Mercy Ministries-AFM Africa Update now that we are back!
General Mercy Ministries update!
Mercy Home is doing great! The kids have mostly been healthy, a couple of cases of malaria here and there, but over all doing well health-wise. 9 of the 11 kids who have HIV are now suppressed and we are waiting on results of the other 2. Our child with the highest viral load has tremendously improved, praise God for that! All of our kids are on a break from school until January. They are playing lots of football (soccer), capture the flag and spending lots of time outside. We are still getting rain most afternoons so that makes for cooler weather when it rains. It is getting warmer and warmer each day so I'm aware that the rainy season is on its way out which means less mud (YAY), but hot temps and no a/c 😭. We have 22 full time positions and we need to add 1 part time and 1 full time position at Mercy Home.
Mercy Christian Academy just finished a full week of training on Biblical integration and how to teach deeper than "God created the plants and animals.". While that's great for lower levels of schooling we need to take it much deeper than than that. Our curriculum in Kenya is not Bible based, but we do have a Christian Religion class so we are allowed to teach about God. Our hope and desire is to see God woven into each class and not just mentioned during chapel and prayer time. Our staff did a great job learning each day and some said they would start using this method in their own home! 💜 I can't wait to see what the 2020 school year brings for MCA staff, students and families and how God moves through each of us this year. We currently have 5 classrooms and an office. 3 of the 6 rooms are fully usable, the other 3 still need floors and windows (about $1500 total). We are also hoping and praying that we will be able to build 3 more classrooms before January. We are in the process of registering our school and they have asked us to complete the unfinished rooms and build the other 3 needed classrooms. We currently have 7 certified teachers and 1 teacher's assistant and we are looking to add 1 more certified teacher before January.
The Mercy Feeding Program is still feeding kiddoes. Right now we are only serving meals on Saturday and Sunday. Once a lot of families in our village were able to harvest their corn, feeding program attendance dropped, which was great. We scaled back, but will readjust if needed. We are still seeing higher prices in the market, however they aren't extreme like we were seeing earlier in the year. I love that the feeding program keeps us connected to our village. The feeding program has helped us identify kids needing to attend school, a single mother needing a job so she could provide for her children, a child with a clubbed foot needing surgery and multiple children with jiggers in their feet. We also have 8 supplemental food boxes we send out each Friday to those in need. Currently we are providing boxes for 2 single widows (meaning they don't have children at home) and 6 families, one of which is a widowed grandmother caring for several of her grandchildren. They each get some basic food and household items to help ease the burden. These boxes definitely don't provide 3 meals a day, but it does provide around 10-12 meals per week.
Mercy Baptist Church is getting ready to host a Bible conference. Currently we have 2 church plants (Kaya and Tulumba), 3 churches associated with MBC (Mwanda, Talitia and Bukembe) , 4 pastors attending seminary in Kisumu, 1 Wisdom Training Center class meeting at Mercy Ministries and multiple Bible study method classes being taught. Jeff has a group of pastors that he meets with regularly, some of which are the ones attending seminary in Kisumu. We are still meeting under the "old faithful" tent that we rent. Soon we are hoping to add a multi purpose pavilion to the front part of the property. The pavilion would serve as the Mercy Baptist Church "building", chapel for MCA, the school children would have a covered area where they could eat lunch, a place for church meetings, future Bible conferences and, and, and.
We are currently preparing for and looking forward to the Eaton's visit! During their visit they will be helping with the 2-day Bible conference, making 120 desks for the school (along with several local workers), presenting the Gospel to the village kids, doing fun crafts with the Mercy Home kids and they will be visiting homes and churches. It should be a fun and busy time! Please keep them in your prayers, traveling for 2 days and trying to get your body on a new time schedule isn't easy, but God is so good!
Thank you for your continued prayers and support. God is doing great things here in spite of all of the mistakes we make. We are always looking for ways to improve and care for others in a better way. We are blessed by each day that God allows us to live this life in Kenya. While I spent years saying "no" to Kenya and I often look back on that time and say "What a waste!", I wasn't ready for Kenya. While I wasn't actually ready almost 3 years ago when we made the move, I definitely knew He was calling us here. I'm so thankful He did!
