April 2017 News

Hi Everyone!

Here’s some updates on what we’ve been up to lately!

Annual Ministry Retreat - Matt had his annual spiritual retreat with the Kenyan guys he teaches with. Two years ago, they began a tradition of refraining from doing any ministry during the month of March, but taking time to pray, spend time with their families, and spend some time on this ministry retreat for spiritual encouragement. This year was special because our good friend James Wanje spoke about conflict management, team work, and team building. Some of the things to come out of the retreat were so helpful and timely. Matt had been praying for something for 4 months and it was answered at the retreat! It was a great time of encouragement, unity and refreshment.

Mission Team - A team from Global Youth Ministry came to minister alongside of us for 10 days. The team consisted of our missions director Dave and 4 students from Global’s Institute for Global Youth Studies. They got to participate in a writing retreat with our Kenyan team, preached in 8 schools to over 1000 kids, preached in 4 different churches, led several people to Christ, taught one conference, and visited with several people in their homes. Whew! It was a great trip.

Kuza - Thank you for your prayer for this last month. Things are going really well, and we officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding between Kubamba Krew (the TV and radio ministry we told you about last month)! The partnership between us is very exciting, as we each meet a need in each other that the other is lacking - discipleship for them, and publicity/marketing for us. Kubamba Krew has a huge following among Kenyan youth. We’re gearing up to launch the app officially on K-Krew’s TV and radio programs. Our goal is to have at least 10,000 downloads this year.

Writing Retreat - Our writing team just finished two devotions- one on the book of Ephesians, and another on overcoming addictions and abuses - “Live Free”. These should be edited and posted on our app soon.

Conferences - We’ll have 10 conferences and 3 youth camps during the month of April. We are also starting a new conference just for youth, called “Kuza Seminar”. Our conferences are typically geared towards church leaders and pastors. Since more and more youth ministries are growing, we’ve received feedback about needing to have something for the youth themselves. We’re excited about this new opportunity.

Adoption Update - Our profile book has been approved and completed, so we are now officially a “waiting family”... meaning that it could happen any time! Thank you for your prayers, and please continue to pray for the child and birth family that God has for us!

We are very grateful for you, and pray God’s blessings for you! 

Matt and Kelly

Prayer Request: 

1. Pray for at least 10,000 downloads for our Kuza app. 
2. Pray for the partnership of Kubamba Krew and Global Youth Ministry to grow stronger and be fruitful. 
3. Praise God for the great ministry retreat, and salvations during our mission team’s trip! 
4. Pray for the Live Free & Ephesians Devotions to make a great impact in the lives of youth in our Kuza app.  
5. Pray for the Kuza Seminar to jump start the spiritual growth of youth. 
6. Pray for the 10 conferences and 3 youth camps that we will be ministering in this April.  

February 2017 News

Hi Everyone!

We hope you are doing well! Our apologies for not sending out a newsletter earlier this year. It’s amazing how quickly time can fly!

Ethiopia- Matt traveled to Ethiopia in January to teach a course on youth ministry at the Addis Ababa Bible College. An interesting fact about Ethiopia is that it is the second largest country in Africa according to population (99 million) and 75% of their population is under the age of 25. Youth ministry is a major need for the church there. One of Matt’s students was Ermias, who is in charge of all youth ministry within the Full Gospel church. These churches have about 5 million members and many of them are youth-aged. Ermias said the youth ministry class was extremely helpful, and he’s excited to implement some changes with his youth. It was a very productive trip, and we’re praying to one day have a missionary in Addis Ababa to help facilitate youth ministry in this heavily populated country.

Kuza- We announced our Kuza smart phone devotional app in December. It is growing in popularity and is exciting to see! We officially launched it December 14th right before While we officially launched it mid-December, we did not start advertising it until the last two weeks. So far we have had 200 downloads. Matt also had a meeting with a very large and well-known Christian TV and radio youth ministry named Kubamba Krew here in Nairobi. They have around 500,000 very close followers who are youth. They loved our Kuza app and want to partner with us in raising awareness of the app. We will have a big meeting with them in the coming days to hammer out the details. We’d love to see youth all over East Africa grow strong in their personal relationship with Christ through this app.

Adoption Updates- Our adoption home study in December went well. We are waiting for our home study to be approved and are finishing up our profile book, which is what the birth parents look at it to decide who they want the adoptive parents to be.

Conferences- We had 12 wonderful conferences in the months of January and February, and through them trained several hundred church leaders.

Thank you for your continued prayer and support! We are very grateful for you!

Matt and Kelly

Prayer Request: 

1. Pray that God will call a missionary to work with Global Youth Ministry in Ethiopia.  
2. Pray for our app and potential partnership with Kubamba Krew.
3. Praise God for the 12 conferences we were able to teach in January & February. 
4. Pray for our writing team as we work on a devotional called “Addictions and Abuses” and one on the book of Ephesians.
5. Pray for our team during the month of March, as we get together to pray and encourage each other.

December 2016 News

Nathan teaching in Burundi 

Hello Everyone! 

