In Ukunda Kenya, our dear friend, Paula is waiting patiently for a place of her own. She lives, with twenty children and a medical clinic, just like the Kenyans she ministers to. Mud daubed hut and thatched roof on rented property. She is persecuted for being a Christian, for being a woman, for being white and for being an American. Yet she stays and heals the sick and nurtures her children. We stand in wonder at her dedication to the task she has undertaken and her love for the Lord, her adopted children and for her neighbors.
Please pray for Paula. We hope the Lord enables her to come to the States this summer. She has bought some of her airline ticket but still needs about eleven hundred dollars. She has not taken a break in six years!
IN GANTHA LIBERIA, Elder Zoku has come through a time of great hardship. He had a tooth that became abscessed and that he couldn't get removed. The abscess spread infection all through his jaw and by the time he was able to get proper care it required surgical intervention and was the cause of great ongoing pain and physical debilitation. He is recovering but the process is slow and he is still in great pain. He is bearing all this while trying to meet the needs of the eighty-five children and young people he cares for, and for the needs of many in the congregation he oversees.
There have been many recent deaths and the incidence of AIDS in this area is high for West Africa.
We stand with him, his staff and the children. Pray for their water supply, which is extremely sparse this time of the year, and for their sweet potato crop which augments their financial support.
ZWEDRU, LIBERIA....Although the fighting in LIBERIA has ceased the need of the Liberians is still great. Unemployment is over ninety-five percent as the economy struggles to get going after so many years of war and so much destruction. The young people have never learned to work and not many want to go back to the country villages after the horrors of the past. The refugees are coming back to a land they do not know and a lifestyle that is poverty ridden and harsh. The Lord has enabled and burdened many Missions organizations to come to and come back to Liberia. The Gospel goes out throughout the country. There are many areas that are not being reached because of their remoteness. Our associate Kim Smith is living and laboring in one such place; Zwedru Liberia. He came here with returning refugees, whom he discipled in the camps of Ghana, and they are preaching the Gospel far from the big city of Monrovia and planting the Church of Jesus Christ in the jungle villages of rural Liberia.
He is living with the Liberians as an African; teaching, equipping, preaching, doing good and setting an example of Christ-likeness.
Kim is one who has crossed the cultural divide to become like those he's seeking to reach. We are so pleased by his well organized and dedicated service. Praise God!
THE CONGO....I have never been to the Congo. I have heard much about the terrors of life in the eastern Congo. The many years of war and devastation. The plague of rape inflicted upon the women of the Congo. The ongoing political instability and fear. The Congo is not a place I would like to live.
But the Congo is a place we need to be working. It is a corner of the world in great need of compassion and mercy ministry.
Would you begin to pray with us for the women and children of the Eastern Congo, Kinshasa?
PLEASE CONTINUE to lift up the work of Nelson Toe and his associates at the Roger King Memorial School, Monrovia Liberia. About two hundred poor and street children are being educated in this little 'matt school' on the beach.
PLEASE CONTINUE to lift up the work of My Father's House Liberia, a home for orphan boys in Monrovia. Overseen by Pastor Sackie Kwalalom and sister Karen Barkman with other staff.
PLEASE CONTINUE to lift up the African Bible Church, with congregations in two locations in Monrovia Liberia, three villages north of Monrovia, and a new congregation in Abijan, Cote D'Ivoire. These works are overseen by Pastors Kwalalom, Kietah and Oppo.
PLEASE CONTINUE to lift up the refugee camp ministries is Ghana. Pastors Jarbah, Jellu, George and Pea labor for the Kingdom of God, living in the Camps with their families, loving and edifying the people, teaching the children.
PLEASE CONTINUE to lift up Pastor Patrick Kimawachi and his labors in Kitale and Kibera Slum Kenya. He is working and bearing fruit with orphans in his care and pastoring a church.
-Jason
