An Amazing Adoption Conference!

Jambo (hello) from Kenya!
We are so busy here - we have adoption workshops every day! I am teaching on God's Heart for the Orphan, Jennifer is teaching on Spiritual Warfare in Orphan Care, and we are both leading an interactive exercise (The Tree) in identifying and solving problems locally. Others are teaching on economic development and empowerment and holistic child development.



The Children's Officer from the Adoption Society (the government agency that approves all adoptions) came to speak, as well as Kenyans who have adopted. There were 300 adoptions in Kenya last year, 190 from International families (but not the US), so only 110 adoptions by Kenyans! We are praying for that Kenyan number to multiply by ten next year and by hundreds or thousands in the next 5 years!

The quality and passion of our Kenyan leadership team is humbling and wonderful! The conferences are opening people's hearts to the idea of adoption and God is spreading the seeds like crazy! So many of the participants have given amazing testimonies of how the conference has opened their hearts and minds to adoption that they have never considered before.

Several comments that the participants have shared:

"I never thought about adoption and that I could love an orphan as my own. But now I'm wondering, maybe I can"

"I've been waiting all my life to have someone challenge my thinking that way"

One of the leadership team is a pastor that I served with last year. Pastor Mercy reminded me of our last night in Kenya last summer; how we sat over dinner and my daughters and I shared our vision for Kenyans adopting Kenyan orphans and now it is coming to pass! Jennifer and I are overwhelmed by God's heart for these orphans and vulnerable children and so incredibly blessed to be a part of this.

On the way home from our workshop today, the team was talking about planning a nationwide adoption fair where all orphanages and children's homes would have children available for adoption along with the government agencies with all the paperwork forms and counseling to get the children adopted. It is absolutely incredible to be a part of this team!

These are families with vulnerable children who received food from the church (and us) during our visit.

We also fed young children at the church with some of the funds from the North Coast children's ministries. The children were so adorable and were so blessed by the meal!

We have another workshop tomorrow, then Friday we travel to the slums, to several orphanages to feed children. Saturday is another workshop and Monday we are attending the first day of training for DCPI (Dynamic Church Planting International) at our host church. I still have a burning passion to get DCPI to include training for children's ministry leaders in their church planting curriculum and will be sharing my passion with the DCPI founders who will be here in Kenya on Monday ;) They will be a captive audience!

Please continue praying for travel safety and good health while we are in Kenya and for God to continue to open hearts and minds and homes to Kenyan orphans.
Blessings!

Ready for the Conference!

After a looooonnnnng 22 hours of flying we are settled into our guest house in Nairobi.
It is so wonderful to be here again!
We met with part of our leadership team yesterday - Bishop Kamau and Rachel - an amazing woman with a huge heart for struggling single moms and children - she's my new hero!

We took Rachel to dinner and we were eating lunch outside on the patio when a huge storm rolled in! Thunder and lightening and a total downpour - very cool! So we moved inside and waited for it to finish before heading home.

Heading to church this morning then meeting with the rest of the leadership team this afternoon. Our first conference is in Nairobi tomorrow. There are some incredible people lined up to speak at the conference - please continue praying for God to open hearts and minds and for seeds of adoption to be planted.

Jennifer sat next to a Kenyan on the last leg of our flight who lives in CA now, but supports an orphanage outside of Kenya. He was thrilled to hear our reason for visiting Kenya and God totally opened his heart to get his children adopted! We can't wait to follow up when him back home and continue working with him. A divine appointment.

Jambo!

God's Heart for Orphans

When we travel to Kenya, we will serve with a leadership team at the local church. We have been praying together for the last 9 months about this Giant that we are coming against. This giant problem of millions of orphans with no families.

Our time in Kenya will be spent in prayer, learning, teaching, brainstorming, exploring and facilitating. We are leading workshops with the local team to discover what they see as the biggest problems and how they might attack them. We've been inspired by Elizabeth Styffe and Steve Rutenbar at Saddleback Church, and by the authors of Helping Without Hurting and Orphanology to name a few great resources. We have learned so much in preparation for this work.

But we still feel overwhelmed, humbled and insufficient. As we turn to God and seek His power and purpose we are excited, willing and amazingly calm! We feel so ready to see God work within us and through us and through the team in Kenya to change the world for orphan children!

We know that God will guide us each step. He is strong and He is trustworthy and He loves these orphan children so very passionately! Everything that He has taught us through all He has taken us through in our lives and ministry has prepared us for such a time as this!

Last summer, after 4 years of planning and postponed trips, my daughters and I finally made it to Kenya! We had been supporting 2 orphanages in Nairobi and Kisumu for 7 years and now were finally able to visit. We served with Cornerstone Faith Assembly and had the most amazing trip!

Their children's ministry team was already pretty awesome, and it was a lot of fun to train 30 of their young ministry leaders in children's ministry topics. We also trained them in all aspect of putting on a VBS and we put on a 3 day VBS together. It was a blast and a great success! We left behind a fully trained ministry team that could lead a large VBS with ease.
We spent some time training the 2-5 year old teachers, providing tools, resources and encouragement to them.

And we led a parenting seminar with parents from the church. Many of their questions were similar to the ones that parents have here, but they also asked about basic issues like discipline and trying to understand the stages of development.

The most profound impact for us was actually visiting a church plant that had a school for children living in poverty and another abandoned baby home. These touched our hearts because they were just a small example of the many needs of the Kenyan children. Hearing the stories of the babies abandoned in public latrines, by riverbanks and in the bush broke our hearts. I can't even imagine the desperation of a mother who leaves her child out in the open to die.

My daughters and I sat over tea after visiting St. Anne's Baby and Children's Home, musing over what we had seen and heard. We felt God calling us to continue working with children in Kenya in a different way. We believe He wants us to help Kenyans adopt to these orphan children. Thus the vision was born that has blossomed into our trip to Kenya this summer!
Details of our 2010 trip to Kenya are in the blog below.

http://3kingsinkenya.blogspot.com/