Merry Christmas and Happy New year!

November and December Update Merry Christmas and Happy New year! Last month we started the paperwork for Zephaniah to become an official American citizen. This all happened in good time! We are currently applying for new work permits (a 4 year Visa) for Josh and the family. This is going to get tricky. We have been told that the government is not going to be allowing westerners to stay longer than 2 years. They are saying that they want to create more jobs for Kenyans. This wont happen if they send all the westerners away. We think there is something deeper going on. There are a lot of Muslims in the government and I think they don’t want missionaries here. This is all speculation. Nevertheless…. We need prayer for this process. Once our current visa expires in February if we are not approved we will all have to leave the country and come back in. This will give us 3 months in the country as tourists; if it is not renewed in that following 3 months we will need to do it again. We know that the Lord will have us here as long as He wants. He knows all these things but He still tells us to pray about our concerns so there it is. Also last month: Our Car broke down and the part was impossible to find in Kenya. We started looking online and found one in the states for $75. We found the same part in Uganda for $700. Through the Lords help we were able to get the part in the States and send it with a family member of Missionaries here and she brought it to us very quickly! This was a miracle because things usually don’t make it to Kenya quickly. The part was for a vehicle with a different name and we were not sure that it would even work but it DID! We praise the Lord for this. December: Josh did his first wedding and an African one at that! It was good. It went a little rough with the difference in cultural things. Weddings here never start on time so it was 3 hours late! Despite the bumps along the way they were married in the end. That’s what counts. So many things have happened it’s hard to know where to start. We had a nice Christmas, it was spent with 2 different families and a single girl who came for breakfast. It was wonderful to spend nice time with friends who feel more like family. A few days ago Josh’s father passed away He had been sick but it was still shocking and a bit heartbreaking. Josh is flying right now January 1st to the States where he will perform the funeral and spend some much needed time with his grieving family. Please pray for strength for him and his family in this time. The kids and I had to stay back due to funds. The miracle behind all this is that we didn’t have any money for Josh to go but through a Facebook fundraiser so many people participated in getting Josh to the states. Enough money was raised in 48 hours for Josh’s ticket and for car, lodging and food. Thank you all for your encouraging words and for the help. It is impossible to thank each person because half of the people who helped donate I don’t even know! We are humbled and blessed. I pray that the Lord will abundantly bless and provide for each of the needs of you all. For those of you who helped… There are no words to express our gratitude. Thank you.

September-October update

This past 2 months has had some very significant moments for CC Eldoret and for specific members in our church. We held our first baptism where some guys decided to show their commitment to the Lord reckoning their old man dead and Christ alive in their lives. This was a very joyful moment for us.

In the Beginning of October, Josh was able to take 6 church leaders to the first annual CC east African pastors’ conference. This was a huge deal and a life changing event for all of the guys that went. We praise the Lord for providing for all of these guys to go.

We are still praying that the Lord provides Land for the church so we can have a permanent home for church. Rent is very expensive in Eldoret and we would love to be able to invest in other ministry opportunities! Please keep this in pray with us. We also are still praying that the Lord raises up leaders in this body of Christ out here. We also need a lot of help with children’s ministry. Our Nursery has grown so much in this past year; it is a blessing to see but that means… we need more help  We praise the Lord for this problem. Thank you all so much for your continued prayer and support. You are such a blessing to us.

July Update

I want to start this post out just giving you guys an idea of what food shopping is like. My family recently came to town and took some of these pictures and since I have never posted any of our food market here are a few.

We want to start this update by thanking all of you who have been praying for us these past few months. Our Baby boy was born July 25 by C-section. He was about two and a half weeks early and was a whopping 6.6 pounds! He is healthy and has gained 2 lbs. so far. We are so thankful Zephaniah Joseph; this new addition to our family. Please be praying for all that we will need to do concerning the paperwork to make him an official American citizen. We also want to Thank ALL of you who have allowed the Lord to use you to help provide the finances to pay for the birth of the baby. We have been so blessed to see the body of Christ coming together to help us out.

