Sukunaanga

Hey guys. Things are going great over here in Eldoret, Kenya. We have had a wonderful year here in 2012 and can not wait to see what God has in store for us in 2013. We have a lot of high dreams and ambitions for 2013. We are going to begin doing some pastoral training, and also in April we will be doing a conference for over 100 Kenyan pastors. We will also be planting 4 new churches in 2013. But, the reason I am writing today is to talk about something that we are very excited about! We are just a week away from launching our new ministry in the slum of Sukunaanga. Sukunaanga is a slum about 5 min away from where we live. It is home to thousands of people that are living in extreme poverty and harsh conditions. We have spent the last several months surveying this slum and trying to come up with the best way to minister to these people. We have selected 125 people that we initially want to begin ministering to in this slum. We are going to start a Children's Church right in the middle of the slum, which we are really looking forward to. These children are such a blessing to be around. We can't wait to see what God does. In addition to the Children's Church, we will begin supplying the families with an innovative way of farming called "bagriculture." We are going to supply each family with 3 burlap sacks that will be filled with compost, dirt, and fertilizer. These bags will have seeds of various fruits and vegetables placed in them so that they can grow. This system of farming is very cheap and reproducible and is not a "handout." The people will take care of the plants themselves. The only thing that we will be providing is the initial supplies to begin, and the training for the families so that they will know how to properly take care of the plants themselves. Since these people don't own any land, this system of farming allows them to grow food for themselves in a very limited confined space. In addition to the church and farming, we will also be providing vocational training for these families on how to sow and make soap. This will give the families the opportunity to earn money for themselves and not be reliant on American funds. Also, we will start assembling counseling teams from nearby churches surrounding the slum so that they can minister to the families in the slum to help empower them to have the tools to live Godly, moral, and prosperous lives. Finally, we will be providing "for a stated limited time of 6 months" enough maize to feed these families. The families will know from day one that their stipend of maize will only last for 6 months to give them time to begin growing their own food and have the vocational training to be capable to start earning money for themselves. We ask that you join us in prayer as it is our hope to see this slum completely transformed by the power of God. God bless! A link below is to a site we are using to raise money for the feeding programme and for the conferences to be held! Please just copy and paste it in your browser if you are interested !

https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/0PRw8?utm_campaign=new-campaign&utm_medium=email&utm_source=12-2012

We have had a busy November ! Jerry has preached at several churches close to our home here in Eldoret and has been asked to lead a conference here soon ! So he is excited about that ! He has a gift and Im glad hes getting to use it, and it makes me happy to see him happy ! Here is a picture of Jerry preaching last sunday with Peter translating in Swahili for him !

And here is a picture of what I had looking at me the whole time :) Its been hard getting used to little kids staring at you for hours because they haven't seen many white people before!

Its like the little kids think they cant get close to you all they can do is stare at you, and the few braves ones that come up to you and shake your hand run laughing just as soon as you do!

Jerry has been helping build a playground for the children. This is a photo of the playground in progress.

The kids are going to love it when its done ! And it almost is ! We are excited for them to get to play on it.

We also are still in the planning stages of trying to start a feeding program in a slum about 15 minutes away. We have had some ups and downs but we would really like to help them. If you want to donate to that please contact us and we will make sure every penny goes directly to that. When we went to the slum the village elder brought 60 families that were very needy, some having HIV, some being all orphans being raised by their oldest sibling. Right now we are thinking we can only provide for 10 families if that.

Thank you for reading and keeping up with us! We appreciate all the prayers and encouragement ! If you could pray for Jerry and I now we both have been having colds/breathing problems ! Thank you !

We have been here almost 3 months now ! Its gone by fast ! Jerry has been working on the playground the last couple of weeks trying to get it ready for the kids and its almost done. I think we are going to need more swings, none of the kids wanted to get off on Saturday :) . I will try and post some pictures of it when its done. Things are going well ! I tried to teach the kids the other night how to play London Bridge and they didn't understand the concept at all :) Instead of going under our arms and circling around they stood right under us so the could get "caught" everytime. It was fun to watch. Here are a few pictures below Jerry has taken !

enock

Augustus,Javan, Asa, Jacob

Sophie

Jerry feeding Elias

Hey everyone ! Sorry we have not updated in a while ! We will try and do better ! We can’t believe its already been 2 months ! We have had a busy month this month ! We added the 3 new girls to the home and all of the children are doing great ! We ask though that you continue to keep baby Rachel in your prayers. We took her for a CT scan a few weeks ago and they said she had severe brain atrophy and she would probably never walk or talk. She has made some improvements since then so please continue to pray for her healing !

