Celebrations and Goodbyes

The time for goodbyes has finally arrived--its hard to imagine that our time here woulde fly by so fast. God has seen us through well and along with our goodbyes we have had plenty of opportunities for praise and celebration. Today was our last day in the camps; tomorrow we head for Nairobi and will spend 2 days there before we fly back to Iowa for a week of family time......(continued below) 



Little John is quite the entrepreneur making and
selling his beads. We helped him buy a big bag of
beads and have frequently bought his products




Church in the IDP camps is unforgettable. Today was our last Sunday
there and the whole church community sent us off with prayers
and praise to God. So AWESOME!

 

The beds are stackable but not quite ready for sleeping on

Tonight we are finishing the final touches on a 4 beds that will be sent off tomorrow to a street boy's home that our colleague John Njane runs a few kilometers from here. Tomorrow morning, Nate is running do wn the mountain to purchase the pipes for the new Tumaini water line--all 1000 meters (1 Km)--that God has provided for his people living in that camp. Tonight we drank tea with a local pastor and his family who have been serving God in the IDP camps ever since the camps were formed. We are leaving this pastor in charge of receiving the payments of a couple of the groups' monthly loan payments. The funds he receives will be recycled back into another sustainable business project in the IDP camps after we leave. God provided funds to help this pastor purchase a piki piki (motor bike) with which he can take more frequent visits to the IDP community where he pastors a church. God is so good in providing Godly men here who are more than capable of carrying on the good work that God has begun here. We are so excited about somehting else. As you know, we have been praying for Tumaini camp in a special way that God would provide somehting sustainable for the people living in that camp. Apart from the water pipe we are installing, we were unable (because of time constraints) to start any businesses there like we had in other camps nearby. However, God heard yours' and our prayers and has brought a group of 5 Christian young men and women from the US for a 2 year term to come and do sustainability projects and discipleship in Tumaini camp. We got to meet with them this week and share our experience and gained knowledge with them. What a time it was for giving God due praise.  Praise the Lord! There will still be more to write about when we return to the states so everyonce in a while I will keep you posted on what God is doing for IDPs in Kenya. Please continue praying and praising God. Thanks for your prayers! Oh..and there is still more videos to come so stay linked.

Noah received a lesson on planting/plowing for



Its been sweet getting to work as brothers on so many

of our projects. What a gift





Final Push

We are on our final push--our last full week in the IDP camps and in Kenya. God has been so faithful and now we are putting all of our energy into spending time with the people we have invested in and been invested in. We have all decided that God is calling us to leave a legacy of prayer here so we have put extra effort into praying for our new friends at each stop we make in the camps. This last week was the most encouraging week we have had so far. The long awaited ILI conference for training Christian leaders in the camps was a Hit! The trainers spoke clearly and slowly and used every possible minute to pour in wisdom and knowledge into the attending pastors, local leaders, youth leaders, and even business leaders from the community. Teresa (the baking machine) and her women's self-help group cranked out 3 massive feasts for 40+ people along with Chai and cakes for the weekend of training. We have heard nothing but thankfulness and good reports from all of the IDPs in attendance.



Baking ladies washing dishes after preparing a meal
for the conference. (Left) Teresa with some bread she
prepared earlier in the day.



 



Tumiani Camp member are participating in digging the
trench several hundred yards to the nearby pipe
that we will be connecting water lines to.



Beyond that, Tumaini camp --the camp that we mentioned had no Hope--has now dug a very extensive trench which will be ready for laying pipes for water on Wednesday of next week. We had a short prayer meeting with them that was full of praise to God for the things he is doing.

The Peanut Growers have finished plowing the first section of land (1 acre) and the seeds for the peanuts will be purchased opn Monday for planting on Tuesday!!! I can' tell you how excited we are for that.
The Lord is accomplishing far more than we could have imagined before we came out here. The baking self help group has now raised enough money from baking to buy tables to expand their business. Praise God. Surely we nhave seen the hand of God working through us and through the people here that he has lead us to. Please continue to join us in praising our Father for the way he is providing for IDPs in Kenya! Enjoy the photos.

