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Dear Supporters and Prayer Partners, December 2018 - January 2019
We pray that your New Year is off to a great start! We want to let you know that will be going on furlough from April 2019 to January 2020. We will only be scheduling meetings with those that have requested a meeting along with a few churches nearby them, which we have not had an opportunity to visit during our past furloughs. If you still have not contacted us, please do (mail@shelbysinkenya.org). We will be traveling west with the whole family for the month of June visiting churches along the way. Caleb will attend Camp BIMI this summer, and he and Kay-Leigh plan to go on a missions trip to Costa Rica in July. Then they will settle into school in August for the fall semester.
The main purpose of this furlough is for our son Caleb to graduate from high school and to get settled in Bible College. We will also have more testing for Tonya concerning the difficulties associated with her COPD diagnosis and the irregular heartbeat that have developed into serious conditions this term. We have already ordered an oxygen machine for her, and we are still waiting for it to arrive in Kenya. We thank you very much to those who have prayed for her and for those who have helped us raise the $3,000 needed by word of mouth to buy the portable oxygen concentrator. Over $5,000 has come in for this need, and the excess will pay off her medical bills which have accumulated over the past few months. Thank you so much, and God bless you.
South Nyanza Baptist College has begun for the new year with five new students. Four Students graduated from our 3 year Diploma course, and seven pastors graduated from our 5 year Degree Program course. We are continually blessed with the men that God has given us in the ministry here, and they are doing a great job in each of their churches.
One of these men, Andrew, my assistant pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Kisii Town, will be starting a New church on the opposite side of Kisii Town. We have had several saved there over the last 6-9 months of soul-winning and Bible Studies in homes of those who have gotten saved. We just had an evangelistic meeting for three days at this location, and 48 souls came to know Christ as their personal Savior. We will be having a sending service for him and his family on February 10th, and Agape Baptist Church will have its first service on February 17th. Our church is excited about this step of sending one of our own out to plant a church. Please pray for him and his family.
Please continue to be in prayer for Miss Erica Bohman who praying about coming to work with us next year, and the Rose family who will be coming to work with us for a short time before starting a ministry a couple hours away. We are excited about the laborers that the Lord is sending our direction to help reach Kenya for Christ. If your church is looking to take on new missionaries for support this year, we highly recommend this young lady and family. Feel free to contact us if you would like to get in contact with them.
For Souls in Kenya,
Luke & Tonya Shelby
