Another new month. Time is moving so fast.
At the end of August William and I (Pamela ) will be having our normal stand at the Bangor Worldwide Missionary Convention. This is always a great opportunity to raise awareness of the work and we usually have good opportunities to speak to visitors about the ministry among the children. Normally new people sign up to our mailing list and sometimes new openings in Churches arise as a result of the week. Please pray that this year will again be fruitful and beneficial to the work. September, October and November are shaping up to be very busy months with various meetings and engagements and we very much appreciate your prayers for us as we prepare for all that the next few months holds. We are especially encouraged by bookings in venues we have never been to before. We still have a few openings around the beginning of September and also in November and early December as well as that, we have already began taking bookings for next year so please feel free to contact us if you would like us to share the work with you. William and I personally appreciate your ongoing prayers for us as our wedding draws closer. We pray that the Lord will continue to lead and guide us as we continue in ministry together as a married couple.
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We often ask you to pray for Pastor Aringo, Joyce and Moses as they represent the work in Kenya and Uganda. However, there are many volunteers who help in the ministry throughout both countries and they need your prayers also.
The volunteers have different roles. There are those in a few areas who mark the lessons and record the results for each individual child. This involves a lot of work. It can be exhausting marking lesson after lesson. Sunday Schools in the UK may often have 50 children or less; when we speak of a single Sunday School in Kenya or Uganda we could easily and often talk of 300 children. It is our desire to have more markers across the countries. We need Pastor Aringo and Joyce to travel to various areas and train people there how to mark and record results. This would ease the pressure on existing markers and would also reduce the expenses associated with returning lessons across the country. Please pray that Pastor Aringo and Joyce will have both the opportunities and resources to enable them to do this. We also have volunteers who help distribute the lessons to different centres and schools, pray for the them. We have volunteers in centres who help to teach the lessons to the children and explain to them what they need to do. Those who go into schools with Moses are volunteers as are those who assist at children's rallys. In our office, volunteers are sometimes needed to assist with the high volume of marking there. At the moment we need help in the office as there are many lessons currently needing marked. In Nairobi especially, it can be difficult to have volunteers. People often require payment for their work and often we do not have funds available for this and so we find ourselves going around in circles a little whereby we need the help but need it to be voluntarily. Please pray for all who help and assist in various forms in Kenya and Uganda. We need more people who have a vision and passion for the work we do but who are prepared to sacrificially dedicate themselves to the work without the need for payment. Please pray for this great need and for wisdom as we deal with these issues. This week we would ask you to pray for those who are studying on our email correspondence course. Currently we only have one course running which is on Child Protection.
For those of you are not familiar with the concept; the course consists of 10 assignments which focus on various topics such as the various types of Child Abuse; Recognising the signs and symptoms of abuse; What to do if a child discloses to you that they are being abused; What a children's worker can protect themselves against allegations of abuse; How to support the child who has been abused and their family and various other subjects. The current course started in January with students from Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria. In the past we have had students also from Myanmar and Tanzania. Interest has been shown from other countries also. At the beginning of each month, I, (Pamela) email the current assignment to the students. The assignments consists of background information and guidance and then a set of questions. Each assignment is marked out of 50. The students then have around 3 weeks to complete the assignment and email back their answers. They then have a week off while their assignments are marked. This brings them to the beginning of another month when the next assignment sent and the process begins again. At the end of the course, the students will receive a certificate with their overall average mark. This is also emailed to them and they can print themselves. The students can face many challenges. Finding time amongst their family, work and Church commitments can be a challenge. Finding the funds to visit the internet cafes can be another challenge....most do not have their own computers. Sometimes electricity can be a problem and so sometimes it is not possible to use the computers. At the cyber (internet café) the longer they stay, the more they pay. They also have to pay for printing out the assignments. So they have to decide can they stay long enough to complete the assignment on screen, or should they print it off to work on at home. Please pray for the students as they face these very real challenges. Pray that they will have the resources and time available. Pray that they will have the discipline to complete and return on time. Pray that what they learn will be of benefit to them in their ministry to boys and girls. The advantage to FML is that this is a very inexpensive form of ministry as it simply involves emailing. However, marking takes up a lot of time....but the answers given always impress and we learn ourselves....especially in regard to cultural issues. We would like to introduce more such courses in the future and ask that you pray to this end that we would know God's leading and guiding. Before he passed away, Cecil had been developing new courses for use in this way. As yet I have not looked at them in depth to see what work is needed to complete them and introduce them as courses, but I hope this will be something which can be done in the near future. Meantime, pray on for the students and pray that others too will be keen to learn in this way. It is holiday time here in Northern Ireland, so a few days off resulted in a break in the blog last week....but we hope you still continued to pray for us.
