Dear Prayer Supporters and Friends, July-August 2020
Greetings from Kenya! We pray that this letter finds each of you doing well. We know that there have been a lot of changes in the way all of us have needed to proceed with life in the midst of a world living with Covid-19. But we are so thankful for the Lord’s watch care and provision during these months.
Here in Kenya, churches have begun re-opening, although with many restrictions in place: only ages 13-58 only are able to attend, services can only be an hour long, and there must be 6 feet between each person.. So even some of our older Pastors are unable to attend their own church and have left the re-opening to some younger men they have trained to lead the services. And our ladies who are caring for smaller children cannot attend yet. Basically one person from each family is attending the service, and they are relaying the message to the rest of the family. The size of the building dictates how many you can have for the service. With some of the churches having small buildings, they have opted to bring the chairs outside and meet under trees. This is how many of our churches began in the first place, and we are thankful for the faithful members of all the churches being willing to meet outdoors so that church services can resume.
Concerning our Bible College, we had already been working on a plan for each church to train its own people; but due to Covid-19 and its restrictions, we will go ahead shift everything to the authority of the local trained Pastor to lead the Bible College in his church this year instead of in the future. This will help the Pastors to be able to train more of their own people. He will train them 4 hours spread throughout each week (due to the restrictions on gathering together), and they will not have to travel away from home. This will set up 8 satellite branches of our Bible College which will accommodate all of the current students, and it could easily expand to more churches by the beginning of the 2021 school year. All of the Pastors are on board with this plan, and we are excited about getting things going again. Please pray that it will be possible to implement this plan fully, and that we will not have any issues with the virus or other hindrances.
We were even able to get our 3 year work permit renewed during Covid-19 lockdown! That in itself is a miracle, and thank each of you who has been praying with us concerning this.
We are expecting our shipping container the middle of August. The Matthew Rose family and Erica Bohman are also planning to arrive this month to begin their first terms on the field, since the Kenya is also re-opening its borders and allowing international flights to begin this month.
Our second daughter, Breanne, and Jeremy Martin got engaged on July 10th, and they will be planning to have their wedding in the Fall, or whenever we can travel back to the States once Covid-19 lockdowns ease. We are waiting for Kenya to open up for international flights in the next few days. Their goal wedding date is October 24, 2020, and updates will be available at https://www.theknot.com/jeremyandbreanne Please be in prayer for their preparations and for the needed travel arrangements on our side of the world! We also want to say that we recommend him to your church for monthly support, if it is possible for your church to have him come to present his ministry to your church either in person or virtually. He has a presentation on his Facebook page (Jeremy Martin) that you can view, and you can contact him at +1 (615) 318-3621 or mongoliaforchrist@gmail.com Thank you for considering him as your next missionary.
For Souls in Kenya,
Luke & Tonya Shelby
Missionaries in Kenya
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