Greetings from Grace Family in Cheptigit, Kenya,
We celebrate Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, but for this past month and a half, our community has been thankful for the gift of water in their homes. As a result, their hearts have been softened and ready to hear about the Good News of Jesus in the revivals that have taken place in the various villages in our community! Praise the Lord!
God sent the us, Cheromei family, back to Kenya in August 2022, and David was ordained to be a pastor July 2022! David shared with the church on Sunday the verses God gave him to focus on for this new season of pastorship at Grace Family Fellowship:
Isaiah 61:1
The Spirit of the Lord and King is on me.
The Lord has anointed me
to announce good news to poor people.
He has sent me to comfort
those whose hearts have been broken.
He has sent me to announce freedom
for those who have been captured.
He wants me to set prisoners free
from their dark cells.
Will you continue to partner with us as we follow this calling for our family? We appreciate your support and prayers as the Lord has sent us to help Grace family, our church, our community and wherever we can encourage others with God’s Truth and Jesus’ Saving Grace for all! Financially it would help for our Cheromei family to be supported around $400 a month.
It has taken us around 4 months to compose an email to you because of all of the brokenness and arguments we faced when we first arrived. Grace Family Fellowship was divided, Grace Family Educational Centre students were leaving because of the stress of fees, and Grace Family Children’s Centre needed structure and family unity. A lot of prayers, discussions, reunification, apologies, clarification and humbling has taken place with God as our guide and strength.
David has been teaching in the church (Grace Family Fellowship) how our personal relationship with God helps us to come together as the body of Christ and work together in ministry. We had a town hall type meeting with the church members when we first arrived in August to discuss all of the gossip, hurts and struggles they had experienced. It was a healing process for everything to get out in the open.
Grace Family Educational Centre has been hit hard with students needing to move to a public school because, even though our fees are low for a private school, we still have to pay our teachers and feed the children 10 am porridge and lunch. With the job shortage and the economy in Kenya, the families in the Cheptigit area find it very challenging to meet our school fees of $55 for each term (3 months of school) or $165 per year. We could lower the overall fees for our community children if we got sponsors for our great team of teachers. Would you consider helping to pay the teachers’ salaries? We are looking at $150-$200 a month to sponsor a teacher. Whatever you can give to help our school would be so greatly appreciated! We would love for more children in our community to join our school to get the quality education and Bible teaching.
Grace Family Children’s Centre currently houses Mercy Jerop, Moses Kipkoech and Paul Korir as well as our staff. We are thankful for the work of the staff in caring and guiding the children. We had to have some staff meetings since returning so that we could all be on the same page of how to raise the children and help them grow into the people God created them to be. Chores and job duty lists were reintroduced, and now we are getting back into a better groove of caring for the big house and each other. During breaks, we see Dennis, who is finishing up his senior year, Timothy and Victor Kirwa, who are juniors in high school, and Paul and Gideon, who are sophomores. We are still catching up on all the older children (now young adults of Grace Family). We thank you for your help and prayers for each of the children God brought to Grace Family for however long or short they were with us. There have been heart breaks and heart praises at different times. May God continue to provide for the children with us and those being sponsored in school.
We had some fun teams join us for God’s work. In October, Tom, Jackie, Shelia and Greg from Roanoke joined us and our community with laying more pipes for clean water in Cheptigit and the surrounding area, donating their time, lab equipment, baby clothes and baby porridge to our local health clinic, building a water tower on the property, and moving and rebuilding the playground closer to the school! God provided great weather, strength and health, encouraging conversations which lead some to Jesus, and teamwork to get the projects accomplished. Can you imagine getting clean water straight to your home instead of having to walk to a river or well in the area? This project of laying pipes has been a huge undertaking but with God leading the project, it has been wisely done to make the best use of the pipes that were donated by the Roanoke team, the Uasin Gishu county and fundraising in the villages. David was inspired to have revivals in each of the villages that the Roanoke and water project team visited to continue to awaken souls to the Lord and His work in all of our lives!
As this is written, Donna and Abbey are with us for one more day, and we have enjoyed fun art projects with the kids, lots of card and board games, fellowship with church members and uplifting conversations. I love how God brings the body of Christ together to do different work according to how He has made each of us.
The church building has been on pause since the fundraising for the roofing and the intense labor in getting the roof in place before the rainy season! Thank you for your generous support and prayers for God’s house.
It is now time for our next phases of fundraising:
CHURCH CONSTRUCTION QUOTATIONS
PHASE 4-SLAB
Marram@$480
Sand@1,680
Ballast@$2,100
Cement@$1,600
Black Tarp@$120
Mixer/vibrator rental@$100
Labor@$1,000
Sub Total: $7,080
PHASE 5-WALLS
Cement@800
Stone (Machine cut) @$4,000
Sand@$750
Hoop Iron@$100
D8 Rebar@$320
R8 Rebar@$200
Labor@1,000
Sub Total: $7,170
Total: $14,250
Yes, this was a lot to take in! We thank you for your patience in reading through our updates and your generosity and help with the ministries God has given us here in Cheptigit, Kenya. At times we are overwhelmed with all God has given us to do. We thank you for partnering with us as a mission team, financially and through powerful prayer!
Happy Thanksgiving, David and Laurel for Grace Family Ministries
Here is the donation link: Donate or http://www.graceofgodchildren.org/give/
Or send checks to:
GOGCP
C/O Jill Moore
6498 Van Ness Dr.
Viera, FL 32940
