Stephen & Ednah Muindi's Missionaries to Kenya

Stephen & Ednah Muindi's Missionaries to Kenya

Just so you know, Stephen hasn't changed very much. When I was in seminary, there was one day he kind of, him and I were talking and he told me that I needed to come to Kenya, that the ministry is great there, that people love to hear the gospel, they love to talk with you, but that you have effective ministry and we have a perfect place for me to go. I was thinking about the passage in acts 26 where Paul's talking to Felix and Agrippa.

And he tells Agrippa that, I know you believe. Don't you believe? And Agrippa says, you almost persuade me to be a Christian. And I want to say he almost persuades me to come to Kenya.

So one of these days, hopefully, God, Lord willing, we'll find a way to get down there and share in that ministry. So I can't guarantee when, but I'd love to do it. I really would.

I think it would be amazing and great opportunity. So, Stephen, I'm not going to take any more of your time to come up here. He does have a table here.

Please look at it after the service, not while he's talking. And thank you very much. Take a prayer card.

Right. So I'm okay. I knew you were doing something up there.

No. I wonder. Well, we are so thankful again to spend time.

Sean, you promise you are coming. So this is another time you're committing yourself to come. So everybody had.

Did you hear that he's coming? Yeah. Yes. Next 25 years.

Look at that. Next 25 years. Yes.

Oh, yeah. He can come. He can be a great preacher.

Wonderful. Well, we are really so thankful. Edna and I are so grateful for your opportunities that God has given to us.

And I will say also, like Paul mentioned, that we don't take lightly the grace of God given to us. We don't really take it lightly. We take it seriously that God has given us opportunity to do God's work where we need to be, where we are at that particular time.

The opportunity I have today and Edna, to visit your church is know, in a sense it's not everybody has that opportunity and we are so thankful. But again, we take it seriously. That opportunity of coming and being with you is not because it's a time that didn't have someone to come or you didn't have things to do, but so important that we want to be an encouragement and a building, edifying body of Christ with each other.

There's great opportunities that God has laid before all of our eyes and I hope all of us can be excited about God's work and jump into the pool and swim. Sometimes you remember that kid who is learning to swim who doesn't know how to swim. And the first time, even if you are in the water as a father, as a mother and you're saying jump in, it's like, no I'm not.

You know for sure they are secure in your hands. They will not drown because you're there but they are refusing to jump in. You know why? There's fear until, Sean, you jump into the plane to Kenya.

That's when you'll find yourself there. But really in the ministry is to jump in and say, God, you're the one who has commanded me to do this. And so we end up being in the work of God because God wants us to be there for his glory.

Well, quickly I'll mention that Edna and I are Kenyans for probably you are know, I've never met these people before and you get to know us, we are Kenyans. We only come to United States on a visa which gives us a period of time to come and spend our time, report to churches and share the burden we have and what God is doing. And then we are back.

So we are here to do that. And Edna and I got saved in Kenya and we got married in Kenya long, long time ago. Long, long time ago.

We've been married for over 25 years. So those of you who've been married for 1000 years is okay, we will come along and we'll catch up with some of you on our way. But in essence, God really drew us together in the process of learning God's will in our individual lives.

I got saved when a missionary established a baptist church in my school and I desired to go play with the kids because they had children program. You just want to have fun. Maybe it's kind of a VBS.

It could be AWANA. Just want to go spend time with my friends and enjoy my time. But it was during that time that I had the gospel and gave my life to Christ at the age of ten.

And I knew that God had a reason for my life and he protected me in that time because I got saved in a family that none in my family knew the Lord. So I became the foundation of the gospel in my family. And so in the process they came to know Christ.

They joined our church and even our parents came to know Christ and be part of our church family and we praise the Lord for that. Then Edna grew up in an Anglican home, a family know, you know, the Church of Anglica, England, the Church of England which is Episcopal Church kind of, you know it here. And after she went to high school, which was a baptist high school, again, established by missionaries in Kenya, that is where she had the true gospel.

And she gave her life to Christ. And joining the same church that I was in, we were able to grow together, loved each other. And one day I said, my honey, would you marry me? And she said yes so quickly.

Is that good? Because I was ready, too. And God joined us together. We were married in 98 and in 99 because of the burden God had been putting in our hearts to serve him faithfully, we came to United States to study.

We came to faith in 99 and spent seven years of school. And then in 2006, after graduation, we left for Kenya and started working in the ministries that God had given us to do or the work that God had given us to do in Kenya. And we are so glad to be part of that ministry since then, because God has allowed us to establish great work, great ministry, and with great joy.