God is on the Move..when is he not

Chasing the Call- Chicken Farming from Caleb Schaubroeck on Vimeo.

Teresa and her self-help group received a charcoal
oven on a micro loan from us to expand their business. 

God is so faithful! I can't tell you enough how amazing he has been for us here in Kenya and especially in the IDP camps. His favor had been with us since the beginning almost a year ago when we began planning. This week has been evidence of all of this as projects are finally well on the move. Plowing for the 2 acre peanut farm is underway and will be complete on Thursday except for a portion that will hold a large tent over this coming weekend for an ILI conference. God provided a way for me to meet the President of the ILI (International Leadership Institute) several months ago in Boone, NC and since then He has opened up doors for an ILI conference to come to the IDP camps to train Christian Leaders of all denominations and backgrounds. What is most exciting of all to me is that the training is done by Kenyan pastors from around this region and the training and teaching will be done in Kiswahili. Praise be to God for going before us and providing ways for his people to better hear the good news here in a place with little hope! Teresa (the woman who is chairman of a baking self-help group) is being hired by us for the weekend to cook lunch and chai for 40+ attendees to this conference. We also are able to hire another group from within the camp to provide the 40 chairs we need for all of the trainers and trainees.

Chairman John Ngotho checking on the chicks hatching from the homemade incubator.

Samuel and Sabina are members of the newly formed Peanut Growers Company
that began plowing last week. Please pray for motivation and hard work for these men and women.

The day after we bought the oven, Teresa began to build a kitchen by her house and within 2 days she had sold 500 biscuits and made significant profit. This group now has pride for their work..Praise God! 

Another guy my age has save the equivalence of $180 from his work planting trees and about $5 a day. God has given us the opportunity to help him pay for a used motor bike that he will use as a piki taxi in a nearby town. Nate is busy at work building some beds for an orphanage that is run by one of our dear friends here.What a week of blessing! Thank you for your prayers. God is answering them; he is answering more than we prayed for. The next video will be up shortly..so stay tuned! ---Henry

People and Places in Pictures

 

Video #2

Chasing the Call-July 1, 2011 from Caleb Schaubroeck on Vimeo.
The last few days have been hot in the valley around the camps, and people are hoping that means that rain will soon come; An ironic prediction but its been proven true consistently and people are very hopeful. It has been very dry and people crops have not been fairing well. The possible rain would be a huge answer to prayer as the Peanut business is likely to begin planting soon- the members are still raising funds to contribute so that they can have a sense
of ownership for the project. Today Noah is in Nairobi visiting microfinance organizations that we are hoping will come alongside some existing businesses and help them grow with low interest loans. He will also be pricing charcoal ovens for the women's baking business illustrated in the video. Teresa- the leader of the group, is very innovative and has gathered a group of ladies, and elderly men to share in the business. It is exciting to see employment developing for so many people, including a young widow who supports 6 children and suffers from a club foot. We continue to pray for Tumiani and are still looking for ways to help their daunting situation. Thank God, for he has both the strength and love to care for these people. Please pray for us all as we are nearing the half way mark of our time here and are in need of both strength and perserverance as we see the projects to completion. Thankyou- Nathan

It is always a blessing to see children when we go to the camps as they lighten spirits; It is bitter sweet however as their presence in the camps during the day, means that none of the children in this image are going to school do to lack of funds.

