Headed Home! Last Day at Naomi's Village

Day 8!  Our last day at Naomi's Village was spent on campus investing in the children on this 5 acres of land.  This is an anointed place sent by God.  Miracles happen on this campus 24/7.  The way God uses caregivers, Aunties, Uncles, leadership and more to bring honor to God is truly ordained by God.  The slogan for Naomi's Village is "Where Hope Begins".  What a privileged it has been to experience it first hand this week.

As we prepare to leave this place of hope, we ask for you to please pray for our safe return to Dallas.  It will be a grueling 22 hours of travel for our team.  We are all pretty spent, so I think we will get sleep on the plane as best as we can, but we covet your prayers.

Thank you for your investment through prayer and thoughts for us this week.  We get to lead Sunday morning worship for the children then head to Nairobi for our 4:35pm flight - 8am your time.  We cannot wait to see you all and share what God has done in our lives through this trip.

Thanks for reading - On Mission Team at Cottonwood Creek.

Naomi's Village Day 6 & 7

Day 6 - Our team went on Safari to Lake Nakuru National Park.  I was able to post pictures on Facebook.  One of the most exhilarating experiences of our lives - we were literally 20-25 feet from a family of lions.  WOW!

Day 7 - For me personally, today was both heartbreaking and meaningful.  Waking up to a chilly morning, our team spent time serving as Aunties and Uncles - holding babies, taking care of the toddlers, folding a MOUND of laundry, Matt Page mowing the grass and other odds and ends around campus, while our very own Terra Towne spent the ENTIRE DAY training all the Aunties about child development and how childhood traumas can help impact development.  It is very obvious that God specifically put Terra on this trip for this moment.  What a blessing from the Lord today.

After lunch our team traveled to the town of Longonot, Kenya - just outside of Naomi's Village, for a community outreach project. We were able to visit the home of Naomi and Joseph, whose two children attend Cornerstone Preparatory Academy.  Joseph and Naomi opened their home up to our entire team for a time of Worship.  You see, Joseph recently had both of his legs amputated because of a degenerate disease in his legs.  For 35 years he has suffered and last month, the doctors chose to amputate his legs to free him from chronic pain.  For all of his struggles, there was a true peace and joy in his life - JESUS.  He had not been able to attend a Worship Service for so long, so we brought our guitar and Bibles and had a 45 minute worship service in his front yard.  The Holy Spirit of God moved in our time together as we sang in English and Swahili.  Our hearts can break for the situation we were in today, yet in our tears, we glorified God for His goodness for the moment of worship!  Thank you Lord for this life-changing moment together.

The afternoon was spent at Cornerstone Preparatory Academy meeting children that we sponsored and playing games with the children after school.  We sang, laughed and then laughed some more.  It was a great opportunity to just "hang out" with them.  We are so connected with these children, that we are longing for time with them.

A day to remember...our hearts are deeply entrenched with the lives here in Kenya.

Blessings - thanks for reading and praying for us!  Keith and On Mission Team from Cottonwood Creek.






 

Naomi's Village Day 5

I will call today's blog "Kenya Time" day. 

As our team continues to be inducted into the Kenya culture, we are learning that transportation is much different here than from Texas - obviously (rough, dirt, rocks, driving on the wrong side of the road and traffic jams caused by a heard of cows and goats!).  When we need to get to a destination at home, what do we do?  We grab our car keys, get to our car and drive to our destination, right.  Well, here in Kenya, especially with a group of 21 people, it is not that simple!  We have a schedule to follow, but really, that is just an outline for the day and times really do not matter that much, and that is a good thing.  Kenyans are so much involved with relationships that if they are in a good conversation, they will not leave that good conversation to go to the next conversation, because the next conversation or appointment might not be as good.  So, today, we were able to make our appointments, but if we were at home, we would have missed all our appointments!  It was a great great day!!

Awesome time with the Lord began by reading Philippians 2:2-11 about setting our minds attention on the Lord.  Man, God is so good to our team.  We continue to unite together and seek the Lord in so many great ways!

We arrived to Cornerstone Preparatory Academy to the sound of children singing at Chapel.  Our team entered the room filled with 90 children and administration, all singing praises to the Lord.  They introduced our team and we had the opportunity to worship together some more.

I have truly never experience a worship time like our team experienced today.  Singing songs like "Good, Good Father", "You're Beautiful", "Our God", "Oceans" and more, the children sang truly from the depths of their soul.  It was the most glorious and beautiful sound I have ever heard!  As I lead, I would stop singing because they were leading, not me!  The Spirit of God was moving.  Just an amazing time with the Lord.  After singing, our team divided the school into upper and lower grades to teach about the love of God for them.  We handed out Gospel Bracelets and man, they were so proud to wear them.  Sharing Jesus with over 100 people is such an honor.  God is so good.

Lunch at Ubuntu, which means "I am because we are", to have lunch and hear more about how we can support the children at Cornerstone Preparatory Academy with a presentation from Steve and Angie Sisler.  Such a sweet time together.

We took in the culture at Maui Mahui, which is a truck stop town.  It is a city that struggles with prostitution and slave trade.  Many struggles in this town.  It was a blessing to meet with a couple of Christian organizations to help learn and support them through purchasing gifts for friends and family back home.

God continues to move as we are here.  Tomorrow...SAFARI!  Got to take in a Safari, right!

Love all you and thank you so much for reading.  See you tomorrow!

Keith Tyler and On Mission Team

Naomi's Village Day 4

Kenya is truly a beautiful place.  Pictures are hard to capture how this place looks to the human eye.  Truly amazing.  Waking up to the clouds rolling over the top of the mountains this morning was breathtaking.  God is so good to show his favor over our lives today.

