After six months in Kenya, we had to leave the country (and all of east Africa for that matter) in order to renew our visas. We chose Ethiopia because it is the closest, safest country to travel to at this time and a huge BONUS :-) was that our church in D.C. (National Community Church) was sending a mission’s team to Addis Ababa, their trip overlapped with two days of our short trip. We traveled with two fellow missionaries on the day our visa expired (cutting it a little close!) and spent five days in the wonderful country. We were able to visit with NCC’s team for two days. We tagged along visiting ministry sites, playing soccer with kids, doing a home visit, and visiting Beza International Ministries – the church in Addis Ababa that NCC helped plant. The Lord really blessed our week by refreshing both of us and giving us both new ideas and insight for our work with First Love and Partners Worldwide. We arrived back home and were anxious to get back to work. Within an hour of landing, we were both back at work in Nairobi (sometimes we do benefit from the perilous, speedy driving of taxis and matatus :-). (Lydia grinding freshly roasted coffee beans. Coffee was supposedly "discovered" in Ethiopia, so people take its preparation very seriously) It is an honor to be invited to visit a Kenyan's “shamba” or rural home. Once invited it is important depending on the level of friendship to make every effort to make the journey. We were invited to visit Chris and Irene’s (the First Love Kenya director and his wife) up-country shamba in mid-March. We spent four days near the Ugandan border, meeting their family, eating traditional food, and visiting the village where Chris was born. It was a beautiful time for us to learn from this wonderful couple, who the Lord has used in some incredible ways to impact many people in Kenya and abroad. (Chris' mother preparing Kenya's staple food Ugali - a mixture of corn flour and water) During our weekend “up north” Tyler had been experiencing pains in his abdominal area, sadly not uncommon for our time here. The pain would come and go, but within one hour of arriving home, Tyler began experiencing severe pain in a very specific location - his right side. We brought him to a local hospital and within one hour he was being admitted due to appendicitis. He spent the night in the hospital and the next morning the surgeon determined surgery was necessary. His appendix was removed and although the surgery went well, it was much more invasive than normal due to the abnormal location of his appendix and its large size. The appendix was near bursting and they caught it just before doing so. Praise God he allowed us to return to Nairobi before it became serious! Tyler has recovered well and as typical of most men he is proud of the large scar to evidence the whole ordeal :-) An update on several of Tyler’s ongoing activities: The trip to the Ugandan border gave Tyler an opportunity to see agriculture in the different areas of Kenya. Less reliable rainfall and severely limited access to credit to buy fertilizer and quality seed, is definitely affecting crop production. Three harvests have yielded much less maize than needed. Violence following last year’s disputed election left many fields burned and the next season’s crop went unplanted due to insecurity. And drought has significantly hurt this last harvest. While new farming practices cannot fix political problems, they can help improve soil fertility, reduce labor requirements (often by children), and conserve precious water. Tyler is working with a local manufacturer to help produce planters and herbicide sprayers used in conservation agriculture. At this point, Tyler is working to get interested parties together to help show the benefits of conservation agriculture and how to do it. Please pray for favor as he approaches seed, herbicide and fertilizer companies, the Ministry of Agriculture, and farmer groups. The widespread use of mobile phones in Kenya was a huge surprise to us. They are used for everything from finding work, staying in touch with family to sending meager earnings back to the village from Nairobi. Without postal addresses or email addresses, mobiles are the medium for communicating and connecting in Kenya. Tyler is exploring ways to harness them to help businesspeople connect with customers, suppliers and to improve record keeping in the savings and credit cooperatives. Right now we’ve started a pilot project for loan repayment details to be recorded on mobiles and sent to a central location – a huge step for rural customers far from town. We are also designing a system for businesses to advertise sales, promotions and special offers through forwarding and auto-replies. We are going to try it out publicizing an upcoming trade fair that will give local businesses the opportunity to display the products and services. The trade fair will also bring in some experienced businesspeople to share their experiences using IT in business. Even here on the “ground” and “in the field” it is easy to get stuck in an office or behind a computer and lose touch with those we are here trying to serve. Wanting to avoid this, Tyler has begun hanging out with three of the students at Lydia’s school and working one on one with two aspiring entrepreneurs. The students Tyler is mentoring are high school seniors who have many questions about God, life, and the future – the same questions he has! It has been fun taking time to be intentional with them. Having meals on Sunday afternoons and just sharing life has begun opening my eyes to what life is like for them. The entrepreneurs are two twenty five year olds looking for a way to be active despite the lack of opportunities. One speaks very little English which makes explaining profit margins a challenge, but we still have been able to connect beyond the business and we are able to pray with and encourage one another. An update on some of Lydia’s ongoing activities: There is an average of one text book per classroom at Lydia's school - Raila Educational Centre. As you can probably imagine this makes learning in what is already a challenging setting even more difficult. A donation from a Bible study group in Kansas allowed us to purchase a small amount of text books. This month we were able to use those text books start a library. Last week, Lydia gave the high school student’s their first library tutorial. Many of the student’s were eager for the opportunity to be entrusted with books, many for the first time. Although our little library has been running for only a week and a half, many students have borrowed and successfully returned the books. Most of us learned how to use a library in Elementary school, but here this idea is new and often presents a temptation to steal, sell, or simply misuse the book. Praise God that he is using our small library to grow their eager- to- learn minds! This month our hand-made paper making team completed several additional orders for cards. We have expanded our paper products to include gift bags. We are currently able to employ the women only when we have card projects, so we are praying for additional orders and a sustainable market for these quality products. Please pray for wisdom in expanding this venture! This month the Lord laid an interesting, but difficult subject here in Kenya on Lydia’s heart to speak to the high schoolers about during our weekly counseling sessions with them: Love, Relationships, and Marriage. Lydia began by sitting down with First Love's chaplain, Patrick to ask him questions as to how Kenyans view love and marriage – both Christian and non-Christian. That is something we have both realized must fuel our work –questions! We need to learn everything we can about the people and the culture before we attempt to come alongside them and assist. We had two sessions with the students and a short amount of time. But the Lord used the sessions to open up doors: Lydia spoke the first week and then handed out slips of paper to every student to write a question or comment about what was said. A wide variety of questions came in and we realized we had our work cut out for us! The second week we answered their questions in a forum style and split the time for answers between Tyler, Lydia, and Patrick. After the first week, two of our closest Muslim friends (who normally do not sit in on these sessions) thanked us profusely for breaching this subject and presenting it in the way that we did. We praise God for speaking to them through that time in such a way! Prayer Requests: -Wisdom and more volunteers for the Women’s prison ministry. Our team is very small, but we are grateful for our weekly times of ministry with the women -Continued favor with the library venture, additional resources to grow our collection -Buy-in from all the people and organizations needed to bring conservation agriculture practices to Kenyan farmers Praises: -Safe travel to and from Ethiopia and “Up Country” -A safe surgery and recovery for Tyler’s appendicitis adventure -Sustained energy for the various athletic activities at the school, deepened relationships with the high school girls, and women in the weekly bible study As always, thank you for your love and support. Mungu awa bariki! Tyler and Lydia
