Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas 2021

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Dear Prayer Partners, Supporters, and Family,

We want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas from the Shelby Family. 

The Lord has done great things for us in many ways during 2021. The ministry in Kenya is growing and multiplying fruit that remains in the the churches and Bible College through the national leadership who are training the next generation of leaders. 

And He has also blessed our family this year:

Robert and Abigail Cepec are on Missionary Internship and have been accepted as BIMI missionaries to Guyana, South America. They will have a few meetings in the spring but they will start deputation full time in June. They are also expecting their first child in July. 

Jeremy and Breanne Martin were able to get to the field of Mongolia in September. They are now learning the language and living in the capital of Ulaanbatar. They will be moving out to the village in June to begin working with the ministries of a veteran missionary as they will continue to learn the language in the village setting. 

Caleb is in his 3rd year of Bible College at Bethel Baptist College in Jacksonville, Arkansas. He is busy in church ministries there with his bus route, Sunday school class, junior church, and choir. 

Kay-Leigh is a Junior in High school, and she is helping in neighborhood Bible clubs and helping in our ministry office to prepare books and other materials for our college students. 

We are thankful for all that God has done for our family. 

God is so Good!!!

Serving Him in Kenya,

Luke & Tonya Shelby Family in Kenya

Thankful for Our Visitors!

We were very blessed to have Pastor Larson, his daughter Autumn, and Bro. and Mrs. Bingham with us here in Kisumu for a few days. Luke was able to take them to a favorite seaside restaurant for some

deep fried Tilapia straight from Lake Victoria! They all thought it was different but said the fish was very good. We saw all kinds of beauty around us as we enjoyed our meal. The food was great and the fellowship was so refreshing.

The next day, the ladies went to the Market while the men had a discipleship class at a local church. Then we all met up and passed out tracts and invited everyone to a Bible Study under a grove of trees. There was a great turn out and four men were saved! Praise the Lord! There is fertile ground for a new church plant in the future!

Please remember to pray for Kenya & please pray for this group as they travel to Uganda next! And please be in prayer with Miss Autumn Larson as she is praying for the Lord's leading in where He would have her serve as a missionary.

 

SNBC Celebrates 20 Years and Other News...

July - October 2021

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Dear Supporters and Prayer Partners, 

Hello from Kenya!  We pray that each of you are doing well and that your own church is getting back to “normal” and seeing souls saved, people baptized, and your church growing once again.  We know that the last year and a half has not been easy for any ministry, anywhere around the world; but we are so thankful for the Lord’s protection, faithfulness, guidance, and power that has been evident in our life and in the lives of so many Kenyans within the reach of our ministries here.  God is always so good to us!

A Brand New Church!
God allowed us the ability to plant our 30th church in Oltepesi Village in a Maasai tribal area near the Kenya/Tanzanian border on August 29, 2021.  We have started the church building, but because of the ban on timber harvest in the area forests, we were not able to finish it in August.  We have plans to go back and finish it the beginning of November.  Be sure to connect with us via our Blog for all the details! (shelbysinkenya.org → Our Blog)

A Family Update
Our daughter and son-in-law, Jeremy and Breanne Martin, were able to enter Mongolia and have been there for a little over a month now; they completed a 2-week quarantine and have started Language school in the capital of Ulaanbatar.  It is very cold there as winter has begun.  Please pray for them as they begin their life there and get accustomed to the new language and culture. 

A Ministry Milestone!
South Nyanza Baptist College is celebrating its 20th Anniversary this year! At the end of December we will be having a celebration and graduation for 12 students.  We will be having a 3-day conference before the graduation with the current enrollment of 80 students along with 78 former graduates and 10 teachers and some of their families also attending and learning the Word of God. 

This will be the first big meeting that we have had in a couple of years due to the Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions.  We are hopeful that things will get back to normal with our normal conference schedule in 2022.  We have lots of plans, and we are praying that the Lord will intervene in getting things in our ministry back to a normal order of things that we had pre-Covid.  We praise the Lord that we have still had over 1,400 come to know Christ as their personal Savior so far this year, mostly by our students in weekly soul-winning and visitation.

We want to thank so many of you who have supported our family and our ministry to train these nationals for over 20 years.  We are so excited about what the future holds for these graduates and the rest of the student body in the years to come.  We will be transporting everyone to come to the conference in Kisii and we are requesting special offerings in order for this day to be a special day for everyone involved.  We are trying to raise $1,500 between now and December to help with this conference.  Thank you so much for your help.

For Souls in Kenya,

Luke & Tonya Shelby Family

A Few Days Spent with Breanne & Jeremy Before they head to Mongolia

I am so excited that the Lord allowed me (Tonya) to be able to take my medical furlough in time to see our daughter, Breanne, and her husband, Jeremy, off at the airport on their way to Mongolia, and I was even able to spend a couple days with them before hand! They leave in just two days!!! 

The Beginning of a New Church - Part 9

 I'm back with an update from Sunday...

The day started with rain & all the men were concerned that the rain would keep people from getting out & coming to the service, but God brought them in!  