Tumaini---Hope

Tumaini is the name of a camp we visited on  Tuesday. In Swahili, Tumaini means hope. Yet, we soon found that Tumaini is a place that is drowning in hopelesness. Tucked away behind the main Maai Mahiu camps such as Eldoret and Narok, Tumaini has had little attnetion or aide. The camp is made up of 50 households, many of which are single mother families because their husbands have either been killed or are working far away trying to eek out a living. The first thing you notice when you enter the camp is that no one is living in houses. Everyone is living in the same tents thew occupied 2 or more years ago...nothing has changed since we were last here in 2009. The people are quiet, and the air is almost literally thik with shame and hopelessness. As a team, we were quite disappointed that we hadnt visited this camp yet this summer. Today we had one of the single mothers from Tumaini come to Kijabe to get a needed ultrasound for an infection she has had for some time. The news was good-Praise God! We sent her home on a piki (motor bike) taxi with some food for her 6 children. This mother had AIDs, as does her some of her children. This is not an uncommon situation in Tumaini camp. We already had the opportunity of praying with some of the women in Tumaini and we are praying in the Name of Jesus for HOPE! Please join with us in praying for HOPE CAMP to fully receive  with faith, what God has for them. Please pray for us as we seek to build relationships in this camp with the intention of starting some small businesses that will provide these people with their daily bread. PLEASE PRAY for TUMAINI!

1st Video

Our friend Caleb is making videos for us now! So you can see who we are working with and where we are working. Currently we are in the last stages of the paper work for the Peanut Grower Company (PGC). We have also come across the possibility of getting water to the camp we are working in from another camp. A borehole was dug in a nearby camp, but the water was incredibly hot because of the volcanic activity in the area. This caused overheating of the standard water cooled pumps. From what we have heard the Polish embassy is buying an extremely expensive pump that can deal with the hot water. Praise God for his working in this! Yesterday Henry went and visited a camp that was further away and it was still in pretty terrible condition. There were 50 family's in this camp and they were still in tents. Please pray for God's wisdom as we look to help them. A possibility may be to purchase a pipe to pipe water to their camp. Yesterdays church service was incredible. There was lots of dancing and praising God. I love how the church service is under an acacia tree. It is a very real reminder that the church is not a building but a people. One of the songs had lyrics that said "We are dancing in the house of God, we are dancing in the house of God." I couldn't help but smile as we danced under a tree :)

-Noah 

1st Proposal

Church below the Acacia tree. The men, women, and children take turns dancing and singing

We spent some time after church singing and praying with the
youth. The man on the right wants to start a boda boda service
(motor bike taxi)

Yesterday was a big day down in the camps. We enjoyed a wonderful time of worship below the acacia tree with some Kikuyu IDPs. Noah was asked to preach and he gave the congregation the story of creation and redemption. It was awesome! Afterwards, we met with the youth and sang songs with them and prayed together. Several of the youth are preparing for their enormous national exams that are coming up. We prayed for their exams and they prayed for wisdom for us for our projects.


These women make beautiful baskets. We are trying to help
them find a cost effective way of making them.



We met with Francis and Daniel after that and were surprised with a business proposal from them, neatly typed and prepared. We had been planning on asking them to start writing a business proposal  for review next week. It was awesome to see that they had already taken the initiative to prepare. Today we will be reviewing the proposal with the aide of some of our Kenyan friends here to see if we can trim down the size of the proposed peanut farm. We are learning that it is far bbeter to start small and let the people build their own projects then to invest a ton of money and see money go to waste. I think we are learning a great deal about efficiency. Please pray that we would have wisdom about this Peanut farm and that we would know how much is too much to invest into this project. There are also several other small businesses that have asked us for help. We need you prayers as we meet and discuss and plan. We will let you know what happens soon. Thanks--Henry

Big Changes



Nathan with Daniel and the village chairman



We have been met with several major changes since we arrived in Kijabe and have visited the IDP camps. The first thing we noticed last week was that the majority of IDPs are now living in cinderblock houses built by the Habitat for Humanity. That was very exciting. The second thing we noticed is that the IDPs have planted maize everywhere possible on the 20 something acres of land that the 1700 people acquired in the last 2 years. However, the land is incredibly dry even during this rainy season so most of the crops have already died or are well on their way. We were blessed this week to walk 2 hours down the side of the Great Rift Valley to the IDP camps wher we found a nice acacia tree to sit under outside the Eldoret camp. As we waited we prayed that God would bring along the right man or woman to lead us into the camps to meet and pray with individuals. God answered our prayers and we were lead in by a man named Daniel who brought us to the camp's chairman who welcomed us warmly. Some of the things that we have learned from him and some of the other IDPs we have met is that water is, by far, the greatest need for the people. This is something that we are beginning to pray specifically to pray about. Water would provide the needed irrigation  for the dry ground and would open many other doors for businesses. However, we havent yet felt called to focus on the water issue. Instead we have been listening to the locals ideas about businesses they would like to start. As we went house to house on Tuesday we were able to sit and pray with 4 different families about their situations. Noah, with his strong grasp on Swahili, has been a lifesaver for us in our dealings with the IDPs. We are meeting today with a missionary to discuss some of the things we have learned and hope to do. Praise God for the ways He is providing for the IDPs here.

