Final preparations are being made for the April 18th mission

We learned on Easter Sunday that the Kenya Supreme Court had upheld the results of the March 4th presidential election.  This was especially good news for our mission team, since our LCMS team in Nairobi believes that this development means that things should remain calm during our stay there later this month.  We are very proud of the Kenyan people for the way they have shown the world that peaceful, strongly contested elections can be held there.  They are a great example for fledgling democracies.

We have also learned that our destination will be the Lutheran Church in Kiambu, the site of our last mission to Kenya in November.  It is in the coffee and tea plantation area just to the north of Nairobi. This will be a real blessing, as one of the primary tenets of our project is to do short term missions with long term commitments, meaning that we visit a number of the same locations on a regular basis, building relationships with the Pastor and his congregation at each place as we work together to spread the Gospel message.  It is our strong belief that the church, even Redeemer in Austin, is not the bricks, stained glass and other parts of the physical structure but instead is made up of the people of God.  Thus, our approach makes good sense because these missions bring many benefits to both the congregations and communities we serve as well as to the people who make up our mission teams and Redeemer.  The local churches get the opportunity to reach large numbers of people with the Good News while also partnering with us in meeting human needs such as vision or dental care.  We in turn are blessed by making Christian friends from another culture who have a very deep and unshakeable faith.  And, when we return to Austin and Redeemer, we are even more enthusiastic than before in our volunteering and witnessing, both at Redeemer and in the community at large.  This leads to even more people wanting to participate with us in the Vision for Kenya project and our team members always report that their faith has grown in leaps and bounds as a result of their service in the mission field.