Blessings for the New Year of 2022

January 2022 

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Dear Prayer Partners, Supporters, and Family,

Happy New Year! We are excited about the opportunities that we see the Lord opening up for His work here in Kenya.  We are also excited about what the Lord is doing in our children’s families, what the Lord has enabled them to accomplish in 2021 as we shared last month, and what God has in store for them in this new year.  We have seen last year as a year of opportunities to minister and make up for lost time during the Covid lockdowns.  We thank the Lord for His guidance and direction.

Church Planting (2 Churches started)

In April, Berean Bible Baptist Church opened in Narok town; and in August, Bible Baptist Church in Oltepesi village was started.  Narok town is the largest Maasai town in Kenya and is of great influence to the surrounding areas.  This has opened up the Maasai community to us like it has never done before.  We have tried in three different areas before, but there were always hindrances to getting a church established.  We are thankful for what God has done. 

Building Projects & Special Offerings $34,950

• Bible Baptist - Rongo: floor, plastering walls, painting, wiring, electricity, inside doors, etc. 
• Bible College: dorm divisions, and bunk beds.
• Agape Bible Baptist: floor, walls, and Sunday school room. 
• Raganga Baptist: sound system.
• Calvary Baptist: finishing parsonage for the pastor, storage rooms, and painting. 
• Special Orphan Christmas gifts.
• Calvary Baptist Church - Sidundo: building approval process started and some materials already brought the the site.

South Nyanza Baptist College (over 80 enrolled)

Local Church Bible College branches helped the students continue to study during the time of corona virus. Even though they shut down churches, they kept schools, colleges, and universities open.  We kept the Bible College running with the help of 10 faithful pastors, scattered out in the region, who had classes for their members and from surrounding churches. Classes were taking place on Saturdays, Sunday afternoons, and even the middle of the week in some places.  We had over 80 in classes at one point, and 74 finished the year with their final exams.  We thank the Lord for this kind of retention of students throughout the year.  We were able to finish the year with a conference for two thirds of the students who were able to travel to Kisii.  We also held a graduation for 14 students in our 3-year diploma course.

2,605 Saved - Praise the Lord!!!

Through the ministries in these local Independent Baptist Churches, we have seen a great number of people saved in home Bible studies, church services, weekly soul-winning, and evangelistic outreach while starting the two churches.  God is so good!  We also saw at least 8 College students saved as well.

Thank you for partnering with us in the planting and in the harvest of 2021.  May God bless you in 2022!

For Souls in Kenya,

Luke & Tonya Shelby Family

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.