Kenya Missions Update

February 6, 2006

Greetings in the Precious Name of our Lord, Jesus the Christ!

It has been a couple of months since we have last reported to you. Our lives have really been going through a lot of changes in these two months. But first let me follow-up on the last letter that we sent to you. In that letter, we expressed concern about being under budget by about $12,000 for 2006. The Lord has touched the hearts of several families and one church to make up this difference for us. Praise the Lord!!!

At the end of November, we moved out of the house that we have lived in for 9 years. We moved into a temporary home for 6 weeks. In mid January, we moved into another house. We are still in the process of unpacking and getting settled. You really don’t know of all the possessions you have until you move! Here are some changes that we are going through in our lives.

1. Now we walk to school in the morning. It is 2.5 miles round trip. I know in the US it is a bit chilly at the moment, but in Kenya, it is in the 60’s in the morning and 70’s in the afternoons. Keith makes the journey in the morning. Eating a more basic diet of grains and this exercise has reduced the size of pants that I now wear! (Keith)
2. We do not have electricity as of yet in the house, though we are hopeful. A neighbor applied in July and got it in January. So, we should get ours in March, but we would ask you to pray with us so that we would get it this month.
3. In the meantime, we are using a solar panel/battery and light. The frig is at a neighbors house!
4. I was asked about hot showers. I have rigged up a solar shower that works well on sunny days. Otherwise we heat water on the gas stove and take hand baths.
5. We do not have a land line phone as before, so delete the one. We are now using our cell phones, which are on from about 8 AM until 8 PM (our time). Numbers are 254 – 723 – 636911 and 254 – 735 – 872788.
6. Now you might also be confused about our E mail address. Currently you can use either of them. ( though we prefer you use the afriaconline account). kggafner@africaonline.co.ke or kggafner@yahoo.com. We are coming to town to use an internet café for doing all word processing and e mails. So bear with us, as we normally don’t come to check everyday. And this is Kenya! The internet server where I am presently at is down. I went to another one this morning and the electricity went off. So, I went home for a couple of hours to do some other work. Home is about 2 miles away.

Ministry has not stopped amidst all of the changes in life. Thinking back, every weekend in December was booked. We had a 5 day youth meeting for all of our work area. There was in the neighborhood of 400 youth there. We also had another meeting there on December 17th. In the newsletter that I sent to about 70 of the churches in our area, about 30 people came to pray and fast for several things. We had a guest speaker from Kitale come and encourage us on this day. Amos Allen and Oneal Tankersley former missionaries in Eldoret were around for about 8 days in January. Amos spoke at a meeting we had with some elders that started on a Thursday. Then, we continued the meet until Saturday. That was a meeting that we had at Saroiyot, for those of you who saw the video, the place that we hoped to build a building to be used for teaching agriculture and meetings.

We are in the process of having the dream on the video become more true. On furlough, we did not get as much money as we had hoped, so we have only built metal buildings. The main room for meetings is 13 feet by 19.5 feet. We also have two other rooms. One is an office and a place for guest teachers to sleep and prepare their lessons. The other is a room 10 feet by 13 feet where we are building 6 beds. (triple deckers). The previous meeting we slept on the floor. I am told that two to a bed is not bad, so we have room for 24 in that room. There is also a kitchen to provide for our physical needs.

Pray for a meeting that will take place there on the 18th and 19th of February. We should be about 26 people if everyone comes.

Saturday I was at a meeting and a mzee (older man) of the church asked when we will come there for Sunday. I looked at my calendar, and told him that I was booked until March 19th. Well what about a Saturday? Well, for that I am booked until April. He was disappointed as I hear that he has a gift that he wants to give to Grace. I told Grace that we should try to find a time when we can pop out there one day during the week to see him.

Yesterday (Sunday) we went to the Church of Christ Orphans home in Kitale (a 1 ˝ hour drove North of Eldoret). We didn’t know it, but they were having a cluster meeting there for all the town churches. It was a good day. We want Kirsten and Ruth to begin to be concerned for others. And, I can foresee helping them in the future on their plot of land for raising some vegetables and either a cow or milking goat for milk purposes. At present, there are 39 orphans there, 25 boys and 14 girls. Ranging in age from very young to teenagers. They have room for some more girls. They are also looking for new house parents to help in this ministry, please pray about this, they hope to have them start in April.

The area that we are now living is called Jerusalem and is the highest point of Eldoret city. One side of where we live is the old Eldoret airstrip, so we have a few smaller planes that take off and fly over the top of our house. Close to us is a highly densely populated area. Which comes with the troubles of lower cost housing. And, we have the mosque which wakes us early (when their sound system is working). Several churches in the area believe that the best way to evangelize is with sound systems pointed in all directions. Last weekend, there were two churches in competition the whole weekend. Talk about confusion. Being on the hill, we hear it all!

There are several reasons why we are living here. A couple are that the lady who sold to us is a Christian and she asked us to buy. When we looked at the place, Grace had been praying for a place that would be filled with milk and honey. On one side of the land are cows and the other side had beehives.

Pray that we will be lights shining on the Jerusalem hill! We can think of several parallels to maybe the situation that we read about in the present Jerusalem.

Thank you for your prayers on our behalf. We can feel your prayers being answered!!!

In Service to Christ,
Keith, Grace, Kirsten and Ruth

Got to go, just been told we are off electricity again and I am working on the backup system! Third time today had my patience tested at an internet café!