    November and December are always very busy months for us. We are doing 34 ministry events, including: teaching in seminaries, conferences, and youth camps in the countries of Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. In our 8+ years of being in Kenya, this is the busiest two months we’ve ever had. All of our mentors are working really hard!
    Matt went to Burundi for the first time in November. It is an amazing place filled with mountains, hills, and valleys. Burundi borders the second largest freshwater lake in the world (according to volume of water), Lake Tanganyika. Matt went with Nathan, another Kenyan mentor, and they were so impressed with the churches being planted and the amazing worship taking place. One thing they lacked was solid discipleship and youth ministry. They were so hungry to hear about how to reach the 40% of their population that is youth-aged.
     One thing we are very excited about is our new smart phone app! We are launching a smart phone app this month for our devotional writing ministry on the Google play store. It is called “Kuza”, which means to grow or be nurtured in Swahili. The goal is to help youth grow and be nurtured in their relationship with God through these devotional materials we are producing in a Kenyan context.
     In personal news... some of you know this and some don’t, but we are currently in the process of adopting an infant from the U.S. through Bethany Christian Services! We now just have to complete our home study (a series of interviews and check of home safety), and are coming back to the U.S. in mid-December for Kelly’s Christmas break to do so. After going through 7 years of infertility, we feel this is something God is calling us to do, and he has supplied everything we need for every unique challenge we’ve encountered adopting from the U.S. while living abroad! As you may know, unfortunately adoption is very expensive. Please know that we will be using our personal money for this adoption - every cent you give to our ministry goes specifically for that- our ministry here in East Africa. Please pray for us as we continue in this process- specifically that we will trust Him throughout, and that He will provide the right child for our family!
     We hope to see many of you while we are home for the 3 weeks in December/January. If we don’t, we wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas celebrating the birth of our Savior, and a wonderful New Year. May our God supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:19). Love,

Matt and Kelly

November 2016 News

Our friend Bobby came to visit us and encourage us this month

Hello Friends!

We hope all of you are starting to enjoy some cooler weather! Our weather is starting to heat up more, although we’re starting to have frequent rains, which helps keep it pretty cool. Kelly has wrapped up a season of coaching cross country, which has been fun, but also made the schedule a little bit busier!

We’ve had a great month and there are several things we’re excited about. First, Matt and his team have been invited back to Ethiopia to teach at the Addis Ababa Bible College again. Very few churches there do anything to reach their youth, and 70% of the population of Ethiopia is under the age of 30. They were also invited to a new Presbyterian seminary in Uganda. Sam and Zephaniah taught there, and said it is a very well organized seminary that was extremely receptive to the youth ministry courses. They have invited us to return each year. We are excited about our future partnership with both of these schools!

Matt has done a lot of work with the Kenya Baptist Theological College (KBTC)and teaches there regularly. He and some partners from Youth Ministry International (YMI) are starting back a youth ministry diploma and degree program there, which has lain dormant for many years. It was started by a YMI missionary, but because the college has gone through some rough times, it was put on the back burner. A lot the students are excited about the program and have already signed up for it.

We did a ministry report follow-up, and found that after training a number of pastors during the June- August months, 59 churches started a youth ministry for the very first time in their church. They have added a total of 421 people through the start of these ministries. One hundred and seventy five of these are adults who have come to the church because of the change they see in the youth and through the direct evangelism of the youth themselves.

We’ve got more exciting news about a new devotional app that we are launching,as well as some exciting personal updates, but you’ll have to stay tuned until next month to hear all about that!

We appreciate your partnership in the gospel!

Love,
Matt and Kelly

September 2016 News

Youth Leaders from a local Baptist Church in Nairobi

Hello Friends!

August was a good and busy month of starting back school for Kelly and getting back into ministry for Matt! Matt had the privilege of training several leaders of youth ministries around Nairobi. It’s been interesting and exciting to see how many churches have reached out and asked Matt to train their youth leaders on how to use biblical principles in discipleship and evangelism. Historically, we’ve been more focused on establishing youth ministry where there is none, so this seems to be a possible new facet of the ministry.

Matt has also been invited by some people from the country of Niger in West Africa to teach at two different seminaries there. We have never done any ministry in West Africa, so this would a brand new door into a historical spiritually dark area. It is very expensive to travel there, around $1000 for a flight, and too far and difficult to drive. If we feel that God is leading us to expand in this direction, our desire would be to lay some ground work there, with the hope that a full-time missionary would come to follow through on training the nationals there.

At the beginning of the year, Matt trained a pastor from the Maasai bush area. One of the principles we teach is evangelism in the form of “chapati evangelism”- equivalent to “pizza evangelism” in the U.S. (Chapatis are round flat breads commonly eaten here).  It’s a way for youth to help evangelize in their community. The pastor called Matt and said he had started a youth bible study, and his youth were now implementing this “chapati” evangelism. The youth contributed their own money to buy flour and oil, cooked the chapatis themselves and then took them out to friends they know are not saved. They then took those friends to church to eat more chapatis, and a member of the youth ministry preached the gospel. It has been a very effective and fun form of evangelism for this pastor and his church. The pastor was excited to see youth being saved and his youth taking ownership of evangelism. We are thankful to see pastors implementing the practical principles that we teach to reach others for Christ!

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support! We appreciate you!

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