Alright..now I've gotta get some photos uploaded for you. Thank you for your prayers.

Henry and Noah with some fundis (handymen) rebuilding a house for an older woman.

In Kenya

It feels so good to say we are back in Nairobi, Kenya. What a blessing! We ate at the Dukas (market) for lunch today and had some Yoma Choma (Goat meat with veggies). We are buying up just a few supplies before we head out tomorrow morning for Kijabe where we will be staying until we have found a spot in the camps to live.
We will post some photos ASAP!

We leave tomorrow

Hey Guys,
 We leave tomorrow morning and fly intto Nairobi on Wednesday afternoon. Cant Wait! Please continue to pray and I will keep you updated with photos and posts. Thanks

Just a Couple Weeks Left

Our departure day is June 7th and we are counting down the days untill we go. We are wrapping up a few things. Noah M. is down in Texas un till Wednesday and then he is heading out to Kenya ahead of us. Nate and I will follow after we finish the last couple days of work in Iowa, and spend a week in Boone, NC hiking with our cousin. I called John Njane the other day and we talked out about the chicken farm and sewing business. Im so excited for what God has in store. We would appreciate your prayers as we make the last minute preparations for travel and packing. I'll send out one more post before we leave and then keep you posted from Kijabe, Kenya.

Chicken Farms and Leadership Conferences

A veterinarian at my church hooked me up with some literature on chicken farming. I spent the day taking notes and reading up on chicken breeds and chicken runs and houses. Its getting me excited for the small chicken farm we are planning on starting in one of the camps this summer. This month I also had the opportunity of participating in the annual missions conference at Boone United Methodist. I met the President of the ILI (International Leadership Institution) which trains Christians to be leaders world wide. He got my into contact with the East African director and we are now in the process of planning a leadership conference for the IDPs in the camps. FREE OF CHARGE! Praise God. Be Praying for this whole process and for the small businesses planned. Thanks

Micro Loans for IDPs

I recently received some information that there is an NGO called Opportunity International that provides financing through micro loans to men and women all over the world (including Kenya). The requirement for a person in need to recieve a loan is that they have to first have a small business started. Praise God, if these small development projects we have planned take off, then the IDPs involved will be apply to apply for further assistance from Opportunity International. Please pray for this! If you get a chance, check out their website for yourself at: http://www.opportunity.org/ .

Justice

"No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people." (NLT) Isaiah 58:6

As Christians, we are called to seek justice and to stand up for people who cannot stand up for themselves. Pray that IDPs in Kenya would be given justice and that Jesus would be made known.

Lots of Help

We have already recieved several emails and phone calls from friends asking about ways they can pitch in and help. We are thankful for that because the closer we get to June the more we realize how dependent on God we are going to have to be for prayer, wisdom, information and resources. But God has and always will be faithful. A verse that has has been on my mind a lot and that Noah has encouraged us with a lot with comes from 1 Timothy 4:12. "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity". It's encouragment to keep our young teams' eyes focused on Christ and his call on us even if the task seems overwhelming at times. Praise God.

It has Begun!

Work is getting under way as we purchasedf plan tickets a few weeks ago. Rachel Prevette is knitting some hats to raise some money for some of the development projects we have planned (if you want one find Rachel on Facebook and order one). Nate is looking into giving a presentation to a class soon, and he is also planning on inquiring with his Nursing Professor about getting some simple health posters for some of the primary schools that the IDP children attend. I (Henry) am still working at getting this blog site together and will be presenting our ideas to a missions commitee at BUMC in February! Praise God