News & Stories

Children's Lives Changing & Land Found

BikekeBoyThe school director, John, a Kenyan, asked me if we could stop by a villager’s home before returning to our hotel.  The home belonged to six children whom the school has been sponsoring.  John seemed to know that things may not be going well.  Sure enough, the absent step-father who was an alcoholic was, indeed, absent.  Further, the mother had become ill so the oldest daughter had taken her to the grandmother’s home and was nursing the mom there.  This left six children abandoned at home for days with the oldest boy only 10 years old.  It was easy to see how desperate the situation was just by looking at the palid, thin face of the youngest child: a two-year-old.

“How have you been eating?”  John asked the older boy.  “I go to my neighbors and beg for a little flour and then make a porridge with it for my brothers and sisters,” he replied.  John went into action to make sure that the neighbors were given a little money to buy and prepare a real meal and look after these children for the next few days.

These are the types of children that the school in Bikeke is not only looking after but providing a quality education for!

To continue serving these needs, the school must have five acres of permanent land. We are currently looking at possible sites!

Divine Safety Through Prayer

Refugee-camp-shadow Nearly two years ago Brooks and I found ourselves surrounded by a gang of thirty angry, armed men in an African refugee camp.

We were visiting this Kenyan camp late in the day and had not realized that we had completely trapped ourselves in an enclosed, fenced-off area.  These were desperate, needy people and we were their targets: white people who probably had something of value that they could take.

Yet the crime (which normally results in severe bodily harm) never materialized.

There is no real explanation for how we walked through that crowd, escorted by our Kenyan friend, while her husband engaged the angry men in dialogue.

Amazing Progress in Madagascar Health Clinics & Church Planting

Mad_Clinic Dave Swann, is the director of MM-Suisse, an association which supports and helps development projects be more successful.  He wrote the following report on the work taking place in Madagascar which provides an excellent overview of this YWAM team that we partner with:

I have been to Tamatave several times and I am always impressed with the success of this project.

In the bush, there is a marked difference between the villages where they are working and the others.  This is noticeable in general cleanliness of the village as well as the demeanor of the population… 

Prayer & Compassion Is Key to Impact in Madagascar

MalagasyGirls100Two church-planters in the bush of Madagascar recently shared with me how they began to touch the lives of an unreached tribe. It struck me that these basic principles of prayer plus acts of compassion have the same powerful impact everywhere in the world:

"We arrived in this village 3 weeks ago where we already had a contact. The villagers lent us a house that no one else wanted to use as it was “fady” (taboo, spooked) and would bring bad luck. At first, nobody wanted to visit us.  But we began to do warfare through prayer and literacy classes outside for the women.  Eventually the villagers saw that we were still alive! It was a testimony of God’s power! Further, they saw that we cared! And our house is not empty any more; we are sharing God’s word and lots of people are coming to us to ask for prayer.  We have begun to train up about 15 of these villagers to know God and share him with others.”

You help us support this exciting team in Madagascar that is seeing some amazing results:

  • More people baptized and reached than ever.
  • Existing leaders receiving ongoing training to develop and reproduce their churches
  • By 2012 forty-five clinics will be established serving 200,000 people that would otherwise have no health care available

The Holy Spirit & Everyday Miracles in Mexico

The church-planting team we worked with in Mexico shared some recent, everyday-miracle stories that are worth passing along.  But, rather than just pass these off as something that happens “over there” in other places, I want to look at our own belief system around the Holy Spirit.

First, the stories from Mexico shared by our friend Rhonda:

EyeClinic.jpgOur first outreach in Teposcolula brought two new families to Christ and we encountered many who were interested in learning more about the gospel…

During the medical outreach the Holy Spirit showed up with a wonderful ministry of deliverance and healing as Words of hope were given to many. We saw God do some fun stuff, like provide the perfect eye drops that a man needed (that I knew I did NOT pack) which he could not afford for his glaucoma. He cried. Many cried. We cried. God cares…

Emanuel, a new believer was baptized 2 weeks ago in the bath tub in our clinic.  Afterwards he shared with us a perfect description of how he could see himself getting involved in taking the gospel to the pueblos, making disciples, and empowering others to do the same!! Wow. He grasped the heart of multiplying churches all on his own.  That is the Holy Spirit!  It was not taught by any of us!

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