Bwana asifiwe! Habari yenu?

(Praise the Lord! How are ya’ll doing?)

Greetings from Nakuru, Kenya! My assignment here with Andie has been such a whirlwind, we’ve been involved in lots of different ministries all under the head organization of “R.O.C.K. Bridge Ministries” and our main host has been an incredible guy named Zablon Kuria. Here’s a link to a pic of him! http://www.rockbridgeministries.org/meet-the-board.html .  Here you can also check out the “Projects” tab to see some of what we’ve been able to be a part of here.

We’ve done Bible studies with street women in tin shacks, helped at Nakuru Hills Special School a boarding school for 170 disabled students, handed out donations at a trash dump called Gioto, preached at business places in the morning, and even attended a Young Life meeting at a local high school. Thus the whirlwind, but most of all we’ve been consistently living at a home for street women and their children and other vulnerable girls. It’s called Nakuru 3:16 and it’s extremely raw and astoundingly beautiful.

Here’ the link to their site, http://nakuru316.org/ and here’s another link to a newspaper article I found one day in the house. It features a group from Missoula who came here last summer but it is incredibly well written and describes the situation here incredibly well. http://missoulian.com/lifestyles/territory/article_cc316252-ba24-11e0-8f04-001cc4c002e0.html

Living in the house was so overwhelming at first. There are eight adult mothers, five high school girls, and 16 children and babies all living under one roof in a four bedroom house out in a rural area around Nakuru. We go to school with the kids, do homework with them, we help cook in the tin outdoor kitchen, and mostly just play around and talk with the women and children and try to love them well.  They gather for devotion every single evening before going to bed and the first night we arrived the kids led us in a song with these words,

Who has your final say? Jehovah has my final say!

Who has your final say? Jehovah has my final say!

Jehovah turns my life around, Jehovah turns my life around

He makes a way where there is no way

Jehovah has my final say!

And this song is a favorite in the house and so it’s always in my head and I’ve been taught through it about the sovereignty of God. Every day I see or hear about a hard situation in the house that always stems from a deep inner brokenness and hurt from past abuse, rejection, or abandonment.  I have had to learn to sit in those places and trust that God is actively redeeming and restoring these women and children because I can’t fix what I am seeing. Rather than trying to tackle things on my own, I’ve been learning to wake up each day and ask “What are you up to today God? How can I be a part of it?”

And beautiful things have come of that. Knowing that God is the worker, I’ve been freed up to simply enjoy life at 3:16, dance, and laugh. To say simple words of encouragement and help lead devotions on self-worth, freedom in Christ, and the stubborn ever-pursuing love of God.  There’s oh so much to say and more will come for sure, but for now I’ll leave you with some pics and videos!

Here's our unofficial favorite kiddo named Isaac and then Monica (age 25) who lives at 3:16 with her four kids and is currently attending cosmetology school

And here's Andie and I on the schol playground with our primary class students!

Here's our latest donation drop to the peopple living at Gioto garbage dump.


And....this is the craziness that we get to enjoy every evening at 3:16!!

Pressing on in love and power, not fear!

-Tiffany