Merry Christmas, Dear Friends & Family !!!
I know its a little early but if you read what we will be up to the next few months you might see why. As we come towards the end of the year and start to look towards what is coming head in the new year, I thought I would fill you in on what we as a family will be up-to here in East Africa, how you can pray for us and be apart of what we believe God is doing through us.
Micro Kingdom Business
For the last few months we have been trying to soak into the base here in Kenya, bonding with the team and trying to see how we can be a blessing. One of the areas we are working into is trying to set up micro projects that help bless the staff here as well as look towards finically sporting the ministry in the future. We have started developing a small chicken farm (less then 100 chooks) that can provide eggs and meat, a fish farm and an aquaponics project that will supply fish and vegetables to local orphanages. These projects are all just starting off and will need a lot more time and investment to get them to a point were they are all running smoothly. You can read more on that here.
Ethiopia (December)
Next week we will be in Hadera, Ethiopia. The head of CITA life (Christ Is The Answer) has invited Peter, as well as Jess and I to come and support his large open air meetings. We will use this opportunity as a family to refresh our short 3 month visas, as well as see how another ministry operates. We are very excited to see what God will do and how lives will be impacted. If you are interested in following any of these events please check out one of these links for live videos, photos and much much more. Click here or here.
Visas (Before January)
As I mentioned above we are currently on 3 month tourist visas that have to be renewed outside of East Africa. As you can imagine this process is not viable in the long run, not to mention expensive. We have been advised to apply for Student Visas and enrol in part time education, which I am doing now. The next academic year starts in January so time is short !
For this I will need to raise around £4000 to cover these student fees for the next 2 years. I am exited about the prospect of being able to further my studies while working out here. Jessie would then be able to apply for a dependancy visa. You can read more about this here.
South Sudan (January)
There is a lot happening is South Sudan, and the Lord has really put this country and these people on our hearts. We have sent out four local Kenyan missionaries and we will be visiting them over January to help them with their work. I have written a little background on this read here. and will write more upon our return (with plenty of photos). This really is exciting stuff, the Toposa live far out in the middle of nowhere, wearing no cloths and having very little contact with the outside world living in stick huts on stilts. This unreached and un-engaged peoples reaction to the gospel can only be described as revival. The video bellow explains a bit more, and I have done my best to help it be censored out.
Finances
God has been so good in providing for all our needs as well as keeping our needs very minimal. As we look to be more established here we need to grow our finical support.
There are items long term that we would like to invest in here such as health insurance, as medical care out here is pricy and we have already had a few close calls with power tools, snakes and being stranded in the bush in South Sudan. Some sort of transport and probably most importantly being able to bless the people we come intouch with, the people who have really and urgent needs that can even be life threatening, as well as more basic needs like helping with education costs.
Uganda (February)
In November I was in Uganda, we drove across the width and height of the country to the worlds largest refugee camp in Bidi Bidi, this camp is over 250km2. We are planning on hosting 2 football tournaments in the region in February. Along with these tournaments there will be music, dance, drama, kids and youth ministry and so much more. We are believe this will open the doors to allow us to preach and teach in a region that is over 97% islamic. You can read more on what our plans were here. I will also add an update on out time there after we have been. This is a big endeavour, we need to raise over $15,000 to make this happen as well as raise a small amount for items like footballs, jerseys for the winning teams and trophies, all of which help to make these events a huge success.
Commit to supporting us !
Please let us know if you would like to commit to praying for our family on an ongoing basis as we really need to know that people have our backs in this and that we are not alone.Please pray into wether you can support us financially or have any insight into how we can have a really break though in this area as it is currently our biggest challenge !
There is so much to say, you guys are really special to us, please keep in touch, let us know if you would like to receive the GFI newsletter in print or email, it comes out about 2 times a year, email me you postal or email address if you want to be added to the mailing list.
If you feel like you would like to come out and bring a team to help with these types of events, - football, dance/drama etc do get in touch as having people come out and engage with us is such a blessing to us and the people. But most of all we have found the biggest blessing and impact has been to the individuals who have come out.
Loads of love from Africa, Josh, Jess & Valour Rex