Also another answer to pray was that My sister Callie, My mom and dad all got to come out here for the birth of the baby and to help out with things around the house as I (Kelsey) recover from surgery. This was such a sweet blessing from Jesus!

Church Life Please be praying on behalf of the church here for the following: We have taken a break with evangelism for a few reasons one of them being we are in rainy season so it makes for a hard time going out on the streets. We will be starting the crusades and the street evangelism again and are praying that hearts will be soft to hear the gospel. Please be praying for our church, for holiness in the body of the believers. We have about 150 people coming to the church right now. We need the Lords strength and wisdom to minister to all of them! We want to start being more aggressive in finding a piece of Land to build our own church building. This will take the Lords provision because the cost of Land is great here. Finding land in town in Eldoret is next to impossible. Eldoret is growing and with that is lack of space. We really need the Lords wisdom with where would be a perfect place since a lot of people walk to church.

Update of May and some of April

Outreaches Calvary Chapel Eldoret is on mission in this next 3 months, we are doing outreaches to about 10 of the surrounding towns on Saturdays. We visited a place called Kamkunji 2 weeks ago and there has been some really cool fruit. On this trip a Muslim lady sat for the whole thing and got saved at the end. This is a really big deal for a Muslim to change religions. We also had many other people pray for Christ to come into their hearts on this event. There were about 4 to 6 people that come to church the following day just hungry to hear Gods word. Please pray for these few. The Lord loves them so much. We pray they stay in fellowship and that they not only have changed hearts but changed lives too. Its easy at a crusade to give your life to the Lord but harder with the every day choices. Here are some pictures of the church members out ministering to the people In the past 2 months of Prison Ministry and outreaches somewhere around 500 people have accepted Christ into their hearts; we pray for these people that they continue to walk in Christ as a new creation. Josh has been showing some creation Videos at the Prison that shows the Lies of Evolution and reveals the Glory of God. Well each time he showed these videos 20 people stood up to give their lives to the Lord. There are a few that keep standing to get saved over again. Those we pray will just take what the Lord has said at face value and be assured they are saved “if they Confess with their mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead that they will be saved”. For those in prison here in Kenya, it’s a horrible place. Knowing the Lord and experiencing His amazing forgiveness is such a beautiful thing. Please pray this for those who have gotten saved there. Family Please continue to pray for the health of our family. Josh has been pretty sick over this past month and we cannot seem to figure out why or what is the problem. As you can imagine that makes his ministry pretty hard to do especially when he loses his voice. Layla is also pretty sick right now. We would appreciate your prayers for her healing. Kelsey is doing well. Only 2 months to go till our Baby BOY is delivered. Please pray for continual safety for this pregnancy.

Here are some pictures of the Church and a few of the Outreaches in the past month.

