Coffee with Christine

The national schools are having their semester break in the month of April and the church we go to run a special all day program for the kids similar to Vacation Bible School. Although our girls are still in school they were able to help teach a couple of sessions this weekend. These are pictures of the students they had. Kathryn taught the 5-6 year group - of about 18 kids. Vickie is the faithful assistant and photographer!! PS...I have not yet learned how to flip the pic :-)

Once again, our hearts are thrilled and humbled at how the people respond to His Word. The Lord gave Tony a message on the Pentecost and the Holy Spirit. So many responded. Lives were touched and set free. God is good. What a privilege to be His servants!

Last weekend was a busy one for us, coming to think of it, every weekend is busy for us! Vickie's band had a concert on Friday evening, Saturday, we took Tony out to his favorite restaurant to celebrate his birthday and on Sunday, I ministered in Family Banquet of one of our Kenya AG churches. The girls and I got Tony this pretty card and a pop up Titanic book. Tony is a Titanic fan - he is fascinated by the Titanic story and had even preached sermons using the Titanic! I will have to do a separate post on that book. This card wishes him almost everything he could possibly want!! Although the card wished him "Peace" the girls joked that the card is lacking one special thing that Daddy might enjoy "Peace AND Quiet"!! There's not much QUIET in our busy household!! These other cards came from friends. These two are locally made cards. This one uses African fabric. And this one is made with wire, beads and recycled paper. Creative huh? Can you see Vickie in th...

23 March was a special day for us. The church we pioneered in 1999, River of God church, moved into their new sanctuary! The new sanctuary now can seat over 700 people. You can see how beautiful the new stage is! It is such a wonderful feeling to see this congregation continue to grow after it was handed over to a national pastor. God is good. Some plant, some water but it is God who brings growth! Children presentation - when we started the church most of these kids weren't even born yet! Some were little babies but look at them now! Talking about growing kids, our girls are such blessing to us. The Sunday that Tony preached, they played a duet of Amazing Grace and Shine Jesus Shine.....we are so bless! Sach (with the mic) and Pastor Patrick sharing about their missions trip reaching to the Muslims in Hola..... I am posting a short video clip of the girls playing....

The internet has been pretty good and the power has stayed on, so I decided to take some time to blog and post some " older" events as well as current ones. This year at Valentine's Day, I organised a Valentine banquet for the Couple's Fellowship. The girls are here helping me decorate the classroom. I wish you could see what they drew - hearts and hearts!! We love having our kids join us for ministry whenever they can and they really have been pretty hands on missionaries themselves.... FOOD!!!!!!!! We paid the cafetaria to cater the main food but some of the members of the fellowship helped with the desserts.....it was YUMMILICIOUS.... This couple, John and his wife are fromNigeria. John is a first year student, newly weds! They have been married for 6 months...praying together for each other at the end of the service. You may not know this, but it is highly unusual for African couples to pray for each other and hold hands in public. Tony and I encouraged it and it ...

The week of Good Friday, Tony preached a series of revival meetings at the NPC (Nairobi Pentecostal Church) in Woodley, across town. It took us more than an hour to drive there and back each evening. Despite heavy rains that started the day of the meetings, hundreds turned out for the meeting. Tony preached from 2 Samuel 6 for all four services. The series of meeting ended on Good Friday about being passionate for God. Many humbled themselves and sought God at the altar after each service and we took time to pray for them. One of the most precious thing that happened is these two little boys responding to the altar call and praying - how precious! Kneeling in the presence of God, seeking His face! These pictures were taken by our daughter Kathryn. While we were all away at these services, our very vicious and ferocious guard dog, Max is keeping guard at home. Here is Max in action.... Isn't he cute!

Vickie fell in love with this little boy who was just clinging on her the whole time. Vickie's experience in the church nursery became very helpful as she plays with the children. The women at the camp cooking for their families in this makeshift "kitchen" This man shared with Tony that in this little tent are all of his belongings that he managed to salvage before the attackers came to burn and pillage. As you can tell, he really didn't have much, some clothes and simple kitchenware. He would be considered one of the fortunates ones. Many fled with just clothes on their back and some not even that. There are over half a million IDPs in the country. The resettling of the IDPs will take time and resources. Please remember to pray for them as they work towards rebuidling their lives and that somehow in this process they find the one True God who will never leave them or forsake them.

On Monday, Tony went with Vickie's class to visit a internally displaced camp- this term simply means people who are refugees in their own country. The people in this particular camp had come from Western and Northern Kenya where most of the violence had taken place. Tony visited with some of the women and listened to their stories of survival. The man in the picture below, Robinson, ran for his life when the attackers descended on him and his family. He has 9 children and also grandchildren. His whole family were separated during the skirmishes but they found each other in this particular camp. Such an amazing story. The ladies in his picture are members of his family.

Today Tony preached a powerful message, "Things to come - Part 1" - he talked about the confusion that is in the world and how the church need to hear the voice of God. He stressed on how important it is that we return to holiness and learn to listen to the voice of God and to live in a state of repentance before the Lord. He ended the service with an altar call encouraging the church to repent before God and to live for Him, and make a difference in our world today. More than half the congregation responded to the altar call. It was a good service. After that, we visited a Malaysian family whom we've gotten really close to and had lunch with them - yummy Malaysian food. It is a good day! On the home front, we have no water right now as the water tank on campus has a terrible leak and the pump has to be switched off. We hope the problem will be solved soon. The girls are getting ready for school tomorrow after their extended holiday....it might be difficult to wake them u...

Vickie and I left the house early this morning to shop for the 14 student families on campus as I wasn't sure how well stocked the stores would be. Traffic was back to normal and on Thika Road, that means bumper to bumper busy. I never thought I would be happy to be in a bumper to bumper traffic but I was!! At least, it is an indication that life is back to normal....for most people anyways. We were in the grocery store for a full two hours as we collected basic groceries items, after we were done shopping, we went to a favorite coffee shop for a break! We filled our little car with bags and bags of groceries....which we unloaded in our dining room. The girls help sort out the goodies and put them in individual bags for each families.. This is Bashir, she is from Sudan. Desta who is here with two little boys is from Ethiopia Rejoice (pretty name, huh?) from Sudan (farthest from Tony) and Beatrice from Congo. Bethlehem from Ethiopia There were other families from Rwanda, ...