Yesterday we got to go see a friend Alex who works here at the home as a night guard, and is Peters brother, at the hospital where his wife just had a baby. This was their fourth ! They named her Favor. The biggest culture shock is that she had the baby at 11:30 and was being discharged to go home at 3:30 ! They just had to pay their bill and then they were going home ! When we told them most women in America usually stay a couple of nights they laughed and joked that his wife still had to get home to do the laundry !

We got the opportunity to go visit a slum that is located about 15 minutes away from us a few weeks ago. After talking to many of the women there they said that their greatest needs are food, jobs, and education for their children. We are hoping to begin a feeding program there and also provide ways for them to be able to grow their own food in the future. Also to start classes for them to learn skills to be able to make money for their families. We hope to go visit some programs that have been successful in nearby towns to get ideas and see how they have been able to sustain what they are doing. Hopefully by our next newsletter we will have some information to share with you and get this program going soon ! Thanks for all of the prayers and support ! We will try and update again soon !

We have three new children as of last week. We got two twin girls and their older sibling!

Priscilla, Celine, Alyce ( not sure if i spelled those right :) They are very sweet girls and I've enjoyed getting to play with them. On Friday Peter and Maryann took us to the market in Eldoret so we could get some clothes for Alyce because we didn't have any for her size! They have this market every Friday in Eldoret west were it seemed like hundreds of people had their tarps/blankets set up selling either new or used clothing. I wish we had brought our camera with us, there was a sea of thousands of people there. It was a good experience and we hope to go back in the future. On another note my ( Danielle ) heart has been heavy, full of questions. I was talking to one of the ladies that works at the childrens home last night and she told me she walks 2 hours to and from work! 4 hours a day of just walking !!!! It made me sad that just to be able to make some money ( which isn't much, about 4 or 5 dollars a day in the U.S. ) she spends that much time walking just to be able to have a job. So do many of the other workers here, and I was told the other day there is a 60 % unemployment rate here.. I've often wondered, Why did GOD place me where he did when he could have placed me anywhere else in the world that doesn't have as much as we did. Why was I blessed so much ? And why do these people have to endure all the things they do and still praise GOD more than I do and don't question him as much. Why do I get upset over such silly things and not trust GOD over simple everyday things ? Maybe thats why I was sent here, so I can learn again to have faith like a child, and hopefully help some of these children and people while im here....

Our First Week

Our first week has been busy/hard, but we have gotten to meet some wonderful little kids that we already love and are excited to take care of. Our flight went well and we got to Eldoret without any trouble. Thanks for all of the prayers and encouragement ! The second day we got here they went and picked up five more children Karen, Asa, Jacob, Enoch, and Elias. We have had a lot of fun playing with them and getting to know them. Then on Monday morning when we woke up we found out Job had passed during the night. He had come to the home with stomach problems and was advised by the doctors just to keep feeding him protein but he did not get better. He was the sweetest little boy you would ever meet. He always wanted to sit in our laps and hold our hands, and he was my little helper the first few days when i didn't know where to find anything. Even though we couldn't understand each other because he only speaks Swahili, he would take me by the hand and show me where to go :) . I know he is in heaven with Jesus without his stomach pains anymore but it still has been a very sad week. We just got back from his funeral a few minutes ago. Please also be in prayer for Rachel. She came to the home with meningitis and now they think she may have cerebral palsy. We start Swahili lessons on Monday for an hour a day ! Please be in prayer for that also. We don't have internet regularly so we will try and update as we can. We have taken some pictures and will try and get them uploaded soon.

Two new babies and we have an official leave date !

We found out we are leaving August 27th ! We were able to move our leave date up to be able to get there sooner to help with the new children and so they can start taking in more !! We are very excited and thank everyone for their prayers, donations, encouragement, etc . ! We have been so blessed ! Here are two pictures of the two new children at the Tobiah home !

Job

Augustus

Impact!

