Todays news

Our family has just spent 4 months in the States traveling to many, many churches. we got to visit family friends and were able to be ministered to by Calvary Chapel Bangor, Maine. We left in the end of September and came back to Kenya for a another 2 year tour of duty. The last few months have been a time of ministry associated with travel. Over 15 churches and 8 different states later our time in America has come to an end. God has allowed us and enabled us to minister, fellowship and be ministered to. It is a bittersweet thing to be going back; leaving family and friends, brothers and sisters and our home church. It is however a thrill to go continue what God has for us in Kenya. God has been speaking in many different ways on the direction of Gospel for Kenya mission and we are looking forward to sharing the Gospel and making disciples of all nations. I know without Gods leading and the support of our donors and prayer partners our ministry would not be possible. I wish I could tell you all the stories of ministry in the past 4 months both in America and Kenya. I want to thank all of our donors and prayer partners. I believe we will never know the extent of what our prayers and financial giving have accomplished until we get to heaven. Thank you very much. NEEDS: I am always asked about the needs of our family and the ministry, so I will be writing our needs in the newsletter that will be going out to our contacts. Due to the extent of are travel we go back to Kenya in the red. I would ask that you pray about how God would use you in this area. Also we need prayers, those who will sacrifice some of there time to pray for Gospel for Kenya, Calvary Chapel Eldoret, and the Lawrence family. I can’t tell you how much we appreciated all of you who prayed for Jael the day that she drown. Also we need labors in Kenya pray that God would send labors to his Harvest. Yours Truly Josh Lawrence Pastor of CCE You can donate online by going to ssmfi.org/donate Look for J&K Lawrence Our account number is 5529.

February-March

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6 For He satisfies the longing, and fills the hungry soul with goodness. Psalm 107:9 Hi all, Whats going on with the Church This has been a great few months. 2 weeks ago we had our annual mens conference and it was a huge hit. Every time we do one we have men comment that they wish we had these more often. This year we had about 150 men gather together for a day long conference. We had 2 guest speakers come from Nairobi to share with the Eldoret men. They shared on Biblical culture, 2 separate sessions on Being a godly husband and a session on being a man of God. In this culture the women are often belittled and beaten by husbands, even men claiming to be christians so to have godly men come and tell them how to be the husbands Jesus calls them to is quite a revelation. We have also started a saturday night evangelical service this past saturday (March 19th).We do a lot of worship and then an evangelical teaching. We want to get people into church and share the love of Christ and the Gospel with them. Whats going on with our family. We have had 2 months of sickness with our family. We have a bad lingering bad cough particularly with our youngest babies, Zephaniah and Jael although Layla and Kelsey seem to be getting it a lot too. This has been pretty hard on us. We have been to the doctor numerous times and there is really nothing we can do about it except treat the symptoms and wait it out. All of Eldoret is in a very dry season and we live right off of a dirt road so the dust often makes people have a bit of a chronic cough. Please pray for healing for all of us. We are eager to be well again. We have taken steps to planning our next trip to the United States. We are planning for the beginning of August so if you could pray for the preparation of this trip. It is quite expensive to fly 5 people across the world. We are excited to see family, friends and the churches that support our ministry out here. Also we are excited to introduce Jael to everyone since she has never been to the US. We are 3 months into renewing our Work Permit for Kenya. This is what makes it possible for us to stay and serve in Kenya. They are giving us a bit of a hard time this time. It is taking longer than usual. Please pray with us for a faster process and for favor in immigration. They have been trying to kick westerners out and give all the jobs to Kenyans and in doing this they make it really hard for us to stay here. Pray for open doors, reasonable officers who are overseeing these processes and for patience for us. It gets a bit frustrating. Thank you all so much who pray for us and support us. We are so grateful. The Lord uses you to make this ministry possible. Josh, Kelsey, Layla, Zephaniah and Jael.

December 2015

This December has been busy. This is the month that all the kids are off school so it is also the time for a teens camp. We held a 3 day teen camp at our church and it went so well. a few kids raised their hands to give their lives to Jesus. We pray for then that they continue with Him. In Kenya your high school years are away at a boarding school so please be praying that the Lord will really use them as they are away as a witness for Him. Pray for strength to resist temptation. We also had a great Christmas Eve Service. It is growing every year. ' Christmas day we had 3 different families come to our house for a meal; it was very nice to have family that the Lord has given us all the way out here.

October- November

Hey Guys, October was the month that we were supposed to be moving onto the property that we leased for the church for 10 years. There was a big hold up when we started the construction on the land. We hired a construction company to come flatten and do lots of ground work and as they were about 3 days into the big project some people came on the land saying they also had a total deed to the very property we had just leased. In Kenya there is major corruption when it comes to the buying and selling of property. You have to really do your homework when thinking about buying or even leasing a lot for a good amount of time and we had. However, even when you do a land search at times documents have been forged or doubled and land is sold twice. This seems to be what happened with the property we leased so, Its in court now for the past few months. Everyone we talk to says that it is the rightful property of the lady we rented from and that we will be able to continue when the case is over it could just take a while. In the meantime, our money is tied up in this case. Things with the church have been going great. We stated our School of ministry back up and that has been a blessing to see men come and receive discipleship and training in the Word of God. We have two men (John and Nathan) who travel an hour and a half to come to the school and it is so exciting to see their devotion to it even at their own expense. These are pastors of the Church that we put a borehole in for three years ago. Their church gets to reach the community through physical water and living water. Please pray for these men that they will continue to teach pure gospel, undefiled. These men stay at our house every Friday and leave early in the morning to get back to their families. The school of Ministry is going though the book Calvary Distinctives and it has been awesome to see a light come on about how church services should run without distraction, teaching through the Word of God etc... Our Family is doing well, we moved in the beginning of October to a safer location we hope and it has been a huge blessing. Please be praying for us as our work permit expires in January and the government has been really giving missionaries a hard time with renewing. Pray for provision for this things