We delight even to share with you today. I think last time we were here, we shared only one church God had given us. And now we have three churches.

But I want you to. Is it on? Okay. That one is not.

This one is okay. Great. I see that.

It's okay. Now. You see the picture there shows you, Edna and I, when we began our lives.

We are simple people. And now, again, it shows you who we are now. It was in the process of our lives when we had faith that God gave us these three young people.

And now they are grown up. The two, Ian and Regina, are twins. Many of you maybe know them.

And they are 23. And then the low one, Rena, is 20, is 19. Okay.

He's 19. And so continue praying for them. God has been walking their lives and continuing to lead their lives.

Ian and Regina graduated from Iowa states, their biology major. And so pray that God will lead. Whether you want to use their education or their lives in ministry, God will glorify himself in their lives.

And then our young one is doing computer science. And so pray for us. Well, at Iowa states, and she is a sophomore, I think soon to be a junior.

And so God will continue to help them also in what they are doing. They are serving at the church here in Ankeny. They live in Ankeny serving.

They attend Saylorville church. And they are youth leaders there. And God has been using them.

And we praise the Lord for God's care. For the last four years, Ian and Regina were away from us. They were here and we were gone.

We were in Kenya. So you can imagine being away from your teenagers for four years. That's the challenge of a missionary life.

And you don't understand that until you miss your kids for four years. How many of us have been away from their children for four years apart from the missionaries like us? What about for a year? They've been away from you for a year? For three months? None for a month. Wow.

You people are just close here. Edna and I have been away, and when they have issues and struggles of life here, we have that pain that we cannot come because we need a visa. And they say, no, we can give you until certain time.

You wait. And it's a challenge. It's a family issue.

So pray for us that even as we deal with such things, being far away from our part of a family, that God will continue to glorify himself in us and through us. But we know all is to the glory of God. But then again, just to show you is that is where God has called us to serve him.

He has called us to serve him in the country of Kenya. And it is. I know you wrote in the West Africa.

We are in the East Africa. If you look at the equator, you'll follow the equator. We are right on the eastern side of Africa.

And that is where Kenya is a beautiful place. But just to begin with, I want to draw attention to that passage of scripture which you put there, Matthew 20 818 to 20. And the scripture mentioned there is the fact of the great commission that God has commanded us to be able to go to all nations.

And if it is to all nations, it means all. It means all. Every nation on earth needs to hear the gospel, and Kenya is one of them.

For me, I had the gospel because a missionary established a church. Edna had a gospel because a school was established by a missionary. Others will hear the gospel because missionaries have gone.

And I want to encourage you, never, never stop sending missionaries where God wants them to go at all. It doesn't matter whether they go east or west or north or south. They need to go even here.

Establishing churches needs people get out of their church to start a church in another city. It's still a going. And says to all nations, to all peoples, all that includes every ethnic group living on earth must hear the gospel because we have that duty as believers.

Paul had committed himself to accomplishing that duty, and I hope we could do the same. Says, go ye to all nations. Making disciples.

And that is the duty, is to make disciples. It's a mandate of us to make disciples of all people. This community needs the gospel and it's each one of us to go.

Kenyans need the gospel. It's of us to go. They establish churches to go baptizing them, which means two things here I'll draw attention to you, is that they identify themselves with Christ in death, burial and resurrection in the baptism.

It's a testimony. But also they are joining the church because at that time they are making a commitment of being followers of Christ by identifying with Christ, but also identifying with those who have already identified themselves with Christ. And so they are joining a battalion of soldiers who are ready to go and share the gospel, proclaim the gospel of Christ.

That is where they are taught, they are built up, they are equipped so that they can also go and share the gospel just the way they have received. And so that's your duty and it's my duty. And as missionaries, we understand this is our duty.

We are church planters, we focus on establishing church. We are not focused on either be street kids, we are not focused on orphanage, we are not focused on offering feeds or other things. We are focused on establishing churches.

And so anything that relates with how best we will be able to establish churches, encourage young people to come along, grow in the word so that they can join the team and be soldiers of Christ. That is our goal. And we are taking that in a comprehensive essence.

Now, Kenya is not a jungle. Many people ask now, do you live with lions? Do you have bears out there? How do you survive out there with the wild animals? It's just like here. You don't live with the bears or with the deer in your houses.

They are out there and the wild ones are in a reserved place where they cannot come out or you cannot go in unless with security or as a tourist with the guides. So again, you have those laws and we have the big cities too. That is Nairobi, which is the capital city of over 6 million people.

So it's not a jungle. So don't ever think that, oh, Africa is what you read in 1950. If I read to you what is about America in 1950s, 1960s, you will say, no, that's not America.

We changed over the last 70 years. We are totally different. Kenya also, any other country around the world changes over a period of time.

They never stick there because we've gone to places and people are saying things of what they read in 1960 and they think that is the perception of Africa, of today. Don't read always current things and learn and God will be able to glorify himself even as you do that, not only do you see the capital city. But this is the city we are in, it's smaller city, it's Eldoret.

That is where we serve of over 500,000 people. So again, it's not a small village. There are cities and this is one of them.

And there are many other cities of the same kind or smaller than Eldoret, of 200,000 of hundred thousand people and so forth. So again, they are places that they are modernized and we can all enjoy and delight in it. That's why Sean promised to come, because now after seeing this last time, he was fearing the snakes and all kinds of things.

By the way, where we live today, here in know one know because of these mere questions. One time we found a snake by the house and so we took a picture and took it to the people who always tell us, there's no snakes here, snakes are in Africa. Say, look, I was holding it like that and it's like, hey, right there at the house where we live today here in Ankeny.

So again, it's true that other places have certain things that probably are more prevalent than what you have here. But also there are weird things you have that they don't have. And if people capitalize on the weird things, not the good things, you will not really have a reason to do work and ministry.

You'll not, and we will never be in such a place. So we serve in Kenya. And Kenya is a beautiful place.

The weather, my friend, that's where I needed to be. Today, 50 is the lowest 50 and the highest is 85. So when you have your steamed summers with 90s with humidity, I am not enjoying it either.

That is not where I need to be. When you are below zero, like the other day, I'm thinking, why did I come here? What brought us here? In fact, the first time we came in 99, Sean, if you never saw me shed tears, that was the time we shed tears. We had no car and we were at faith.

And then we wanted to, on Sunday, we were headed to church and unfortunately they had canceled churches that day and we did not know. We had no TV, we had no radio, we had nothing and we had no vehicle. So we wanted to walk from faith to Ankeny Baptist church.

And there we are, we are running and all this. And tears are just coming without us knowing. And we are looking at each other.

It's like, Edna looks at me, it's like you brought me here. And fortunately, one of the people was driving by is like, no, churches are closed, please go home. You can't have church today.

And we didn't know anything. So from then we started now finding at least the radio and something to help us know what's going on. And we've learned hard way, so we thank God for that.

But this is really a special place. You'll enjoy being in Kenya, a city of over 500,000 people. It's called the city of Champions.

You know why great athletes come from Kenya and that city of El Dorat. Every champion that you see on your news or TV during races, whether it be Boston, whether it be New York, marathon, and anywhere around the world, they come from there, El Dorad. So come see them and run with them.

I tell you, you'll be surprised. You can be a great runner when you run with them. You'll find out.

And it's really a special place. A lot of people run. You'll see hundreds and hundreds of people running.

And all the region of the great Rifty Valley or the North Rift are good runners and they run well. And we have all kinds of people, all walks of life. Either you talk of farmers, they are know professionals of any level of life.

They are all there. And we speak several languages. But key languages that I want you to note is English and Swahili.

Now, if you speak English, you are sufficient enough to communicate with the Kenyans. You can communicate even when we have people visit us, we don't have to translate. You speak to the church in your language, English, to the Sunday school classes, they speak English.

They memorize passages in English. So you have that opportunity to communicate effectively without somebody changing the meaning of your communication, and that will be very helpful. And then we'll teach you.

Some know little by little. And I look forward for that time. When you folks come, you can see the city of Eldred on normal life.

Look at that. People just traveling always. They have vehicles, they have motorbikes.

I know you're surprised with that one. With three people on a motorbike, sometimes five, and you could be the one on the last pass. It's all.

But it's part of life. I mean, there's all the mingling of people and people are able to see great things, great meals, fresh vegetables every day, even meat. Beef, pork, chicken, fresh every day.

And you go to a butcher and say, hey, I wandered by the arm right there and they cut it there for you. It's you who determine what you want. And so it's always fresh.

And they do that on daily basis. This is our home. We want you to know that we are inviting you to our home.

We want you to spend time with us so that you can minister with other people and reach out to the people of Kenya. We invite you. We have a front yard that we've designated for ministry purposes because as church planters, we want to enrich people.

And so we invite them to our home. We have Bible studies at our home. We have time to play with kids around our neighborhood and invite them, have chats with the community.

And it gives always a great joy to have a way of making impact in the lives of people. And that is the reason why we put that aside. Want you to enjoy a cup of safari.

And don't get out of your safari vehicle because they are very dangerous. They kill. Those are buffaloes.

They can kill a lion. They are very fierce. They don't get closer to them.

Elephants. You really enjoy seeing the elephants. You'll enjoy seeing the Cheetos and many, many animals, the rhinos.

If you've never seen a rhino closer to you, you'll see them, and in a big number, the lions. And this will challenge you. We'll tell you now, today we want you to count the lions and tell us how many you will see at the end of the day or how many elephants do you see? And these are the wild beast.

Many of you have seen the wild beast migration. This happens in Kenya. You stand by the river and you see them cross the river.

It's called Mara river with alligators in the waters. And you see those crocodiles there ready, looking for a meal. And these guys come by the river and they stop and they talk to each other.

You've never seen animals talk to each other. They do. You go fast.

You go fast. No, you go fast. And someone comes by the river and then walks back.

It's like, no, I can't. And after a while, you see one jump into it and move on. And everybody else follows.

But remember, some will not make it across because crocodiles are there. Some will be pulled and they will die in there. But I want to bring this passage again to you to remind you something here.

This is where I'm trying to help every church to understand what it means to be a church planter. I've divided into three areas. The first part is church founding.

Remember, Edna and I go to a city or a place within a city that have no baptist church. And we have to start from nothing. It's only Edna and I and our kids when they are there.

You don't have a place, you don't have people. So we don't have a deacon, we don't have a Sunday school teacher. We don't have who to do what.

It's only Edna and myself. We have to establish a church. So the key areas is evangelism, reaching out to people, inviting people to your home, establishing a Bible study, continuing to build that up as you reach out and being available in the community.

And I'll talk about that little later. Investing in opportunities that are available in the community. And in the process you are discipling those people who have come by teaching and going through some studies together and with all the processes.

Then you have legal things that you do because you're intending to establish a church to the point that now you are in a quorum, that you are able to establish a church. So you establish either from your home, getting a tent or getting a place and all that process. Now in that process too, as the church grows, you're becoming a fundraiser, you're raising finances to be able to buy a property or rent a place, whichever other form, to be able to have a place away from your home.

Now in our fast church, when we established the first church, we were broken into more than three times because as the numbers grows, you don't know who comes. People are coming to church, but maybe others are coming with ill intent. And so they think, pastor, have a lot of money.

After all that offering I saw, they took it into the house. Yeah, they must have money in there. So they break into the house.

But, you know, as time goes, you are able to fundraise, then you get some finances, you buy the property, you follow legal process of property. Then you start planning on building. You're also a fundraiser for the building and starting again to follow requirements with architectural work, with the city requirements and all the fees required, all that.

So you become a legal expertise of the processes. There's so much that goes into this and many times we don't get to understand. We think that missionaries, just when they are called people, they started a church and that was all they have, a church.

No, the second part is that growing that church by investing, you study, you preach, you teach, you're visiting, you're a pastor now, again, reaching out to people. But remember, you don't neglect the faster part because that is part of growth, that's part of work, that is part of your duty. So you are keeping on moving by teaching, counseling people with issues, people with challenges and false teaching others, moving from another church, joining your church, and they start telling you, why are we not jumping up? You say, no, we don't do that.

Why are we not crawling into church. I'm just using as an expression to say they come with their own different understanding of what it means to be a church and to be a believer. So you're starting now to pull out heresy and teaching the truth from the scripture with time, and you're encouraging them to grow.

And then the final part is that training part. You're starting now to train leaders who will help you, or possible leaders to send out, even as a small church, as a missionary, the focus is not only, yes, to establish a church, but also to establish leaders who can help us in continuing to grow the ministry by establishing other churches. And so from the beginning, every person who is part of the church could be potential leader for the next church plant, could be potential leader for the same church, could be a deacon, could be a Sunday school teacher, could be a youth leader.

And so we want to invest in them so that they can help us in the ministry. The first Sunday school teacher is my wife and myself. So when do you preach? You go to Sunday school.

You come out, you are leading the music. You are the preacher, you are the counselor, you are everything. And so you're working on all these things, but also looking at what God might be doing among the people.

So that you start now building the work and expanding God's work. Start splitting your Sunday school into two, the older and the younger. And you start moving from high school, elementary, or the priest school.

Because as you get people enable people to do, you are able now to start making those classifications. But before you will not, the whole children, Edna, might get all of them walking with them. I get all the youth and all the adults and start walking with them because you're starting out.

So you cannot split them into groups because you are the only one going to be doing the work again. It's a process. And that's why this passage of second Thessalonians three, one to two, helps us understand is when Paul says, finally, brethren, pray for us.

Pray for us for two reasons, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified. That means that we can reach out to as many people as we can, as we proclaim the gospel, that the people that hear our voices and our words will be able to receive that gospel and have it bloom in their hearts. The word of God be glorified in their heart, make impact in their lives.

And that is why he qualifies by saying, just as it is with you. When the Thessalonians had, they responded to it and they've grown, and they are able to demonstrate how God has been walking through the gospel. And then the second thing is that we might be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men.

Remember, they are ungodly people there who are not pleased with the gospel at all. They don't delight in it. Ungodly people.

They are wicked people. And not only even, as we mentioned today, is from outside and even some from inside. Some might be people in other denominations who might not be happy that now there's a baptist church in this community.

They teach different from what we teach, and so they'll be opposed to you because they don't want you there. And people start getting to know the truth again. It makes a difference.

But the joy of it all, dear brethren, is seeing people come to know Christ. That is the reason when we see men and women trust the savior, they're being baptized, proclaiming their testimony with Christ and joining the church. What a delight.

What a glorious thing. Before we came last year, we baptized 26 people who had given their lives to Christ and gave their testimony and desire to join the body of Christ. We always delight in seeing that.

That's part of our work and our ministry. Now you will see there that when we begin, as I was mentioning, we start raising funds to get out of our home. You'll buy a property with nothing, and then you're raising, when you get some finances, you want to get people gathered together.

And they become saying, we have our church, a place focused for ministry, where, you know, the youth are meeting on Wednesday at the church, ladies are meeting there. And so with finances that we have the low we have, we raise a temporary facility like that, put it there. So we move step by step building that temporary facility so that the church could be gathered in the home.

They can say, it's our home and start now walking together in seeing how best to serve the Lord. And it's because of every dollar, every gift that is given to us, we must account it. So we want God to be glorified in every iron sheet, every pole, that it has been used well and the church has been established.

So we grow these churches, going through all that process I mentioned to you, and finally you have a church like that. This is the first church that we have, Elgin View Baptist Church, and we praise the Lord. That was our first church.

Now they have a permanent facility. They can come and rejoice and serve the Lord with the body of Christ and the believers as they serve him. But all that process requires leadership training.

Pastors, we invest in pastoral training and leaders of other kinds, but particularly the pastors, because these are the men who will take over the churches. They are the ones who are going to be continuing the ministries in detail. And so here I'm spending my time every Sunday afternoon from 02:00 to 05:00 teaching these men, investing in them.

And we praise the Lord that these men today are serving two Timothy, two, two. Paul says that these things that you had from me among many witnesses, commit this to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Now you see several groups of people.

You have Paul, whom probably I could say he had it from people like Stephen and others that he was persecuting the church. But after getting saved, he trusted Christ. He's now handing over this same deposit of truth to Timothy as the third person.

And Timothy is able or exhorted to give it to faithful men, men who will be able to give it to another generational group of people, which goes even to fourth or fifth generation of people. That's our duty, is to invest in others. Give out what you know about the gospel, the truth, the word of God, to someone else.

Teach them, invest in them. Have even one person or two people that you are investing your life in them, that they'll be able to proclaim that truth even to others beyond the life of they have today. And the key statement here is faithful, faithful.

Now, not all will be faithful, but there will be some faithful. And I always remind, even the churches, when we establish them, I say, you know what? We invest more time to those who are faithful, those who will come for Bible study, they will get more. Those who come for fellowship, they'll get more.

And over time, two, three years, they are leaders. They're going to be teachers as well. They're going to be deacons.

They've understood what it means to serve in a local church because we have invested in them. And it's very true in every church. Those that are faithful always get more because they are available.

They make it an effort to participate, to work hard, to get to know, to get opportunity, and to use those opportunities even in reaching out to others. So we thank God for these men who have been able to join the team and be used of God. Not only do we do those leaders, sorry, but we do even other leaders in various areas.

Remember, we need those who are leading others to be trained, also Sunday school training. How do you make a lesson? How do you program or align yourself in a program that will help you accomplish a goal after a given period of time? So we invest in the leaders, and we call them, whether it be ladies, to be leaders within ladies ministries or men for leadership with men and Sunday school teachers, youth leaders. We want to invest in them, and we take time to do so.

But also we go beyond and do practical work in life because listening just in class is not sufficient, but doing it, you tell many people how to witness, even here. I know going through a class at faith about evangelism, you can study evangelism, but still have it here, but not practically. So what does it mean? It means taking the young people and going the street, going house to house, talking to others and walking together, inviting friends.

We're having a special day tomorrow, all next week. Come along, all kids in your homes. We're inviting you for a special day.

And we have games. We chat together. But they have time to hear the word of God.

They have time of their parents to come and see what they've done. We invite parents and say, hey, you've been here for two days. Tell your father to come and hear you give a memory of us.

Sing the song. And they come and sit there and they see and watch their daughters and sons, and they clap and they're excited. And I have the opportunity to challenge and say, hey, how many passages of scripture can you memorize? Any parent who can memorize a passage to challenge their son and their daughter.

It's important to know and give the gospel that there are many ways God can use you and I to reach out to people. So our kids start learning to invite others at school. They carry trucks and they invite other boys and girls come to our church.

Would you come next week? Each Sunday school class, we allow them a special Sunday. The first Sunday, maybe they have twos and threes, will be presenting what they are doing in their program. The second week we have the primaries, and then you have the third week, you have another group of Sunday school class will be presenting.

And guess what they say? Come, dad. We are presenting this week. And probably their parents will come.

If not both, a mom will come. If not all, a friend will come. Someone will come.

And you're creating a way of reaching out to your community, an opportunity with delight. Enjoy. And we encourage them.

Not only that, adults, ladies, men, we challenge them. Let's get out. The pew next to you is empty.

How do we feel? That chair, that plastic chair next to you has no one sitting on it. How do you get somebody sit there? We want you to be part of that process, to participate in this good work. Let's get out.

And we all gather together and say, hey, team of five, led by brother Sean. You're going to the north. Team six led by Elaine, you're going to the west and team led by Steve, you're going to the east and all that.

And you reach out and they hear you as a leader, because these people, they are learning from you. They hear how you introduce yourself, how you change the topic from farming to the gospel. And we need to learn to know that, to know how to transition our communication to things.

We meet athletes, runners, and they talk about running, going to Boston, going to New York or London marathon or running local races. And you ask them, how was it? When last time you went for a race, how was it? Did you know that the Bible talks about running? Can I show you a passage that talks about it? It's interesting that the Bible talks about people running. It says, really, you guys, you have a lot of discipline.

Isn't that right? You don't eat some meat and they'll tell you all these things. And the Bible says that you deny yourself this and you run with a focus because there's a goal to get a reward. The Bible wants us to.

To have that spiritual understanding. You see, you learn how to do some of this thing from farm, and how do you put that together and transition that into something that draws attention to the glory of God? It's God who has done it. Even when farmers rejoice for great harvest.

Isn't it wonderful that God gave rain this year and it was sufficient that it was never flooded like Noah's flood? Because that would have happened. I remember a couple of years ago when you had floods all over and the government needed to help the farmers here in Iowa. That tells you God is involved in farming, too.

And you're able to transition your communication on how to reach out people. And that is how young people, older people learn to know how to communicate effectively. We need to do that, and we want to help our people to understand how to do that as well.

God has blessed. We have established three churches, Elginview Baptist Church and then Northview Baptist Church and Plain View Baptist Church. These churches are a great blessing.

That is Pastor Sylvanas Agisu, who is the pastor now of Elginview Baptist Church. What a joy to see men and people, that God continues to grow the church as we continue. This is Northview Baptist Church with Pastor Michael Tieno.

They continue growing and building the body of Christ there. And that is the. Look at that building made of iron sheet, both the roof and the sides.

That's all. And the cement on the floor. Now could we exchange that for you? And don't say it's too cold to be in an iron sheet building because you have a beautiful home here.

But we work with what we have, not what we don't have. We cannot wait until we build a beautiful building to start a church. We start a church with nothing, but then God provides as we move along with your participation, your help, your reaching out, your support, either be monthly support or it's a one time gift to help establish a church.

We say praise be to God and we put it to place. Even as we do that, we know that God will continue to provide even for other churches. This is Plainview Baptist church pastor Simon Coheich, also serving the Lord.

These are men who are serving with meager income but faithful in reaching out to people, being out there for the glory of God and we continue doing that. There are many needs definitely in the ministry, but God continues to meet those needs. We always have annual fellowship as churches so that a newly established church understand that we have sister churches.

We are not alone and we try to put that together. This we made at Elginville Baptist Church and we reached there. All members from other churches have joined us.

We build together that relationship and fellowship, but not only meeting at that church, but we also go to the other churches. That was another fellowship, annual fellowship. We went to one of our church plants and get together, encourage each other.

Remember this was during COVID time and everybody with a mask and say, hey, you know what? We get together, build each other, encourage each other. We know that it's not easy, but God continues to build his church, even though it's just an iron sheet building, because the church is the people that God has called and gathered together for his glory, there will be many needs. We build shades for Sunday schools because sometimes you don't have various places to host your different groups.

But because of the little money we had, was able only to put a shed, they could just get chairs and sit there and take them back when they are done. But during rain and windy days, dusty days, that will be a challenge for them. But we thank God for every process that God gives us and the opportunities that we take.

So again, pray for those needs, the needs for classrooms. When you have churches with little and you keep moving and establishing those rooms, you have a building that has so many rooms all downstairs there you can run around, everybody can have a room to live in. And we wish we have that.

Really. We desire to have a lot of facilities to help our different groups, different churches and as church planters. Again, remember, we don't stay too long because if we stay too long, then that means we become a stationary pastors.

So we will not be able to start other churches. So we try to move on, encouraging and building as we help each other to build God's work. So again, as God leads, we praise the Lord.

We have this ministry, the tailoring ministry for the ladies that again, we started a couple of years ago. It's really wonderful. Ladies are using it to invite other ladies for Bible study.

They come and learn to sew with the machines, but also to learn the word of God. And in that process, people come, they learn, they grow, they join our church. Others don't go to any church.

And so they start visiting our church as a result of that. And it's a ministry, it's something open. We started with those who know to do it, to do it for our own members, those ladies within the church, and then invite other people.

And they started inviting their friends, their neighbors. And some would come, some would come another time, once or twice, others will commit themselves to it. And that is all the process of reaching out to community.

And we praise the Lord for those opportunities. We have opportunities to counsel people, people who want to hear what the scripture says. With family issues reaching out to young adults, you find families, trust Christ, but they live together.

They are not married. How do you walk out that? Again? Helping them to know how to put things right and to live for the Lord so that they can be used of God and serve the Lord faithfully. Again, many opportunities of reaching out with the gospel in different forms.

And then community opportunities, we reach out to people in the community, share the gospel. When those opportunities are veiled, we never leave them aside. We always reach there.

Somebody dies, they don't have somebody to bury because that church said they are not our members. And interesting their churches, that if the wife is a member of the church and the husband is not, they will never bury the man. So what happens? They will come, do whatever else and encourage their member, but they'll say, we are not burying that man because he's not from our church, he's not on the list of our church members.

So they say, Pastor Muindi, would you bury this man? I say, sure. They give me an opportunity to share the gospel and bury the dead. Is that a joyful opportunity that God gives? There are times even people have said, hey, I know my church, yes, will be there, but I am asking them to give you the preaching part.

And so they say, pastor from the Baptist will preach, but the catholic priest will bury the dead because he's a member of their church. Why is because of opportunities that God has given us to interact with the community. And people have had us through the radio.

We have a radio program we call the Bible in your hand. And so they are able to hear our preaching. And we are availing ourselves on how we can help people so that they can know the truth and grow in grace for the glory of God.

And I pray that what you're seeing are opportunities. Opportunities. They are great opportunities in schools.

They invite you to teach, to preach, to challenge them on occasions, on pastoral days, counseling days, exam time. Come give a motivational speech. Some want the motivational, but you know, for a pastor is motivational preaching speech, isn't that right? The truth from the word on how people should live their lives.

And that's what you want to communicate with those that are there. Again, we want to mention to you to pray for us for these needs that are there. Follow travels.

They are not easy. We've traveled across the states and we are still traveling. We've done east and west and north, and we still have some midwest to finish up, but we have also south that will be headed to in the month of March and April and then back through the east and back to finish up here in the central part and leave for Kenya.

So pray for us. Family, health, challenges of cold weather, you know how that is. It's very challenging for us, but God has been faithful.

Pray for financial support. The God will continue to support and supply for us and also for the ministry. You saw the needs for the churches.

We need to build the churches. We need to continue reaching out and spiritual growth in our lives. Pray for us, please.

But also pray for ministry needs permanent auditoriums for the churches. We need finances to help these churches be able to build auditoriums and Sunday school classroom that you saw. Others are, they are just on those sheds.

When we get money, we are able to help the churches put some Sunday school classes, different youth ministry class or different rooms for ministry. Pastoral ministry support. Pastors are living in meager income, but to encourage them really to focus on the ministry, being out there on the streets, reaching out to people is to give them a great support.

And we need coworkers, people who partner with us and commit themselves to that ministry. We need men who are dedicated and ladies who are dedicated to the work, who will look at people the way Jesus would look at them, the way God looks at them, as sinners who deserve to hear the gospel and also be saved and be part of the great work. And then again, there are two key things that we know would be helpful to the church funding ministry.

Teaching at home or at church is not sufficient for me. We need to expand that to a Bible college where we are able to have men come when we have pastors visit. They could spend a whole week in a modular form.

Professors from faith and other institutions are willing. Missionaries who are retired and some administrators in mission agencies are able to come and also offer a class or a teaching a lesson over a period of time. And that would be very helpful to establish the future leaders even beyond our lives.

And then come a christian camp that will help bring this together, the young people together, men and women together and be able to be challenged as a team so that they go back to their churches, energize, encourage to be able to invest in their body of Christ. Knowing that we are not alone. The struggles we are going through in our church, the other church is going through.

And how do we tackle this? Because this will help us to build up a generation and a group of leaders even in the days to come beyond our life. I pray that this will be a great blessing to you and to us as we walk together, as God leads and draws our attention to him for his glory. And that's my prayer.

Probably you might have a couple of questions. I love to take them and if I don't answer all your know Sean knows the place, knows Kenya and he'll be able to answer them. And if he doesn't answer, then send him to Kenya so that he can come back with answers.

That will be the only solution. Even for a short know. We are praying even for a month, even for a couple of weeks.

It will change your life. Mission will change your life if done it well, because you get to see what you know about a place and you see it, you start knowing it's not the way I thought. Probably we've traveled a lot.

We've gone to various places, probably over 30 some states. We've lived in people's homes and so we can tell about America, we can tell, we can share great places we've been. We can share the weaknesses that are available in some know, I can give an example.

People know there's spiritism in Africa or know we've gone to various places in the states where we found a city of witches. Maybe you don't even know and I shouldn't tell you. So, I mean, they are there, there's witchcraft in us.

Isn't that right? They are there, there's certainism. We're in a place and somebody was wearing certains. I love certain.

And I said, what is that? Well, I love Satan. There are people worshipping the devil in the states. So again, it's a challenge that these are things that are practical.

They are all over the world. And we should never lie to ourselves that God is working more in Africa, in Asia, many people are getting saved there because God is working there than in the states. If the same God who created these states, who has commanded the gospel, is the same God who has sent people to Asia, is the same God who saves the same holy spirit who convicts people in Africa is the same holy spirit who convicts people in the states.

And if he is greater than them who are outside us, the speed of God who lives in us is greater and powerful. Why do we think that we cannot do what God has commanded us to do? Why we need to take it seriously and say, God, it's my duty to do what you want me to do. And it's your duty to save Paul, said, I, Paul and Apollos, we are just servants.

But who brings the increase? Who brings the increase? It's God. I could be the one digging the trenches or the holes. You could be the one dropping the seeds on the lime.

You could be the one spraying water. You could be the one harvesting the corn, removing from the cob. But all of us are what? Our servants, workers in the field of God.

And I shouldn't be biding my chest saying, hey, I harvested ten souls. Remember? Somebody else planted the seed. Yeah, somebody else watered.

So as a team of servants in a field, we all rejoice today together and say, praise God for three churches that have been established preaching the truth in those communities. What a joy that is. Maybe you have a question and we will answer it.

Anyone? Before I ask you a question? Okay, I'll ask a question. When are you coming? Edna? Did you say you have a home for them? Yeah, Edna says the home is ready for them. Their rooms, you know, three kids out of the house.

Three extra rooms are available. So they are there. Please send some of you to Kenya.

Even for a short term. Send them. Really? I want you.

When we come next time you have a testimony, some of you will be saying, we went to Kenya. I taught a Sunday school class. I went and served as a deacon.

I preached that day. I shared my testimony in vacation Bible school. I taught a class.

And I can see James, a little kid I saw last time I was there. Right there. I see that right there.

Because you have been part of that ministry and work. What a joy that would be. Let's pray together, please.

Father, thank you for your goodness. Thank you for the time and opportunity we've had to listen from your word, but also, Lord, to look at what you're doing for the work that God you're doing in Kenya. Thank you for the three churches for men and families, Lord, who are part of your work there.

Thank you for churches who have come along to be part and parcel of the ministry, the support they give us monthly, the support they give as gift to help build churches and even establish the ministries that God are before us. We are so grateful for what you're doing. Glory be to you, Lord, and we pray that God, you'll guide all of us here to be doing what you want us to do to accomplish the ministry that you've called us to accomplish in the church with great joy and delight for your glory.

In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Thank you so much.

God bless. Please take those cards. They are printed for you so that you can pray for us.

There is a notebook there. Please put your email if you want to receive our prayer cards, prayer letters on monthly basis, please write your email and we'll appreciate if you cannot write, use the card. You have an email there.

Just send this is me from North Ridge Baptist church. Put my email in your prayer list and that would be also helpful. Those are ways you can reach us out and we'll be blessed.

Thank you so much. God bless.