February - March Update

Dear Friends and Family. This is the first blog update in a few months and a lot has happened since the last one. Kenya had our presidential elections March 4th and we had asked you all to pray for safety for the missionaries and for the Kenyans here. Things went very well. For the most part Kenya was very peaceful. We still have a little ways to go because the candidate that lost is challenging the results so when those are announced it could get violent but we are praying against that. We have also had 2 teams come out in the last month. They were a great encouragement and they both were very fruitful. The First team from Calvary Chapel Bangor Maine Did some orphanage work here with an orphanage we are associated with here, they went out to a more rural community to visit a church that is friends with ours. They also helped us work on the church; since we expanded even more there was a bunch of painting and building that needed to be done. The second team flew in 2 days before the election. They were coming to do a big evangelism outreach which we were a little Leary about since we were being told to lay low but it ended up being a perfect time to get onto the streets and tell people about the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. Many, Many people heard the gospel including multiple groups of over 400 people and over 100 people asked Christ to come into their lives. Pray for these people as many people claim salvation and then forget about the Lord a month later. Pray that they get connected to good churches that will teach the Bible to them. They did some street evangelism in Eldoret and the Lord used that greatly too. A guy named Ben got saved and has been coming to our church for the last few weeks. CC Eldoret has been growing immensely which is encouraging and challenging. We are still praying that the Lord will send us a solid worship leader and more children’s ministry leaders. It seems that we just don’t have enough teachers. We are praying that as the people coming to church continue to learn and grow that they will be inspired to want to serve the Lord in the different ways that they are gifted in. Calvary Chapel Eldoret is now officially all registered and legal with the government. We are working under an umbrella ministry that we started called Gospel for Kenya Missions. The reason we did this is because Josh really wanted to start other ministries aside from just the church so we kind of expanded the ministry aspect with the Government. This means that if we want to we can open Schools, guest houses, send out different churches or open orphanages. That doesn’t mean that we are doing all these things but we would not need to get separate paperwork if we wanted to do all this. What it does mean…. Gospel for Kenya missions (CC Eldoret) is opening a school of ministry, one year program in the next month. We will be raising people up and teaching them how Biblical ministry is done, teaching them how to defend their faith and how to study the word. We are very excited about this. We are hoping that we can get some different teachers from the States to come and teach a one or two week course throughout the year but we will see what God does. Our family is doing good. Please pray for us as we continue to labor here in Kenya at the church and on the streets. Josh remains pretty busy with all the different ministries here. Kelsey is continuing to grow as she is in her 5th month of pregnancy. Please pray for renewed strength as this pregnancy is really wiping her out; also chasing Layla around is a pretty exhausting job too. Thanks all for your prayers and continued support to us through prayer and encouragement. Josh, Kelsey and Layla.

January Happenings

January 2013 To all of you who have been praying for us or supporting us, Thank you. It means more than you will ever know. This has been an exciting month with some more changes. I know we are using this phrase but it is the truth, we are outgrowing our facility again! This is a great problem. People are coming, hearing the Word of god and getting excited about it. We will not e moving church buildings again, we really want to keep that to a minimum because it is not good for the church members. We will be tearing the big dividing wall down that divided our space from the space next door and renting the room next to us as well. We got a great deal on the other half so we are very excited! We have some missionaries that have been coming to the church over the past month and it has been such refreshment to us all. The Church is so excited to see new people coming and coming back again! Answer to prayer… We have been doing lots of Paperwork to become a society which means we can buy property, do legal weddings, funerals etc. it also means if we ever wanted to open an orphanage, school or have a guest house to make some money for the ministry here, that we could. Well we have been approved by the government in record timing. We just need to receive the paperwork to complete it. But the hard part is done! We are Called Gospel for Kenya. Praise the Lord for this! This was something that was a HUGE deal and now it’s done. We will be having 2 teams coming for America in the next few weeks, please pray for great success with all they will be doing. Also pray for great safety for them as they come. Our elections are coming up March 4 which is right after our second team gets here. Our last Election 5 years ago was desperately devastating to the country as there were a lot of deaths and dangers that happened between a few of the tribes here. We are praying that this does not happen again but very well could. Please pray for a peaceful election, that the body of Christ will unite rather than tear each other apart. Pray for safety for all of us that are here during this time. There have already been some tribal clashes leading up to the day and we are praying it will not go any further. Pray, Pray, Pray! Our Family is doing good.. little baby Lawrence is growing well and healthy. Kelsey is doing ok too; a little sick at times from the pregnancy. Layla is doing great, growing and learning tons of new things and words. Josh is busy as ever with the different ministries, side jobs like building random things for different missionaries around. This is a blessing because it gives work to some of the guys in our church. I think that’s all for now. Please just continue to pray for safety and that the Lord provides for all this new growth in the church. We love you all.

