Yesterday’s message “Our Spiritual Walls” talked about the time when Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the city walls. In the process he realized the great need to also mend and strengthen the spiritual walls of the people. This is the perfect message to lead us into an update on our work in Kenya.
Two months ago I sent out a message about the completion of our school in the fishing village of Gudwa, on the shore of Lake Victoria in Kenya. This was truly a Yay God moment and we just had our first graduation at the new facility. This project took most of the year to complete and many of you contributed funds to make this dream a reality. We are trying to do a similar work in the area of Mathare outside of Nairobi. It would take much more money to build a permanent building in Mathare so we are currently content to rent the facility we are using for a school. We would definitely appreciate your prayers that the owner does not wake up one morning and decide to kick us out, but so far we have been shown much favor.
Though we have been doing a lot of work to construct a facility, hire teachers, feed the children, purchase uniforms and supplies, and try to the best of our ability to give the children a quality education while also teaching them about Jesus Christ, we also recognize there are many, many spiritual walls which are in need of mending within these families and the entire community.
During my last visit to our projects in Kenya, I was overwhelmed with the desperate conditions of the families. And this was only in the conditions which I could see. The living conditions are simply heartbreaking. But there was also a spiritual heaviness which I sensed but had a difficult time describing. At that time I became convinced that, even though we were operating a school for young children, we had to change our focus so it included ministry to the families. I was, and am, so convinced of this that I believe if we fail to minister to the families and see true life change, our ministry to the children is almost useless. As hard as this is to accept, I do not believe we accomplish much if we educate children for a few years and then send them back into broken homes. The brokenness will continue.
At the beginning of this year we hired a full time family pastor whose primary responsibility was to visit the families, understand the needs, provide counsel and prayer, and work toward building a long term relationship which could facilitate life change through Jesus Christ. This has worked well but much work still needs to be done. As we collected information on our families, we saw sad confirmation on the brokenness. Great poverty is always there, but there is also an abundance of drug and alcohol abuse, broken homes, and lots of prostitution. The walls are indeed in need of mending.
All of this is to say that our work continues! You have been very generous with funding this ministry over the years and I want you to have a good idea of our challenges as well as the focus of the ministry. Jesus came to bring restoration to the broken. And as we are restored, we are also called to join Him in the work of restoration. These projects in Kenya represent just one small area in need of restoration. But it is an area into which I believe we have been called to proclaim a message of hope. I thank you for any help you are able to provide to allow us to continue this work.
Have a Christ Centered Day!
Steve Troxel
God’s Daily Word Ministries
