April 2015
Grace Landmark Baptist
Church, Midiani
Brother Lynn, Clayton and I had the
privilege of being a part of the organization of Grace LBC in Midiani. Pastor
Elley has been traveling to this area for the past year working with this group
and serving as a missionary from his church in Miritini. It has been a blessing
to see how God has used Elley in establishing this work and challenging all the
churches we work with to do the same.
If anyone has an excuse not to walk two hours up and down valleys to
preach the Gospel it would be Elley, who was disabled by Polio as a child.
However, Elley does not allow his disability to hinder him or the Gospel!
Satan tried to hinder us from being a part
of this day with major car trouble, but God would not allow it and we are still
praising Him for it. This day was and will always be one of the highlights of
my entire ministry! Elley had approached me about baptizing for him to start
the church since he could not get into the water, but I refused and told him if
he would allow us, Clayton and I would be his legs so he could baptize. There
was no way that I wanted to steal the blessing of baptizing the disciples that
Elley had sacrificed so much for. What an incredible joy to be with Elley in
the water as he baptized for the first time.
Then to stand on the water’s edge as the newly baptized believers
covenanted together to organize a church was just AMAZING!
Preachers’
Fellowship Meeting
We held a fellowship meeting for all the
preachers and pastors of the churches we are working with this month. It was a well-attended,
great meeting. We had ten different preachers preach during the meeting. We
also heard from each of the churches and Bible studies about their current
needs and future plans. It was so good for everyone to be together to encourage
and challenge one another.
LBBI Hebrews Classes
Brother Lynn Raburn started teaching Bible
Institute classes going through the book of Hebrews this month. We are videoing all these classes so they will be in
digital form to be used for other classes in the future. We are grateful for
Brother Lynn working so hard on these studies and preparing everything in
Swahili.
This is the second time Brother Lynn has come
specifically to put classes on video for the work here. We still use classes he
videoed 20 years ago when he was a missionary here in Kenya; he was a little
younger in those videos. These video teachings are such a blessing for the work
we are doing to train pastors. It gives our students a variety of teachers with
deep teachings. Please pray for Brother Lynn as he continues to
work through Hebrews.
North Pre-trip
Clayton
and I took a drive North this month all the way to Hola. It was a three-hour trip
on some pretty rough roads. We did not have any meetings; we simply made the
drive to check on accessibility and distance as a pre-trip for our big survey in
May. We picked up two Border Patrol Soldiers near Hola and carried them back to
Malindi with us. It was a great chance to pick their brains, since they both
have been stationed in the area. Please pray for wisdom, discernment, and
safety as we continue to do the survey work for the future. Pray for the Munyoyaya, Orma, Wardei, and Pokomo.
We purchased a Buggy this month for trips to the bush and to save our
Land Rovers a little wear and tear.
Brother Lynn
and I traveled to Tanzania to attend John and Amber’s graduation from Language
school. Then we all returned back to Kenya together. We are so glad to have the
Straders back in Kenya!
Praise
God for a busy and amazing month of ministry. If you would like more details on
the events mentioned in this report you can read our blog at http://missionarytaylor.blogspot.com/
PO
Box 299 Monticello, AR 71657
James Taylor PO Box 811 Malindi,
Kenya 80200
Taylor Tribe
We got back from
the states with only two days to finish preparing for the Raburns’
arrival. We had gotten most of the guesthouse
ready before we left, but it needed to be cleaned and maintenance. It wasn’t perfect, but as we like to say
around here, TIA, This Is Africa. And we figured since Lynn and Brenda are pros
at being missionaries they would adjust with no problems. Once they got here they got settled in and
everyone has just been plugging along each with our own duties and
activities.
For our family it
has been test prep the whole month. Our
kids have never done standardized testing.
Since we are going to be putting the kids in school next year during our
furlough, we thought it would be good to make sure they are where they should
be. Having Ashley here has been
awesome. She has done such a great job
teaching them this year as well as getting them ready for what public school
life will be like. We are all a bit
nervous about school next year. Each of
our kids has different personalities so with that comes a whole different
perspective on how excited each kid is.
The two younger ones don’t seem to have much fear, only excitement. Lydia is the most shy of our kiddos, and she
is feeling a bit nervous about making new friends. Abigail knows she has at least one friend in
Monticello in her grade so she is only slightly nervous. Josiah is more excited than nervous as he has
been praying to go to “real” school for over a year now. And the Lord answered his prayer
specifically. Public schooling has never
been an option for us since we do so much traveling. Josiah has asked us several different times
about going, and we told him we had never felt it was right for our family with
our busy travels. The older he has
gotten the more this desire has grown in him.
So we told him that he should pray about it and ask the Lord to show us
all very clearly if this is something we should do. At the same time I have really been praying
for our kids that God would become very real to them. I want our faith to be “their” faith, very
personal and not just something our family has as a whole. So along with all of those prayers the Lord
began changing our plans and perspectives very slowly. We have started realizing the transition our
kids are in with Josiah moving back to America for college in just 4 short
years. That is only one more term on the
field with him. Also James has been
trying to work on his Masters degree for a couple years and after talking with
the Missionary Baptist Seminary, realized that the best thing was to attend
school for a full year and he would complete all that he needed to finish his
degree. The Lord really showed us that
if we were going to stay put for a year then it was very reasonable to put the
kids in school for a year. When I talked
to the kids about it, I asked Josiah if he had been praying about it; and he
answered that he had prayed every day for a year. It brought tears to my eyes as He and I both
realized that God had not only answered Josiah’s prayers to go to “real”
school, but he had answered my prayer to be very “real” and personal to the
kids. I’m thankful for the work God is
doing in our family. We are in a new
phase of life with our kids growing and maturing. Some days I get nervous and scared and wonder
if we are doing everything right. But
God always reassures me that they are His kids, and I have the privilege of
shepherding their hearts. And they do
have sweet, tender hearts. They’re not
perfect, in fact, they are very normal kids, but their hearts are still tender
towards the Lord. If they can have pure
hearts, then they will have pure actions.
Please pray for us as we prepare our kiddos for this new adventure.
We
had a very nice Easter weekend. We
started celebrating on Friday with a fun night of coloring eggs and watching a
movie. Sunday after church we hunted
Easter Eggs and watched the Passion of the Christ. The movie is so powerful each time I watch it
I just want to cry out, “STOP!” This time, however, I ended up getting
tickled at Samuel, who kept asking every time Jesus fell down, “Is he dead?”
Finally I shouted, “Samuel, it’s the story of Jesus! You know this!” I think he just got so caught up in it that
he forgot.
We
found out this month that my sister’s Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is back for the
third time. She will go through 6 more
weeks of chemo and radiation. Please
keep her in your prayers.
Thanks for reading and praying.
No comments:
Post a Comment