Missionary updates

 Greetings from Kerio, Kenya!

From Agape Ministry partners in Kenya:

Greetings from Kerio, Kenya! First of all, we, the Yaroshenko family, want to express our gratefulness for your support. We are very thankful for the help that you supply as we live and minister here. God will reward you for your faithfulness and generosity!

Our life here:

Daily life has become a little easier now. The first month was very challenging, emotionally, weather-wise, and just trying to communicate and get to know people.  By contrast, now we’ve adjusted to the weather conditions and learned how to appropriately interact with local adults and children. We’re learning the local language (Turkan) bit by bit. We need to do so because it’s the sole language spoken by the majority of the people here (around 80%).

We bought two more chairs, and I bought some boards and built us a little table to eat meals at. Also, we gathered canes that grow by the river and made a fence - to keep out chickens, sheep, goats and children  - to protect the little vegetable garden we’d planted. We also bought a larger, thicker tire for our motorcycle. Thanks to the new tire, we only had two flats over the past month and it’s like a new bike. We’re learning to do without the things that are lower priority and put our money into the absolute necessities.

 In other news: 1) We’ve got a pet now! One of the local teens brought us a baby rabbit. He was really little, but has grown and he’s grown to like us, too. 2) Pastor Jeremiah has allowed us to use his new home. We are able to cook there as well as using it for storage. 3) We’ve learned that we need to really load up on water when we bring it in from the river. 4) Victoria is doing quite well, she feels good and her pregnancy has been very easy so far.

 However, even with all the good news, we also have some unpleasant news to share with you. We had been planning to build a little house on the church property here, but we were asked to change our plans and not begin construction. The church has decided they need that bit of property to build something themselves. They suggested another spot on the church’s property, but there would be no point in building anything there. It’s in a low spot, a pit almost, and would be completely flooded every time it rains. Therefore, we talked with the head of our mission and decided to buy our own plot of land so that we won’t have to worry about being on someone else’s property that we could be kicked off at any time. Land is quite inexpensive here. Close to ¼ of an acre would cost around $1000. We decided that we would be better off waiting a bit longer before building so that we can live on our own land.

 Our ministry:

As I write this, we are in the city of Kitale. We traveled to Nairobi so that I could be fingerprinted and submit an application for a missionary visa. Over the past month, we’ve traveled a lot, seen a lot of new faces and preached in a lot of villages.

Right now our first priority is the “Children of Kerio” outreach project. We have taken complete responsibility for this project, including leadership, finances, and accountability. Our next humanitarian aid activity will be food supplies distribution during the 2nd half of June, as well as a free clinic we will be conducting with Dr. Kirill.

 We continue to help out in the village school as well as visiting neighboring villages with Pastor Jeremiah. We have helped hold three evangelistic services so far. (Interestingly enough, as we have worked with him, we learned that the locals consider our village of Kerio to be cursed.) Pastor Jeremiah, his wife Pamela and I usually visit the other villages by motorcycle, taking food and supplies to hand out. The roads are really very bad here. They are particularly bad now that the rainy season has begun. It’s raining almost every day right now. We’ve visited and preached in the villages of Nimuria, Nakuapo, Orito, Nakurio as well as one more whose name is just impossible to pronounce.

 Our visit to Orito, a village that is 7 miles or so from Kerio, was particularly interesting. We went there to distribute basic food supplies to the villagers. They have no hospital, no school, and don’t even have roads – only footpaths that lead into and out of the village. When we were in Orito, all of the mothers kept asking me to take their children. They kept trying to give them to us, so that they’d at least have a chance to eat and go to school. We run into that very often, where people are so poor, the mothers try to hand their children off to people passing through.

In one village we met a paralyzed man who was very sick. We fed him, prayed for him and witnessed to him. We also met the local mayor, whom everyone calls ‘Chief.’ He was bed ridden and we were also able to pray for him.

 Our plans:

Over the next month we plan to distribute food supplies with the “Children of Kerio” outreach project. We also want to get to know the ‘main mayor’ (they have 2 here). We plan to officially ask his permission to use local natural resources (sand, trees, sticks and clay), to continue preaching the Gospel and to continue helping Pastor Jeremiah and the villagers. 

Even though we’ve already experienced quite a few difficulties and have had to give up a lot of creature comforts we were accustomed to, we’ve yet to regret our decision to move here. We like this kind of life and domestic conditions. We’re enjoying ourselves and our desire to minister specifically to these people is intensifying with every passing day. We find ourselves wanting to do a lot of things simultaneously, but we’re trying to stick to what we can realistically carry out.

A Few Prayer Requests:

-Please pray for moral and physical support (especially for Victoria) and spiritual protection.

-Also be praying for our material and financial support. (We need funds to buy a plot of land and build a house.)

We also need a 4-wheeler, as well as a few other more expensive things that are basic necessities here.

We are very grateful to God everything that we already have, and are grateful that He has constantly been with us.

May God bless you!

With love and gratitude,

Volodya and Victoria Yaroshenko –

Agape Ministry Partners in Kerio, Kenya