My Time in Kenya

Hey guys,

As I write this newsletter, I am still in Kenya but am nearing the end of my time here. God has moved in some powerful ways here during my time in Kenya. Kenya has been a beautiful country so far with many nice and friendly people. Kenya is overall open to Christianity which gave us several awesome opportunities. I was involved with 2 different ministries on opposite sides of the country, which resulted in lots of travel. With that said, I’ll now share about what I did in Kenya as well as share several testimonies.

Starting with our entry into Kenya, we got an orientation for a few days and learned about cultural stuff to help with ministry and our time in Kenya. We were also given new teams with new roles. My team consisted of 5 people who were all guys, and my new role was treasurer for my team. After orientation, I went to west Kenya to serve in Butere with Pastor John, who led a church called Spiritual Life Mission. In Butere, we got to be a part of preaching, teaching, evangelism, house visits, baptisms, and more. After 3 weeks of doing this, we went to the capital Nairobi for a few days and then to Mombasa, which is in east Kenya. After that, we drove several hours to a location where we helped build a church building for 3 days and then went back to Mombasa. After that, we went to Diani where we had/ am currently finishing up a week of debrief.

There were many testimonies particularly from my time in Butere. In Butere, we got to visit over 50 houses, where we either shared words of encouragement through Scripture and/ or prayed over the people and the house. During these house visits, we often walked around 5 miles per day to get through the neighborhoods to the various houses that were scattered. During these house visits, several people had prayer needs for healing and deliverances. Days after praying for the people, we heard testimonies of multiple people healed of things we had prayed for including back pain healed and a child healed. We also got to be a part of 2 deliverances where demons manifested through people when we started praying for them; but ultimately the demons submitted and got out of the people as we commanded it to go in the name of Jesus. One of the 2 deliverances was intense where the demon was screaming “I don’t want to come out” and said there was 3 demons in the women, but it ultimately ended with a deliverance. It was also encouraging to lead 2 people to Christ during these house visits. From these house visits, it led to us wanting to baptize the new believers and the pastor set up a time for baptism. The whole church was invited to be baptized if they hadn’t before, and as a result, 11 people were baptized with me leading 3 of those baptisms.

In addition to the house visits and baptisms, we had multiple opportunities to preach and teach either at church or at a home group, which they just called fellowship. I got to preach at 2 separate Sunday services, once on the importance of sowing seeds and the other on what is your mission field. I got to lead a teaching at a home group, which had leaders from the church. I got to teach on church growth, which is a topic I am already passionate on and the topic on which the pastor asked me to speak on.

For our last day of ministry with Pastor John, we got to go to a hospital and got permission from the hospital to pray for and encourage the patients. We prayed for many sick people and were able to lead 5 people to Christ during this! We started in a certain area of the hospital and were given a time when to leave. God’s favor was on us though, that they kept taking us to different places past the assigned time, which ended up being 4 hours long instead of the original 1 and 1/2 hour time. We probably prayed for and encouraged over 50 people in the hospital from the men’s section to the women’s section to the kid’s section to the maternity section.

After all this in Butere, we went to our next ministry, which was to help build a church. The foundation and columns were in place, but we had to help build the trusses, the walls, and the roof for the church building. This was a bit of a challenge at first but an awesome experience to be a part of. After 3 days, the church building was finished, and we got to be a part of praying for the church and for the pastor and dedicated the church to God.

Kenya was one if not my favorite country, and I am so thankful for it! I am so thankful for answered prayers and being able to see God move in and through me and my team. With Kenya about to end, I will be going to Uganda next before ultimately coming back to America for the first time since January. I also want to say that healthwise this country has been my best and that I have felt the most energetic I have felt on the race overall! That said, my health is still not always great, and I would appreciate the continued prayers:

1. That I would finish the World Race strong
2. That God would sustain and renew my health and energy
3. That God would open up opportunities for my team to preach and advance the kingdom of God
4. That past ministries I was involved with on the race would see fruit and grow from the seeds sown

As always, if you want to see pictures from my time in Kenya, please follow my Facebook or Instagram account. Thanks guys.