August 2016 News

One of the many ministry events 

Hi everybody!

    We had a wonderful and busy June and July in the States, being with friends and family and fundraising in various places. We got to travel up to Global Youth Ministry’s headquarters and joined them for a staff reunion and a few days at one of their youth camps. It was very rejuvenating and encouraging to spend time with the staff there.

    Back in May, we had three interns join us for a few weeks and had an awesome time with them. They helped teach conferences and spoke in churches and schools, and God really worked through their testimonies. They are all praying about future work in missions or in ministry, so please pray for them as they continue seeking God’s will for their lives.

    While we were gone, our ministry team (the men Matt has mentored) here in Kenya was very busy. They carried out 20 ministry events in three different countries- teaching in 3 seminaries in Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, as well as leading 17 conferences. It is really exciting to see our guys being faithful in teaching and carrying on the vision of the ministry without us being there!

    We are very happy to be back in Kenya. Kelly is gearing up for a new school year and Matt is settling back into ministry. This year, Matt will be specifically focusing on getting the curriculum part of the ministry more developed. Our hope is that the ministry can become more self-sustaining through the distribution and sales of this curriculum. Several churches and youth have bought our 31 day devotional material and have given very positive feedback on it, particularly about it being written in their cultural context.

    We are so grateful for your continued prayer and financial support. We so enjoyed meeting up with a few of you this summer, and pray God’s blessings on you and your families. Thank you for your contribution to God’s kingdom!

Love,
Matt and Kelly

May 2016 News

Matt at a youth camp 

Hi everyone! Hope you’re all doing well! We’ve been having a very rainy April and May!

This past April was very busy. We had a total of 14 ministry events. We led a youth camp, taught in two bible schools, and 11 conferences. We were able to train several hundred people on how to start and run a youth ministry or bible study. It was a super encouraging month. We got some feedback from the conferences we did last January and February. We only had 5, but God moved in strong ways. Thirty-three of the churches started a youth ministry or bible study. They added 55 youth and 62 adults as a result of the youth ministry. We so appreciate your financial support that makes this possible.

Zephaniah, Gilax, two of Zephaniah’s youth, and our friend Nahashon ran a youth camp in Mt. Elgon area. It was a very humbling trip for the guys. The youth camp was organized by our pastor friend, Paul. He attended one of our conferences about 2 years ago. He started a youth bible study at his church, but wanted to do a youth camp to strengthen his church and unite other local evangelical churches together. He had never run a youth camp, so invited us to help him. Some of the youth slept on the ground at the church. Others stayed at home, and then walked for miles in the rain to come to the camp. There were about 400 youth total. Most of the youth had very little knowledge of Christianity. They were very emotional when it came time for our team to leave, as most had never heard someone preaching the Bible in a way that applied to their lives. It was an extremely moving experience, and we plan to go back there and train pastors from the other churches there this May.

We have 3 college-aged interns coming in mid-May for almost 2 weeks. Please pray for them as they get to interact with Kenya, and that God will speak to them individually, particularly about any future calls to missions.

We will be coming back to the U.S. for June and July. We hope to reconnect with many of you while we are there! See you soon! Thanks for your continued support and prayer!

Love,
Matt and Kelly Elmore

April 2016 News

Matt with a pastor who started a youth ministry after he trained him.  

Hi everybody!

March was a great month for us! Kelly had her spring break from school, and we had a college friend come visit us! It was a lot of fun to show her some of the wonderful places in Kenya. We also had a lot of ministry opportunities.

Before spring break, Matt took all of his ministry partners on a marriage retreat at the coast. Since last year, Matt has tried to plan periodic events that will help the guys in their personal lives. Last year they went camping, and Global’s mission director, Dave Simpson, encouraged them in their ministry. This year, we held a marriage retreat led by some Kenyan friends who work in family ministry. It was a phenomenal time of growth and deeper introspection into their marriages. The wives of the team also got to meet one another and had a great time interacting with each other. Being without their kids and having someone else cook for them was a real treat! One of the couples said that the last time they had done ANYTHING without their children was eight years ago on their honeymoon!