December 2012

Dear Friends, Since we got back to Kenya there has been a lot happening here. Josh has picked up all his usual ministries and it has been such a blessing. Prison Ministry Just before Christmas Josh went to teach at the prison and 10 men stood up to receive Jesus in their hearts. The Lord is working in this prison. We pray that the Lord will continue to work in the hearts of these men. CC Eldoret The church did very well while we were gone. They we also pretty excited that we came back. For the last 2 weeks josh has given an alter call at church and 2 weeks in a row, one person raised their hands to receive the Lord. We did a Christmas eve service where we did a teaching, worship and a meal. It was such a nice time of fellowship. We are registering with the government to become a society, please pray for this process. We really need this to go through quickly and without a problem. If there are no problems it will allow us to be able to do many different kinds of ministries here such as: School of Ministry, Officiating Weddings, boarding houses etc. .. Our Personal Family Over the last few years our security has kind of been an issue so Josh is putting up a fence for us to make our property more secure. I really praise the Lord for the provision to do this. Kelsey is Pregnant with our second child. Please pray for a safe pregnancy and safe delivery. She has been having a bit of morning sickness during the days so it makes it hard to be out and about during the day. Layla is growing fast and talking more and more. She is doing really well. Josh is busy running around doing paperwork, ministry and the projects on our house. He is excited to have another baby. Well That’s all for now. Thanks all for the prayers and support. We couldn’t be out here if it wasn’t for all our our friends and family praying for us and supporting what we are doing.

September-- October

September -- October Update Medical Mission work

Church girls receiving shoes

I Know it has been a few months since I have updated this so Let me fill you all in on what is going on with the Lawrence Family. The beginning of September was spent on getting ready for our first Furlough to the States; but not only that, also on hosting a team from Belfast Maine to come to Eldoret to minister to Our church, to us and the community around us. Lets start with the Mission team. They arrived on the 3rd and hit the ground running. While they were here they did street evangelism in the surrounding areas of Eldoret. Calvary Chapel Eldoret also joined them on these outreaches. So many people were so open to talk about the Lord and open their lives to the team to minister. The following week we has so many new faces in church wanting more of the Word of God. The team also brought many things such as, shoes, toys, coloring books and crayons and Bibles to pass out the church and to orphanages and to a village that we at times minister in. Everyone who received a gift was so grateful for the Love of Christ that was poured out on them. So many people said that they had been praying for the Lord to provide some of these things and this was an answer to their prayer. One woman also said that it encouraged her to wait and trust that the Lord would answer her other prayers. The team also went to a place called Vahiga county and did some medical mission work. There is a big Jigger problem among the very poor, it is a tiny flea that gets under the skin and turns into a worm. This gets into the blood and if not taken care of, some have to have legs and arms to be amputated or even death in serious cases. They gathered about 100 or more people together and helped them get rid of these awful things but also preached the gospel to all those waiting. It was a great time of ministry for them. They also did some work on our church painting walls and our floors and built walls for children’s ministry. It looks beautiful now, this was a great answer to our prayers. After the team left... so did we. We have now been in the states for over a month. In this time we have visited family in Arkansas, Missouri and Maine The Lord allowed us to go to a Pastors conference which was incredibly refreshing! We thank Him for that. Currently we are in Maine sharing with a different church every week of the things God is doing in Kenya and Josh has had many opportunities to teach the Word while we have been here. It has been so wonderful to see faces that we have not seen in 2 years. Layla has been a bit sick since we have come to the States, she could use some prayer. This trip has been a little hard on her since we have been traveling so much. The Lord has been so faithful to provide for our every need and we praise Him for it. This week Josh just took off to Go with a team to New Jersey to Help with Disaster relief (Cutting down trees, repairing and bringing the gospel into some devastating situations). Please pray for safety for Him and his team as they do this and also for the Lord to open peoples hearts for His precious Gospel. He is also teaching at Calvary Chapel Bangor, Maine this coming Sunday and is excited about that. I (Kelsey) get the opportunity to share with the Ladies at Lincoln Christian Fellowship this Saturday morning and I would appreciate your prayers that the Lord uses me to Minister to his Ladies there as I share the Word with them. I may have missed things but this is the gist of what has been going on with us. Please continue to pray that the Lord provides continued monthly support for us as it does cost something to minister and live in a different country.