April and May

Hey Guys, Our April is starting off in Kenya and ending in Tennessee. As I wrote in our last update we were blessed to send out a pastor from our church to a region about 3 hours from our church. The pastor and his wife moved out where there is no running water or electricity. This was even new to them even Eldoret has those luxuries. Well more has happened since then. Pastor Ed Compean and his wife Kelli (one the Calvary regional leaders and his wife who is a nurse) came to visit our church to do a medical outreach. I will say, living in Kenya and using the medical system here is pretty uninformative. The doctors here do not inform you on how to keep from getting simple sicknesses; such as washing you hands often to avoid intestinal sicknesses or to stay home if you have a fever or are showing signs of flu etc... They do not teach you to protect others by staying home when you are very sick. For example... I had a mom bring her baby with mumps into our nursery to play with the other babies because she was never taught about contagious sicknesses. So enough about that... We had Kelli the nurse come to speak with our church about how to be good stewards of our bodies and how to avoid simple sicknesses and how to cure simple sicknesses by what we eat. This was a great learning experience for all of us. She taught us how to have clean drinking water without a filter, how to eat certain things for certain illnesses that will make you better, she informed on how sexual diseases are spread and how to avoid them. She answered numerous questions relating to all sorts of issues and shared what the Bible had to say about all these issues including abstinence. Pastor Ed Shared the following morning with our church and was received very well. We thank them for coming. The week of Easter we arrived for our furlough in Crossville Tennessee to visit Kelsey's family. Josh was given the privilege of getting to share that sunday. After then, We hit the ground running and were at a different church every week for all of may. We also got too see most of Josh's Family. Half way through may Kelsey was given the privilege of being the guest speaker of Calvary Chapel Crossville Tennessee's Woman's day of Refreshing. It was such a wonderful time spending time with them, teaching and getting to lead worship with my mom too.

Josh was able to get out to two different pastors conferences and just soak up the Word of God by men older in the Lord than him. It was truly a time of refreshing. We were Received so well by all the churches that we were able to share at.

April sendoff

March The Lord Blessed our church with the opportunity to send our a pastor in our Church. He and His family will be going to the village Vahiga to start a new church. We took a team out there to help build his house out of mud. This was a fun time of ministering to this family. They have no running water or electricity.

March 2014 Visit to America

To our friends and family Josh and I are planning a trip to the States. There are some very specific reasons we need to come now. It has become to costly for Calvary Chapel Eldoret to remain in Eldoret town so we want to buy land to put the church on once and for all. We have shared before that our heart is really to raise up leaders here in town, to disciple and send them back out into their villages to start churches. We want to put a discipleship school and a church on the property. We are going to be raising money within the church here in the next few months to go towards this project. We want to come share this vision in the churches back in the States too. Josh is going to be able to go to about 3 pastor’s conferences while we are home which is a huge blessing and refreshment for Him. We are going to visiting Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Maine, Pennsylvania, Indiana and He will be going to California. If you are a pastor and would like Josh to come share the vision of Gospel for Kenya with your church please contact us ASAP at Lawrencejosh95@yahoo.com so we can put it on our Calendar since we only have so many Sundays in the States. We will also be visiting family while we are home! We are trying to buy tickets leaving Kenya on the 26th of April and coming back on the 16th of August. We are supported exclusively by Gods provision through the support of others. The plane tickets to travel for this trip do not fit in that budget. If the Lord puts it on your heart to help in that way we have a PayPal account under lawrencejosh95@yahoo.com To donate online to our financial facilitators go to https://app.etapestry.com/hosted/ShepherdsStaffMissionFacil/OnlineDonation.html?account=5529%20Josh%20and%20Kelsey%20Lawrence If anyone has an extra car while we are in Maine that they would let us borrow that would be great also. We will give more firm dates later when we have them. Please pray for us, for fruit for this trip, for the kids as we travel and for provision. Thanks all The Lawrence Family.

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.