They had a wonderful service & 10 precious people were saved in the village service! After the service, the people were so thankful for everything Luke & the team had done this week that they enjoyed a time of singing; and with the Maasai culture that means there was some jumping involved (I put a video of part of it at the end of this post, & it is all in the Maasai language, but the phrase they repeat a lot is "Nkai Nara" which means the God of Truth. They were celebrating being taught the Truth of the Word of God.

Our group loaded up & headed back to Narok town on the muddy trail/road.

Luke wrote the following: "We got back to town around 7:30. And it was amazing to watch both groups greet each other and tell each other the stories of the past few days. It was a great blessing and my heart is overflowing at God's goodness."

Berean Bible Baptist Church was started today with 19 baptized in Narok town. And the man that we asked you all to pray for specifically (the rastafarian man), DID come back, with a shaved head, & got baptized! God is still in the miracle business!

Once Luke gets back home, I will load some pictures of the new church.

Thank you so much to each & every one of you who took time to pray for us this past week, as none of this would have been possible without our prayer warriors holding us up in your prayers!

God is so very, very good!

The Beginning of a New Church - Part 8

Ok, one last post for today & then I will leave you alone for a day, but I will be back Monday to give a report on how everything goes tomorrow at both places!

The man that invited us to visit here in Olmesutye Village is Noah Sunkuyia. He's a second year student in our Bible college, & he has been part of the Bible Study in Narok Town that is being started as a church this weekend. The first picture below is Noah and his Mother.

Noah started telling the people here in the village everything that he was learning, and started a small Bible Study here in the village almost immediately. But we didn't know this part until this week. Part of the group was there to meet the team when they first arrived yesterday. We learned today that there are now over 30 people who have been meeting under a tree for a weekly Bible Study!

We also learned that even though this is an extremely remote village, there have been several charismatic groups that have come through here with their false teachings. So, one of the main things that Noah taught them is that it is a Baptist Bible study. So when the team arrived and gave introductions about where each of the men were from, Noah made sure that each one was Baptist, because each team member came from different churches we have started. This is also another reason we feel that God arranged for the team to stay over another day, & help Noah teach on some doctrinal basics for those who have been confused by some of the other teachings they have heard. Like we said, we knew God had a plan!

In Narok Town a man came to the service today and got saved, this man has the rastafarian hair (you can google it). After he got saved, he said that he would go home & shave it today and then come back tomorrow and get baptized after the first service! Please pray that this man, & all the others who have been saved this week will not be hindered in any way to come to church tomorrow.

The 2nd picture was taken while making door to door visits in the village this afternoon. Just a little while after the photo was taken, 9 Elephants were sighted in the village this evening. The villagers told everyone to get home as soon as possible! So everyone is back to the home where they are all staying for the night & praying that the elephants pass by quietly without any destruction to the village overnight. They were planning to have a Bible study tonight after supper (some time after 9:30), before heading to bed.

The Lord has been very good this week with both of the meetings going on in Maasai land, & we know of 42 precious people who have personally called on the Lord to save them. And we are looking forward to both services tomorrow.

Hope you all have a blessed weekend!

ps. The video at the end isn't very good quality, but will give you just a little taste of the driving conditions this weekend.

The Beginning of a New Church - Part 7

Last night over 80 villagers came out to hear the preaching & watch the Jesus Film in their own language! Some people were still being dealt with around 10:30 PM. The phone connection was pretty bad last night, but I'm pretty sure Luke said 14 people trusted Christ as their Savior!

Then it rained all night out in the village & that meant that the path they travelled yesterday would be impassable until the sun was able to dry things up a LOT! So, they improvised & had more soul-winning out in the village.

Once they felt like the ground had dried enough to try to head out, Luke realized that there was some car trouble, which meant he & the men with him wouldn't be going anywhere today. So, they improvised again & decided to do more soul-winning, a service tonight & another one tomorrow (Sunday) morning. Even though this was not in our plans for the weekend, God knows & there is someone out there that needs to hear about God's gift of salvation. Please pray!

We are so thankful that they had planned ahead of time that only part of the team would travel out to the village, while the rest of the team stayed in Narok Town to continue visiting, preaching in the market areas, & preparing for the first service of the new church tomorrow! We haven't heard a report from those in town, but we are continuing to pray that many will be saved & invited to church services on Sunday!

Communication has been a little harder today in order to get messages back & forth, but everyone is safe & doing well.

The plan is for services to be held in the village & in town at the same time tomorrow morning. Then the men in the village will begin their travels back to Narok Town to meet up with the rest of the team, & hopefully they will be able to get in before the curfew hour that is still in place here. To give you a little idea about the conditions, he village is only about 40 miles from Narok, but it took them 8 1/2 - 9 hours to make the trip yesterday. So, please be in prayer for their travels tomorrow to go well & without any car trouble along the way.

And we will be praying that all of you have a wonderful day in your own local church!

The Beginning of a New Church - Part 6

They made it safely to the village and were greeted by a group of Maasai ladies who had been waiting patiently since early this morning. These sweet ladies prepared chai (Kenyan tea with milk) for the whole group who were traveling with Luke. 

