set an ambitious goal: to reach 200 million people weekly through Kuza's content by the end of 2030. We aim to extend our outreach beyond Kenya and Uganda, where we are currently based, and focus on English-speaking African countries. The specific countries we want to target include Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Nigeria, and Ghana.
We plan to distribute Kuza's podcasts on radio and TV stations in these nations and develop social media partnerships to increase our online presence. This is a significant undertaking that cannot be accomplished alone; we will need prayer, financial support, and ministry partners in each country. Most importantly, we seek God's grace to empower this work in obedience to Mark 16:15.
We invite you to join us in prayer as we strive to achieve this goal over the next five years.
Missions to Afghanistan in Kenya
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but I am a young adults pastor at a church called International Christian Fellowship (ICF). I really enjoy being part of the church and love helping to pastor a very multilingual and diverse community. Recently, a family of refugees from Afghanistan sent the church an email expressing their desire to become Christians and leave Islam. Their names are Hamid and Hamida. They have three daughters, but I have had difficulty understanding their names.
How they Found our Church
Hamida and Hamid found ICF online through ChatGPT, which I found amusing. The ICF secretary introduced them to me, and I had the privilege of getting to know them a little better. They invited me to their home weekly to teach them about Christianity. This has been challenging because their English is not very strong. I’m not entirely sure if they are Christians because they did not understand terms like "gospel" or "sin." I tried explaining a bit at church, but it seemed they were not fully aware of these concepts.
Discipling Them
My plan is to take it one step at a time and discuss the gospel as we go along. Today, we talked about prayer while sitting on the floor, as they did not have any furniture, which is normal for them. During our discussion on prayer, I taught them about it using the Lord's Prayer from Matthew 6 and a few other passages from the Sermon on the Mount. We were able to get them a New Testament Bible in Persian, which is the language they read and speak most comfortably. Unfortunately, we haven’t found a Persian Bible that includes both the Old Testament and New Testament, but we hope to get one soon.
One thing that struck them as we went through Matthew 6:9-13 was the phrase, "forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12). They expressed that they loved how Christianity is a religion of peace that emphasizes forgiveness and commands its followers to forgive. They mentioned that the Taliban in Afghanistan were not very forgiving, and as a family, they want to live differently.
Lunch with Them
After discussing scripture, they offered me lunch. We ate in what felt like a picnic style on the floor to me, but was normal for them. The meal consisted of Afghan food: flatbread, rice with raisins and carrots, fresh vegetables, and chicken in a tomato and onion-based sauce that was well-spiced. It was delicious, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. As a missionary to Africa, you never dream that you will have the privilege of sharing the gospel with people from Afghanistan, but God opens all kinds of doors.
How they Arrived in Kenya
After the US military left Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban began to take control of the country. Anyone who was considered a threat to the Taliban was either killed or threatened with death. Hamid was the president of a technical university, and the Taliban wanted him out. So he left the country seeking shelter and safety. He found open arms of welcome in Kenya. He's now a UN refugee in Nairobi and has a job working at a restaurant, making a very small wage. It's been quite humbling for Hamid to move his family out of Afghanistan, but they are very optimistic about life and excited that they can have religious freedom.
I would love for you to pray for Hamid and Hamida's salvation. Please pray that God will reveal Himself to them. Also, pray for me to have wisdom and discernment to teach them the gospel and the basics of Christianity faithfully.
Teaching the Bible Online
We have a video series called "Soma," which means "to read" in Swahili. The purpose of Soma is to help young people learn how to read and study the Bible effectively. In this series, we've explored every verse of a particular book in the Bible to promote a verse-by-verse understanding, with the hope of encouraging pastors and churches to preach the Bible in this way.
Traditionally, Soma videos have been longer, lasting 10 to 15 minutes. However, we've decided to shorten them a bit and try something different, which is what you will see here. This is the first video in our new series on the book of 2 Peter, focusing on verses 1 and 2.
One key word that Peter repeats throughout this book is "knowledge," which appears seven times. This word is connected to a relationship with God that brings grace and peace (2 Peter 1:2), promotes godly living (2 Peter 1:3), encourages virtue (2 Peter 1:5-6), and offers salvation through Christ (2 Peter 2:20).
During Peter's time, false teachers were claiming to possess "special knowledge" that existed outside the foundational faith in Christ. However, Peter aimed to teach his readers that true knowledge is found through a relationship with God in Christ, which leads to a godly and virtuous life.
We hope to communicate these essential truths throughout this new Soma series, especially since false teachers are still unfortunately prevalent today. Please pray for us as we record these videos, and that they resonate with believers.
Beyond the Office - Fellowship
One of the things I have always appreciated about Kenyan Christian culture is its strong commitment to fellowship. People frequently gather to share meals, enjoy tea, and engage in each other’s lives. They actively support one another financially during significant moments, such as funerals and weddings. Another beautiful aspect is their dedication to prayer. For instance, when a mother gives birth, believers often visit her home a couple of months later with gifts, money, and prayers for the child. Additionally, when someone buys a piece of land, a house, or starts a new business, fellow believers are called to pray for God’s blessings. This community approach to fellowship is truly heartwarming.
At Kuza, we strive to embody similar values. We are involved in each other's lives in the ways mentioned above. One unique tradition we have is celebrating birthdays. On someone's special day, we all go bowling, share a meal, and take turns saying something encouraging about the birthday person. While Kuza is a ministry that employs people, we aim to cultivate relationships that go beyond professional boundaries. This commitment to fellowship allows us to hold each other accountable, share genuine prayer requests, and provide support in each other’s weaknesses.
Please pray for us as we maintain our dedication to fellowship, for through it, the world will know that we are disciples of Jesus (John 13:35).
Thank you for your support!
Matt, Kelly, & Zeke
Prayer Requests
Ministry
Pray for us to achieve our Vision 2030 goals.
Pray for Hamid & Hamida's salvation and for Matt to have wisdom to teach them the gospel.
Pray for Kuza to communicate the truth of scripture through our new Soma series.
Pray that Kuza maintains a dedication to fellowship.
Personal
Kelly's health - Kelly for Kelly's headaches to completely go away.
Zeke - Pray for Zeke to continue imporoving in school and to grow stronger in the Lord.
Subscribe to Continue Following Us
I am going to start sending my ministry and prayer email updates through a new platform called Epistle. I'm making this switch because Epistle makes it much easier to get updates out, it's secure, and it sends updates in a clean format designed to be as simple as possible for ministry partners to read on any device.
To continue receiving my updates, please click the button below. After subscribing, please check your email and click the "confirm subscription" email. Sometimes, the "confirm subscription" email could land in your spam folder, so check it everywhere. If you don't confirm your subscription, you won't be able to get our updates. We really desire you to follow and pray for us. It should take no more than 30 seconds to subscribe: