We're Back from Nairobi!!
Today we arrived back home with our 2 visitors! It was an awesome day and we were blessed with easy and safe travels.
Ironically enough two years ago today we were traveling the same roads to our new (temporary) home in Kenya. Happy 2 crazy blessed years to us! We had no clue what lay before us but we were as ready as we could be. For anyone who hasn't been following our story from the beginning let me recap "quickly".
•2011 Jeff began to talk about Africa
•2012 Jeff was still talking about Africa and I was a "maybe someday".
•2013 "Africa, Africa, Africa"-Jeff "Don't talk to me about Africa!"-Steph
•2014 Jeff started volunteering with AFM and attempted a trip to Kenya, but it was bad timing so he wasn't able to go.
•2015 "MAYBE, when all the kids are grown I will go to Africa so please stop talking to me about it!"-Steph 🤷🏻♂️-Jeff
•2016 Jeff was able to go to Kenya with DC Shelton for 10 days at the end of April. While Jeff was in Kenya God made it abundantly clear that I was to go to Kenya as soon as Jeff wanted to. 😭😭😭 (I REALLY, REALLY did NOT want to move to Kenya EVER, much less so soon.)
•May-November 2016 We sold everything we had and packed 45 bags to permanently move with our 7 youngest children to Kenya.
•December 2016 moved to Bungoma, Kenya.
•January 2017 Had the water well dug and started building our home.
•May 2017 started taking in children
•September-December 2017 many wrangles with the men we came here to work along side with, forcing us to leave our home and we were even put in jail for a short time.
•January 2018 we moved back home with the support of our village and our court case was closed.
•June 2018 Purchased the 1/2 acre our home is built on. (Yes this was done backwards and we learned a lot)
•October 2018 finished the boys' side of the home and painted the majority of the inside of our home! 😁😁😁
•November 2018 Enough funds to purchase the front part of our land was donated. 💜
So here we are 2 years in and I can't imagine living anywhere else. It hasn't always been easy and we have made mistakes along the way, but we have been SO blessed and learned a ton. We now have 90+ children living at Mercy Home, a staff of 20+, a church that meets here weekly and we 2 visitors!
Thank you! Thank you for allowing God to use you in the lives here in our small village. Thank you for caring for orphans and widows. Thank you for building 5 homes for widows and families who need help. Thank you for allowing Jeff to live out his passion by sharing and teaching the gospel. Thank you for loving our children, I can't even explain what that means to me!
I'm crazy excited about this next year! We are hoping to open a school and welcome more visitors! Come and see!
#kenya #james127 #changingtheirstory #changetheirstory#mercychildrenshome #orphansandwidows #nonprofit #aboutfacemissions#streetboycrisis #streetboynomore #missionarylife #missions
Those who still want to give to our Christmas Mercy Home Celebration event, please click this Mercy Home button to visit our webpage and use the giving options there! God bless you!
And if you have not yet watched our full length documentary yet, what’s keeping you?? click here to watch it all!