Dear Friends and Supporters of (K.E.M.) Kenya Evangelical Mission;
It is hard to believe that it has already been one month since our Missions Conference was held in Fremont. A number of things have happened since then and for those of you who were unable to attend the conference, let me just say on behalf of everyone that it was a wonderful blessing to share in what God is doing in the ministry of Kenya Evangelical Mission. Thank you to all who participated and thanks to all of our donors and supporters who were able to attend. To God be the glory!
Hoyt, Lois, Shadrach and Ziggy have now returned home to Kenya and they are getting settled into their ministry and home responsibilities. Hoyt has been experiencing some pain in his back and they were able to visit the doctors in Nairobi to examine and diagnose the problem. Please continue to pray for Hoyt as he works through some of the challenges from this continual pain and pray that he be relieved of further discomfort.
Let me update you on some of our recent progress with K.E.M. so that you can lift some of the needs before the Lord that come with this progress:
1. Craig Conley has agreed to serve as a member of the Board of Directors (U.S.) as head of special projects. Craig was able to secure a large shipping container to ship directly to Nairobi. This was a GREAT blessing in that it allows us to ship a number of needed items to our mission in Kenya along with some additional large items for the mechanics school, carpentry school, and the soon to be computer training center. In addition to this Ilowee Owens is working to secure several sewing machines in the hopes that we can begin a sewing school. All of this came about as a result of the Missions Conference….God is Good! There is still much work to do and Craig is working feverishly to complete this project and meet our deadline. Craig also hopes to go to Kenya this summer and set up satellite communication for our compound and the Bible College. I am attaching a flyer which lists out the various items that we would like to ship (sort of a wish list) inside the container. If you have the means to supply these items I ask that you contact Craig at (craig@conleycomm.com) or me at (mikesouthwick@gmail.com). Please pray with us that we will be able to secure these items and also collect the needed funds ($4200.00) to pay for the shipping. If God moves your heart to give a onetime gift toward this project, please indicate the gift is for the “shipping project”.
2. The K.E.M. board met this past month and agreed to focus our attention on completing the projects associated with the mechanics school, carpentry school, computer training center and the sewing school. By completing these projects it will allow us to continue our goal of training our local ministries to be self sufficient. If we are able to secure the items from the “wish list”, then all that would remain would be the construction of additional classrooms and work centers. At this time we don’t have a hard cost for this construction project but it is our consensus that it would not be difficult or insurmountable to accomplish. Please pray with us as we work towards completing these projects.
3. At the Missions Conference we were introduced to Steer Inc. and in a nutshell they are a mission’s organization that assists other mission groups like us raise support from a unique source (farmers and ranchers) that we might otherwise not think of. This group places a steer with a willing rancher who will care for and raise the calf until it can be sold. Once it is sold the proceeds go to Steer Inc. and they keep a small portion for their administrative costs and the balance of the funds goes to KEM. If you know of a rancher or farmer who would be willing to participate in this worthy project then please contact me and I can steer (nice little play on words) you to the people who can put the whole thing together. Here is their website for additional information; http://www.steerinc.com
4. We are continuing to pursue the children’s orphanage and hope to have more information on this project in future communications. Please pray with us as we believe that this is an enormous need as the children of Kenya need a “safe haven” where they can find love, acceptance and joy and a place where they can not only hear about Jesus but see Jesus in others. We have some short term plans that will allow us to help a small number of children but we have even bigger dreams of purchasing land and building a complex that permits us to fully impact the lives of the children in a real and meaningful way. Although this is a dream, we hope to one day make this a reality – please pray with us as the land purchase alone could be somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 U.S. dollars.
5. At the Missions Conference we indicated that we were committed to keeping you informed as to what is going on with Kenya Evangelical Mission and this letter is one way of doing that. In addition we have created a new blog; http://africaevangelicalministries.blogspot.com, and if you visit that site you can also click on the Friends of Kenya link which will direct you to the site where we will be posting current updates and prayer requests. If you are one of our supporters or even if you have just a casual interest, let me encourage you to sign up on that site as we will be able to keep you up to date on what is going on in Kenya. Many of you provided your e-mail addresses to me and I automatically sent you an invitation but with various spam protections and filters on e-mail, you may not have received my invitation. If you visit the blog site mentioned above and click on Friends of Kenya – you should be able to view that site.
Finally, let me encourage you to continue in your regular monthly giving, we do appreciate your faithful support and you continual prayers. Please consider some of these special projects and pray with us as we seek the Lords direction and will on how to proceed.
For the souls of Kenya,
Mike & Carol Southwick
Directors of K.E.M. |