Matt has worked closely with the Kenya Baptist Theological College for several years.He has periodically taught one course in youth ministry. They have now asked him to take the lead in rolling out an entire youth ministry program that will start in November 2016. They used to have a youth ministry “diploma” program that ran for several years, but there were many challenges within the school and the program was put on the shelf for some time. Matt has been wanting to really get a youth ministry program going in this school, so it’s very exciting that it is finally happening.

We’ve heard some follow-up feedback from our 10 December conferences in Kenya and Tanzania. Twenty-three churches have started youth ministries for the first time. They have added a total of 295 people to their churches in the last 3 months- 126 youth and 169 adults. We keep hearing reports about older adults who are against the gospel and set in their ways, and then who have a child or grandchild start attending the youth ministry (OPEN THIS LINK- https://youtu.be/VYhZOqYxxr ). So many times, the adult starts softening and even desiring to receive Christ. It’s amazing how targeting the young generation touches all generations! Your support is helping to revitalize and energize the church here in East Africa! Thank you for all you do to support us!

Matt and Kelly Elmore

March 2016 News

Hello everyone!

Hope you’re all doing well!  This was a pretty big month for us. As we told you last month, Matt had the opportunity to travel to Ethiopia for the first time with Gilax, one of our Global mentors. They found that the church there is really struggling to reach the next generation. Very few of the churches did any sort of ministry with the youth, despite 75% of the country’s population being under the age of 25. They were able to teach many pastors in training at the Addis Ababa Bible College. We hope to continue teaching there, and eventually place a missionary there full time to train the locals.

Sam and Zephaniah, two of our mentors also had the opportunity to travel to Burundi! Burundi is a country has faced great hardship, but they are very receptive to the gospel and churches there have a desire to reach the next generation for Christ. 45% of the population there is under the age of 15. We were able to partner with the Baptist seminary in Burundi, and taught hundreds of pastors and church leadersabout how to start a youth bible study. Please pray that these pastors will put into practice what they learned.

A little update- back in November, we taught a total of 8 conferences, encouraging pastors and church leaders to pioneer a youth ministry at their churches. We recently followed up with all of the senior pastors who attended these conferences. Forty-one of them reported back that they had started a youth ministry at their church. In total, they added 315 youth and 184 parents of these youth to their churches in the last few months. This is a total of almost 500 people. Several of the pastors had also took our encouragement to involve the youth in evangelism. Their youth were the catalyst in planting 3 new churches, which have exploded to over 200 members total. 

Thank you for your support and involvement in our ministry that allow ministry like this to go on. We are thankful to God for continue to bless us and increase our “borders”, and we pray that God will do the same for you!

Thank you,

Matt and Kelly Elmore

January 2016 News

Matt with some students from Ethiopia 

Happy Belated New Year!

Here in Kenya, if you haven’t seen or spoken to someone since before New Year’s, you greet them with “Happy New Year!”… even if it’s February!

We had a great holiday break. Kelly’s mom came to visit just before Christmas, so it was nice to see her and receive a few gifts she brought with her! A fun note- you never know who’s going to show up to Christmas dinner. We had a leopard tortoise wander through our back door while we were eating! 

Matt was able to preach at 3 different youth camps throughout the holidays. Several churches that we helped start youth ministries in were putting on their very first youth camps, but weren’t really sure what exactly to do. Our ministry has been able to come alongside them to help with logistics and material, and we’ve been able to see the fruit of them. We also had 12 successful conferences throughout December. We were able to teach a few hundred church leaders for the very first time on what youth ministry is and how to get one started. As you can, December is a very busy month! Most students and others are on holiday, so there’s lots of opportunities for conferences and meetings.

At the beginning of the new year, Matt brought together all of his ministry partners to create a vision for this year. A main theme was to make sure the ministry thrives on the grace and strength of God and not on our own. They also set several goals for the year:

• To teach over 100 conferences through Kenya and East Africa
• To write 4 devotional books for youth, to develop an app for these, and to sell the books to county governments for distribution in high schools
• To seek out new seminaries to teach in East Africa. We have a potential partnership with one in Ethiopia and possibilities in Rwanda and Tanzania.

In relation to the third goal, Matt will be traveling in February to Ethiopia for the first time. He will be teaching at the Evangelical Theological College. They are very interested in teaching youth ministry, but do not currently have a program and have met some resistance from the local evangelical churches. 

We appreciate you all, and pray for a renewing and joy-filled new year!

Matt and Kelly Elmore