October 2024
We are seeing abundant fruit from our investment in planting Child Evangelism Fellowship Bible clubs in Western Kenya. In November 2024, we sponsored Evangelizing Children training for 20 teachers at Lumino, and in April 2024, we sponsored the second course, Discipling Children, for these teachers. Today, those who attended this training are conducting CEF Good News Club across the area. Almost 1,300 students regularly attend these clubs, and 148 of them have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
The four teachers we sent to the CEF Leadership Training Institute are nearing the completion of their 11-week training. We have been touched by the sweet notes we have received from them. Prisca Nthenya wrote, “I thank the almighty God that after waiting many years without finances to attend LTI. God provided, through a big miracle, my being one of this year’s LTI students. Being a Sunday school teacher and chairperson for the Garissa Interdenominational Sunday School Teachers Fellowship, my pastor, family, and friends prayed many years for me [to be able to attend LTI]. Thank you for paying my fees. When I go home, through God guidance, I will reach the unreached children and lead seminars to train teachers.”
August 2024
We sponsored our second one-day introductory seminar on Child Evangelism Fellowship’s training program to equip teachers to lead Bible clubs for children. Twenty-one people attended, and all of them enrolled for the 8-day Evangelizing Children training in November. Again, the training was held in the library we built at Lumino Primary School. Mary Kithuure led the training. The seminar included a life-changing evangelistic Bible lesson. After the teaching, one of the attendees, Ian Musina, asked to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal savior. He came to learn how to lead children to Christ, but after truly hearing the Gospel for the first time, he realized he had never dedicated his own life to Christ. Mary also had the opportunity to interact with some of the teachers who, having gone through CEF’s Evangelizing Children and Discipling Children training in earlier classes, are now leading Good News Clubs in the region.
Mary continually travels across Kenya sharing the Gospel with children. Last month, she and her team of CEF missionaries, went to Maasai Land. They reached over 300 children, with 150 of them receiving the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior. They handed out some of the Bibles we had given Mary.
May 2024
In May, we visited Kongoni Primary School to distribute items from the container, take food, and share the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ. While there, our team got to drop in on the Good News Club led by Madam Matere’s, who was trained at the November 2023 and April 2024 sessions we sponsored at Lumino.
June 2024
We had the joy of meeting via Zoom with Millicent Awour and Prisca Nthenya, who have decided to become fulltime missionaries with Child Evangelism Fellowship in Kenya. We believe so strongly in the effectiveness of CEF’s ministry in evangelizing and discipling children, that we paid for these dear ladies, along with two others, to attend the Leadership Training Institute’s 11-week course. This training at the CEF headquarters in Nairobi will qualify them to serve as teachers and trainers with CEF.
Meet Millicent Awour
She is a graduate teacher, who lives in Western Kenya with her husband, Collins, and daughter, Ivanna. Millicent teaches Sunday School and Collins is on the Praise and Worship Team in their local church. After attending the CEF Evangelizing Children and Discipling Children training sessions we sponsored last year, Millicent started a Good News Club which has 42 children attending regularly; 30 of these children have made professions of faith in Jesus Christ. Raised by her sickly mother, who struggled to provide for her family after her husband’s death, Millicent was forced to drop out of high school for lack of funds. The generosity of an acquaintance, and later her principal, enabled her to continue her studies. When she considered God’s goodness in providing her with the gift of an education, she gave her life to Jesus at a Christian Challenge when she was 15. She has been growing in faith and serving Him ever since. We are delighted to be able to fund her training and to plant a fulltime CEF missionary in the Western Region of Kenya.
Meet Prisca Nthenya
The four teachers we sent to the CEF Leadership Training Institute are nearing the completion of their 11-week training. We have been touched by the sweet notes we have received from them. Prisca Nthenya wrote, “I thank the almighty God that after waiting many years without finances to attend LTI. God provided, through a big miracle, my being one of this year’s LTI students. Being a Sunday school teacher and chairperson for the Garissa Interdenominational Sunday School Teachers Fellowship, my pastor, family, and friends prayed many years for me [to be able to attend LTI]. Thank you for paying my fees. When I go home, through God guidance, I will reach the unreached children and lead seminars to train teachers.”
