Missionary updates

 Seeds of faith 

From an Agape partner in Kenya:

Hello!
My name is Tanya Fedorchuk. I am serving as a missionary in Kitale, Kenya.
I'd like to start off by sharing two facts about Kenya:

-With only 50 years of freedom, Kenya has slowly been progressing, building up their economy. Poverty is still high, especially in remote areas.

-Statistically speaking, the percentage of Kenyans who consider themselves Christian is 98%. However, as missionaries we strongly believe that the percentage of born again Christians in Kenya is at most  7%.

You see, for years now, missionaries have come to Kenya and other parts of Africa to hold huge evangelistic crusades. Many people heard about Jesus, but few actually understood the Truth and followed it. Coming up to the people, you may often hear, "Yes of course I believe in Jesus!" But judging by their lives, we could easily come to the opposite conclusion. I strongly believe that this same description would fit many Americans. We can quickly say that we believe, but faith without action is dead and for the most part, we choose to not follow the teachings of Christ.

Our Heart of Help ministry team focuses on raising up Kenyan leaders. We are able to do so through our Home Groups, Youth Services, Education Program, Orphanage of 15 children, Widow's Kitchen and Homeless Ministry. Jesus spent 3 years investing in His disciples' lives. They followed Him, listened to His teachings, and practiced what He had taught. In the same way - when we spend time with these folks we are able to invest in their lives. We teach them, spend time with them, take them to the nearby clinic to learn to share the Word and pray for children, feed the orphaned children as the Word teaches us to do, and we invest into their education so that they may grow in wisdom and find a way out of poverty.

To be clear, I don't at all criticize evangelists. They did their part of planting the seeds of God's Word. Our part now is to water and care for them. And as the Word of God says, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few." There is definitely hope for these people. They recognize who God is, but it takes watering to help these baby sprouts of faith to grow into mature plants which will continue to produce fruit. It's my cry to God that more and more people will start embracing this call to service that has been entrusted to us here in Kenya.