Hebrews 12 lead our team today as we trusted God with our lives and fixed our eyes on the Lord for the day.  We prayed for times to not only share Jesus with our actions of serving others, but for an opportunity to share Jesus verbally - and God answered that prayer. 

At Safe House, Cailin Page shared with the children about the love of God and the hope we can have in Jesus.  We got to share the Gospel Bracelet with everyone there, even our 2 new friends from Denmark (who were Scientologist) and God really spoke clearly through our time!  We just fell in love with the children and staff there!  We hope to continue to reach out to this very special place for many years to come!

After we left Naivasha, we traveled up the mountain to the town of Kijabi - a beautiful town where Bob and Julie Mendonsa live.  We took in the culture of Kenya, visited a market and had Chapati.   On our way down the mountain, we visited our friend Bonface and Margaret and Baby Kendrick.  What a blessing that time was!  Soooo Goooood!

Our afternoon was spent at Cornerstone Preparatory Academy reading stories to the children.  All the children LOVED the time and were so attentive to our Texas accents.  We are so thankful for our time with these precious children.

God continues to teach each one of us more about his goodness and grace as we engage with the people here in Kenya and Naomi's Village.  Thank you for reading and your continued prayers for us!  Look forward to writing more tomorrow as we lead Chapel at CPA!

Kwaheri - Good bye!  Keith and On Mission Team

Naomi's Village Day 3

Our On Mission Team woke up to share a great time of Scripture reading and sharing this morning to prepare us for the day.  Verses from Deuteronomy, Micah, 1 Peter and more set our hearts to be ready to be used by Him, and WOW - what a great day we had!

We traveled to Navasha, Kenya to work with a ministry friend of Naomi's Village called Safe House.  At Safe House, the jail, converted to a holding place for vulnerable children, give restoration to children who have been in difficult situations.  Their situations are all heartbreaking to hear, but as we were able to share songs, Bible stories and games with them, you would see the joy of Jesus in their eyes and smiles.  It was an honor that God placed us there today, and we have an opportunity to go back tomorrow.  What a blessing!!!

From Safe House, we traveled to Buffalo Mall for a great lunch at Java House - YUM! - and picked up some needed groceries for the trip.  We all needed a dessert as well.  Got to love Tusky's!

It was only 2pm - so we traveled to Cornerstone Prep Academy to spend time with the children from Naomi's Village and also meet the new children from the community going to school with the NV children.  Not only did we get to spend more time with the children and play games, but we got a tour of the new facility.  Our team was beyond ourselves to hear how Cornerstone Prep Academy is making a difference in the Rift Valley Community.  Steve Sisler gave us a great history of the vision for changing the culture in the community through the school.  What a great time of learning and experiencing what God is doing through this ministry and school.

Thanks for reading and we sure hope you will continue to pray for us as we continue to grow in our relationship with the Lord here in Kenya.

Blessing to you!  Keith and the On Mission Team

Naomi's Village - Day 1 & 2

Karibu - Welcome from Maui Mahui, Kenya, Africa!

Day 1.
Woke up to the sights and sounds of Nairobi, Kenya. Made our way to Naomi's Village for lunch to hear the joyful sounds of children playing soccer. What a joyful experience to be here and experience the goodness of the Lord.

Our afternoon was spent sorting through our supplies we brought for the orphans and time playing soccer and holding babies. Our day ended by singing songs with the children around a campfire making s'mores. All in our first day! Cannot wait to see what God has in store for us tomorrow. On Mission at Cottonwood Creek

Day 2.
Woke to the sounds of chickens, roosters, birds chirping and a beautiful sight of rolling clouds in the distant, calling us into a brilliant Sunday at Naomi's Village.  Jet lag is somewhat difficult today, but we are all doing well.  Our attitude is great and we are looking forward to seeing what God is going to do through our team.

Our Mission Coordinator, Megan Haynes led us this morning through some culture "education" as we begin to get out into the community here in Kenya.  There is so much to learn from our friends here, especially how "warm" and "relational" the Kenya people are.  We desire to truly connect with those we serve this week, and the best way to do this is through quality time and building relationships.  We all have so much to learn - and it is all good!

We then loaded a bus for morning worship at Mui Hangu'iri, one of the communities that Naomi's Village is supporting in the Rift Valley Area.  Truly an amazing experience for our team, and me personally.  The morning worship was filled with worship and singing in Swahili by the adults and children.  Bob and Julie Mendonsa (founders of Naomi's Village) and their son Will were able to attend as well.  It was fantastic to see Bonface (Naomi's Village Leader) again and reunite a friendship that is very unique and special.  Pastor Samuel allowed us to lead a couple of songs.  Our worship team, Keith Tyler, McKinley Tyler, Jeremy Calloway and Terra Towne lead in worship, and I got an opportunity to preach from Romans 12.  Once again, a truly amazing time with the Lord in worship today.

We closed the service by walking down the road to have a prayer and dedication time to the new 24 homes that will be build for this community.  The Mui Hangu'iri community has experience extreme obstacles and struggles since the political disturbance back in 2008.  They were displaced from their homes and left with nothing, and for us to have a prayer dedication service for their new homes 8 years later is truly a miracle from the Lord.  What a blessing to be involved with this day and experience the goodness of the Lord!  Truly amazing Sunday morning.

Our afternoon was spent playing organized activities with the Naomi Village kids - SO MUCH FUN!!  We played relay games, soccer, football, volleyball and basketball.  What a privilege it is to spend time with these kids and build relationships with them.  It is going to be a great week!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for tomorrow's installment!  Thanks for reading!

Keith and the On Mission Team at Cottonwood Creek