January 2024
We received reports that the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) training we sponsored in November was bearing abundant fruit. The attendees had established ten Good News Clubs (GNC) and three school ministries, and the teachers are meeting regularly for prayer. The container includes many boxes of supplies, Bibles, Sunday school kits, plus TVs and DVD/CD players to help equip the teachers for these
We completed our 2024 plans for expanding the number of Bible clubs in Western Kenya. Our plans included
- Hosting the CEF Discipling Children training course in April for the 20 teachers who completed the EvangelizingChildren training in 2023.
- Hosting the CEF Evangelizing Children course in November for 20 more teachers.
- Sponsoring 4 teachers to attend the 11-week Leadership Training Institute in Nairobi in preparation to become fulltime CEF workers.
- Sending 20 teenagers from Western Kenya to Nairobi for 10 days of Christian Youth in Action training on how to conduct 5-Day Clubs (vacation Bible schools). These Bible clubs are for younger children and are led by a teacher and 3-4 teens. Each team conducts clubs during the Kenyan school breaks, meeting in a park, a school yard, or a home.
November 2023
We funded and facilitated a 9-day Evangelizing Children course, which was led by Mary and her team who traveled to Western Kenya from Nairobi. Twenty teachers attended every day, and each has committed to hosting Christmas Party Clubs and GNCs in their homes, schools, or churches. Walter Likuyani, a member of our Kenyan Project Team and a teacher at Lumino School, has already started a club at Lumino with 56 children participating.
The teachers expressed heartfelt appreciation for the excellent program CEF has developed to give them the skills necessary to share the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ with children clearly and effectively. They are looking forward to the second course, Discipling Children, which was planned for April 2024. We also established a plan with CEF to provide the Evangelizing Children class to another 20 teachers in November 2024, so the number of GNCs could spread across the western region of Kenya where Bible clubs for children are extremely rare.
Mary Kithuure, who has dedicated her life to bringing children into a new and ever-deepening relationship with Jesus Christ, took advantage of her time in Western to conduct 3 Christmas Party Clubs. One party was for the youth who had come to Lumino in the evenings to play. After hearing the message of salvation, 28 youths received the Lord as their Savior. Mary also conducted clubs at Abundant Faith Church and AIC Lumino Church on Sunday. She reported, “What a joy to have a rich harvest,” since 70 children accepted Christ during those parties. Our Kenyan Team has been faithful to follow up with these young people, helping to plug them into churches and encouraging them to become well-grounded in their faith.
July 2023
Four years ago, we started discussions with Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) regarding starting Good News Clubs (GNCs) in Kenya. After a long delay due to COVID, we hosted our first CEF event at Lumino School in Western Kenya in 2023. “Excitement, Excitement, Excitement!!” was the subject of Mary Kithuure’s email providing an update on the seminar attended by 17 teachers. Mary, CEF Kenyan Ministry Director, led the seminar with a team of 3 other trainers. During this day-long event she introduced CEF’s initiatives to evangelize and disciple children. Mary was excited because all of the attendees agreed to reach children in their areas with the gospel of Christ through Good News Clubs, Sunday school, and other ministry opportunities. They joyfully agreed to attend 8 days of hands-on training in mid-November 2023 to learn how to effectively share the gospel with children and lead them into an ever-deepening walk of faith.
Our teams in the US and Kenya shared Mary’s excitement, and we went to work securing the needed materials and venue for the training and ongoing ministry activities. Several years earlier, we had built and furnished a library at the Lumino School for Disabled children, and this became the perfect location to host CEF events. We are grateful to their staff for making this library available for the seminar and the November training.