Hey everybody, We had another awesome week and saw God do some incredible things. As you know, we are in the process of fundraising to move to Eldoret, Kenya. This week we went up to Impact, which is a christian conference for teens all over the southeast, in order to try to sale some t-shirts. We were extremely blessed by the generosity and encouragement we received from everyone while we was there. So a special thanks to everyone at impact who bought a shirt or just came up to us and blessed us with a word of encouragement. Also, I am really excited to announce that our family over in Kenya has grown a little more already. We now have 5 beautiful children. The newest addition to our family is a one year old baby boy named Javon. We have still yet to order our plane tickets, but our plans are to leave in October. Please continue to pray for us as we continue our journey! God bless

Tobiah Home Children

Jared

Joshua

Rachel

Sophia

Adopt Us!

 

SEEKING ADOPTION

Well, we are not really orphans—but, adoption is a beautiful word that helps describe the strong relationship that we are seeking between our family and the churches and friends that pray and support us. The church at Antioch, in a sense, adopted Paul and Barnabas as special messengers of the Gospel to Asia and Europe (Acts

13:1-3). We are hoping to have the same relationship with the people who send us.

We encourage everyone we meet to prayerfully consider adopting OUR FAMILY as their missionaries. We hope that you will discover that adopting us as your missionary family can be a very rewarding experience. It will open your life and the life of your family to a world that is completely unseen in your present context. You will gain a

new perspective of your world, the world outside the U.S. and learn what God is doing in foreign lands while you become more directly involved in reaching the world for Jesus Christ.

How and Why Adopt OUR FAMILY

Much of the effectiveness of adopting a missionary truly depends on you taking the time to know the family or individual you are adopting—in this case us. If you adopt a small child, you don't just assume you know all you need to know and then head down some predetermined path. So, as with a child, we are seeking people to be involved in our lives and ministry through prayer, communication, and material support.

• Prayer: Augustine said, "Without God, we cannot; but without us, God will not." Prayer is the life blood of

missions—and we covet it!!! I tell you, nothing is more humbling and encouraging than when someone tells us they

have been praying for us.

• Encourage and Communicate: Being in a foreign land is often like being on another planet. In Kenya, we are completely disconnected from the churches, people, and community we left. Therefore, we are seeking peoplewho are willing to keep us connected to the life we left.

• Material Support: You might be surprised, but most missionaries receive the majority of their monthly financial support from individuals and not from churches—it is the same with us. We really depend on individuals to adopt and support us financially. The average amount individuals give missionaries is usually between $25 and $50 per month. Currently, we are still short about $1000/mo. (only 20 people at $50/mo.)  Therefore, we are seeking people to prayerfully consider financially supporting us on a monthly basis on top of their montly tithes to church.

 We are asking for prayers and for financial assistance because we are about to be moving to Eldoret, Kenya to work at an orphanage. We currently live in Murfreesboro, TN and have attended Stones River Church of Christ for the past 2 years.  We have felt for several years led to the eastern part of Africa and an opportunity arose this past fall for an organization that would be seeking a couple to come in and begin in an orphanage called Children with Hope.  We will be working alongside a native Kenyan named Peter and his wife in addition to working with us at Children With Hope. They have asked us to come on board with their ministry beginning August of this year and make a commitment of at least 2 years though we plan on staying longer if it is God’s will. When we get there we will begin the process of taking on children. As we take on more children we will be able to hire staff that will help give them jobs to provide for their families. We felt very led to this area because of the number of orphans. There are around 60,000 orphans in Kenya alone and we hope to be able to invest in as many lives as possible to help them know they are loved and to bring them to a knowledge of God.

If you are interested please contact us at hammy1285@gmail.com or leave a comment on how to get in touch with you.

“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” James 1:27

Please buy one of our shirts to support our trip to Africa!

If you live in Murfreesboro we will get the shirt to you, but if you live out of town we can ship it to you for 2.00 more. Thanks for your time ! Hope you have a great day !
If you live in Murfreesboro:

Sizes

S $15.00 USD M $15.00 USD L $15.00 USD XL $15.00 USD XXL $15.00 USD XXXL $15.00 USD

Message me your sizes, but you can pay for more than 1

2 shirts $30.00 USD 3 shirts $45.00 USD 4 shirts $60.00 USD