They served them under a shade tree, so that they could all rest before entering the village. Then they were welcomed into the manyatta to begin to pass out tracts, preach, & prepare to show the Jesus Film in the Maasai language.

The film is still going at the time I'm writing this post. And we ask that you all pray that many will hear & accept the Lord tonight. For most of the people, this will be their first time they have had the opportunity to hear the Gospel message.

Please be in prayer for the meeting tonight & in the morning.

The Beginning of a New Church - Part 5

Friday, today has definitely been an adventure!

We started our trip at 7 am heading out to a couple of Maasai Manyatta (homesteads/villages). One is where we have a Bible College student coming from & the other is close to his home. He told us it was way out in the middle of nowhere, & we thought we had been to the middle of nowhere before; but this place truly is WAY out there!

It rained yesterday and I had to use 4wd most of the trip. Since the area is pretty desolate, there aren't too many people out walking like we are used to in the more populated areas of Kenya. So whenever we did see someone, we definitely wanted to stop & talk with them. We thought we were almost to the manyatta and we stopped to give a tract to a guy and others gathered around, 4 got saved!

We crossed several rivers and tricky places that we weren't sure if we would get through. Luke told the guys that were with him that they would do whatever they could do, wherever they could make it to, even if they weren't able to make it all the way to the manyatta. 

They started to cross a river where a car was stuck on the other side. They told us that they were there all night while it was raining and had been trying to get out all morning.

They told us to try another way, and we were able to got across, helped the little car get out using Luke's cinch down straps to pull them out. Then the little car also had a flat. They needed Luke's jack to fix it. While they were at this river 3 more got saved!

We still have a little ways to go before we reach our destination, but God has already been so good to us!

ps. Keep those prayers coming! And the picture below is the Manual petrol (gas) station, lol!

#missionarylife

#lifeisanadventure

#reallifemissions

#shelbysinkenya

#reachingthelost

The Beginning of a New Church - Part 4

The morning got off to a great start with several coming for a service. Then we all filled our pockets with tracts & headed out for a full morning of soul-winning.

We stopped for a late lunch, then gathered everything needed for preaching in the market, got in the truck to head to towm, but we only got part way to the market area when we noticed the smoke & gunfire! We have been told that skirmishes broke out between the police & boda boda (motorcycle) drivers over not wearing masks! So we had to change our plans & head back towards the church area.

We held services again here instead of in town & continued passing out tracks nearby. There have continued to be running battles with teargas & bullets that we have been able to hear from our location at the church, but we are safe & we have been able to talk to many people today, because they weren't able to get to town either. It's after dark & we can still hear all the ruckus.

The Lord always knows what is going on & even when things looked bleak He was preparing the way. We saw 22 precious souls come to know Him as their Savior today! God is good.

Thank you for praying for your missionaries, we truly appreciate each & every one of your prayers!

ps. The one picture with the lady off to the side is an older Maasai grandmother named, Christine. She's one we were able to talk to since we couldn't get to town, & she asked Christ to save her & take her to heaven. It doesn't get any better than this, we love our life!

Please pray for us tomorrow (Friday), as we have been invited to a couple of Maasai Manyatta (homesteads/villages), and we would love to see many come to know the Lord while we are there.

#missionarylife

#shelbysinkenya

#Godisgood

#reachingthelost

The Beginning of a New Church - Part 3

Wednesday afternoon, we were able to hold a short service to open the meeting for the week with about 10 people who have been attending the Bible study over the past year. A few of our 3rd year students taught and played with more than 20 children who gathered after lunch, and they are all excited for more activities that are planned for tomorrow. We were even able to pass out some tracts close by where we are staying this week before the rain rolled in for the night.

Please be in prayer for all of us today, as we plan to canvas

the immediate area around the church & preach in the market since it will be the local market day & many people will be in town today.

#shelbysinkenya

#missions

#churchplanting

#letthechildrencome

The Beginning of a New Church - Part 2

When we set out on our travels this morning, we didn't realize that we would be crossing through a county that is currently under lockdown (outlined in red in the pic) here in Kenya in order to get to the area where the new church is being started. But the Lord knew and there weren't any road blocks along the way, so we were able to make good time & get everything set up for the meeting for the rest of the week. This picture may be a bit grainy, but shows where many (not all) of our churches are located (all the yellow dots) mostly on one side of the locked down county. Then there are a couple of yellow dots near Luke's blue location dot, & this is the area where the new church is going to be started. Hopefully this gives you at least a little point of reference for what the Lord is doing in the ministries here.

One of our Bible College students has been holding a weekly Bible study in this small town for over years now, and we are so excited tthat a church will finally be started on Sunday. This is something that was planned for last year, but with country wide lockdowns due to covid, everything was put on hold.

But the Lord has been good through it all! The year of lockdowns allowed us to concentrate on figuring out new ways to do things & have allowed us to see a huge intake of new students into our Bible College, plus seeing the excitement of the churches to get back to work once things began reopening at the first of the year. 2021 is shaping up to be an awesome year.

*Be sure to stay tuned, & I will try to keep you all updated as electricity & internet allow

#churchplanting

#missions

#missionarylife

#shelbysinkenya