This morning we headed into the slums for the first of two days of ministry. We are partnered with Peter Abungu of Swahiba Network. We started in one of the largest primary schools in Kenya where we sang and shared our stories. Then we got to head into the classrooms with the students to have gospel conversations.
And let’s just take a moment to give a shoutout to our fantastic security team who have made us feel so safe, but have also taught us about the culture and provided us with a little bit of fun on the side.
Next we broke out into our ministry teams to deliver food baskets into homes of some of the girls that Peter has begun to establish connections with. Each of the girls was present to walk with our teams to their homes along with our guides. We got to spend time in their homes hearing their family’s story and sharing about our greatest hope—Jesus. The baskets were received with so much gratefulness, but more importantly, we saw many salvations as a result of these conversations. While viewing their humble circumstances was incredibly humbling to us, we were blessed by conversations that showed Jesus is alive and moving and working here in the thick of poverty in Kenya.
As a parent, I am so incredibly thankful that my children had this opportunity to glimpse into this life of poverty and even more grateful that they got to offer the very best gift—the hope of Jesus—to the homes they visited today. We are so very blessed to have a youth pastor that believed in our students’ ability to handle this opportunity enough to do all the work needed behind the scenes to make it happen.
After a quick lunch break we headed into another school to sing and share our stories again. We had great small group times that allowed us to get to know the children through some fun ice breakers and guided small group conversations, much like we have in our LifeGroups each week. We centered the afternoon around a fantastic sermon by Chip about the different ways we encounter God.
We finished up the day of ministry by singing in the market at the slums. Our team did a great job of staying focused to share the gospel between sets in an environment that was way out of their norm.
When we returned to home base we wrapped up the day by having dinner and then a devotion by Matt, a time of sharing special moments from our day, and some quiet reflective worship time with Carey. These team meetings are such an important part of the trip, filling us up after an emotionally challenging and spiritually depleting day of ministry.
Specific Prayer Requests:
Please pray for our students as they have the opportunities to split and take the girls and guys to work at different sites tomorrow afternoon. Pray that they would take advantage of theses opportunities arranged by our partner, Peter Abungu at Swahiba Network.