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More Than We Ever Dreamed, Immeasurably More!
When the congregation accepted the challenge to send two missionary families to a little town in Kenya twenty five years ago, the project seemed overwhelming. But the church agreed to launch out in faith. We thought our plans were pretty big. But God had bigger plans to do far more than any of us would have ever dreamed or imagined.
God had plans for more territory. The little town of Kitale, Kenya was a mixed tribal area and so from the beginning the work impacted multiple tribal groups. The significance of that did not become clear until the Kenyan Christians began to mature and embrace the vision of missions themselves. Soon they helped set up a mission into the Marakwet region, a area off limits to Westerners. The Kenyan churches set apart Peter Simotwo and Felix Sanduku to go into that area and the territory of our mission expanded. Later when the mission team came to the end of their ten year commitment, the work expanded again. The Hayes moved with the Schrages to Nairobi, Kenya, and the Tylers moved into Uganda to establish a new work in Mbale, Uganda. But God was not finished. After the work in Uganda was well established, our team was invited to help start a new work in the Sudan, another area difficult for Western missionaries to work in. Again, the Kenyan Christians answered the call and set apart two more of their own, Kennedy Obura and David Bikokwa. These two men, with their families, have moved to Nimule in Southern Sudan and are now building the foundation for the kingdom there. Meanwhile, the church at Quaker became more mission minded and became significantly involved in missions to Laos, Malawi and the Ukraine.
God had plans for more missionaries. The original team sent to Kenya has grown in number over the years and has included at various times over eleven full time missionary families and dozens of teachers, nurses and short term workers. In addition to that, one of the unanticipated results of the mission work was the impact it would have on future missionaries. Since 1988 there have been over 70 interns who have worked with the team. From those interns have come new missionaries to Burkina Faso, Benin and Togo in West Africa, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania in East Africa and the Ukraine. Two of those interns, Phillip and Laura Shero, ended up back on the team in Mbale, Uganda. Some are now making plans to go to Angola in Southern Africa. In addition now to Kenya, Uganda and the Sudan, that’s ten countries (and still counting) impacted by the original decision to go to one.
God had plans for more ministry. Not long after arriving in Kenya the missionaries became aware of the plight of abandoned children. Newborns were left by their mothers in clinics or worse, on the streets. The community government was ill-equipped to care for these children, and felt no great urgency to do so. So the Kitale Children’s Home was born. A little less than twenty years later, the forty children so imperiled as infants, have been raised, schooled and are preparing for a promising future.
No country has been more devastated by the AIDS epidemic than Uganda. One of the tragic consequences of this disease is that it leaves behinds “AIDS orphans,” children whose parents have died of the disease and have no one to care for them. Christian Relief Fund, which helped establish the Kitale Children’s Home, has now set up a ministry especially for these children, the AIDS Orphan Project. Funds are collected and given to church leaders to assist in the cost for food, education and medical needs so that these children are able to remain in their villages and be cared for by their extended family. The program administrators now work alongside the Mbale Mission team, once again expanding the ministry of the mission.
From the beginning the mission plan was to set up Bible studies for people. When the work moved to Uganda, the number of students grew much larger, coming not only from Uganda, but also the surrounding countries of Kenya, Tanzania and even the Sudan. Through the gracious giving of many, additional land was purchased, multiple facilities were built and over 15,000 books collected and shipped enabling the Messiah Theological Institute to flourish as a major biblical training center, teaching over 400 students. But God’s vision is even larger. Recently church leaders from across the continent of Africa gathered in Mbale to begin laying the foundation for an African Christian university in Mbale.
The writer of Hebrews concludes the 11th chapter by referring to the many stories he does not have time or space to include in his letter. It is the same with us. There are so many more stories that could be told, such as the conversion of witchdoctors, the conversion of many Muslims to Jesus, Thomas Korir and the development of “Agri-group,” George and Diane Franklin and See Ministries, and the many stories of the impact of the mission work on the growing unity of churches in the States. Years ago God invited us to be co-workers with him in Kenya. The initial invitation seemed daunting enough. We had no idea about all that would eventually be asked of us, the full scope and magnitude that this initial mission work would eventually involve. But that is another lesson learned. God’s plans are always bigger than our own. Just as he multiplied the loaves and the fishes, a woefully inadequate offering to feed thousands of people, so he takes our inadequate efforts and resources and accomplishes “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work in us.”
SPIRITUAL TRUTH #7
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20, 21
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