Schools are on holiday here but in Kenya and Uganda the learning still continues as holidays don't come until August. Please continue to remember the many children who study our lessons through their schools. It is through schools that many muslim children are learning of the Bible through our lessons. Also children of other backgrounds and religions are coming in contact with the teachings of the Bibles as a result of the Schools they attend in Uganda and Kenya. Please remember Moses in Nakuru as he continues to minister in many schools in the area on an ongoing basis. A large part of the ministry is in Government schools and this is a great opportunity to reach the children with the Gospel. Please continue to pray for us in all of the plans and preparations for our next trip. So much to do and very little time to do it. Time is flying. Here we are on the last day of another month....half way through another year. How important that we make each day count for the Lord and for Eternity.
We thank God for every opportunity to reach out to the boys and girls in Kenya, Uganda and indeed here in Northern Ireland. We continue to pray for fruit from our labours and for more opportunities to share the Gospel with the unsaved. Joyce and Pastor Aringo have been communicating regarding a larger quantity of lessons being transported from our Nairobi office to our Uganda office which would make good use of the space and make it easier for Joyce to distribute lessons in her area. Pray that God will provide for the transportation of these. As more and more centres enrol there is a need for our workers to travel more to visit them and distribute the lessons. We try to follow up the centres and be there to encourage them rather than just send the lessons and never see them, so pray that this important part of the ministry will remain possible as God provides. Our next trip is drawing closer. We would really like to get into more serious planning for it over the next few weeks and ask that you pray that we will know wisdom and guidance as to the programme. We ask you to remember William as he tries to plan for some adjustments to the office. It is more difficult as the office has changed since we were there and so his original plans will no longer work. This past week has been very busy as I was teaching and helping at the Holiday Bible School in our Church every evening and then brought the Children's talk in the morning service yesterday. The Lord really helped and over 90 children attended throughout the week. Please pray that the good seed sown will bring forth fruit and that we will hear the news of children coming to know the Saviour. For William and I, our programme of meetings has now ended until the end of August when we will be at the Bangor Worldwide Missionary Convention. From now until then we will be continuing with other FML work and planning for our next trip but will not be available for meetings. We have some spaces for meetings during the first two weeks in September (contact us if you are interested) and then we are fully booked again until the end of October. We have limited availability throughout November and December due to other bookings so please act fast if you would like us to share with you then. The countdown to our wedding is getting lower....we continue to appreciate your prayers as we take this next step in our lives and ministry. One aspect of ministry we always enjoy when in Kenya and Uganda is the teacher training. This is when Pastors, Sunday School Teachers and Children's Workers come together to be helped and trained on how to reach children. We cover topics like teaching a Bible Lesson, teaching a Memory Verse and Counselling a child for Salvation. Sometimes our training lasts for one day, sometimes it is held over a few days or even a week depending on circumstances. It is always a time of great benefit and we as teachers always learn from the students taking part. The students are usually greatly involved and there is usually a very practical...and fun...element to our training.
We have come to realise that the demand for this ministry is great across the countries. We plan to have this developed more and Pastor Aringo, Joyce and Moses hope to be able to train more in the future rather just myself (Pamela). Over the next few months I am developing a new programme for them to use. They will be trained themselves in the programme during our next trip and they will then be able to go and train others. Please pray for all of this preparation and pray that many will benefit as a result. Pray also that those requesting the training will have patience to wait until it is all available at the end of the year. We realise that we need the Lord's help each and every day in our personal lives as well as in our ministry. There are times when we are more conscious than others that we need His help and enabling and we feel so very inadequate. We feel we are in that place at the moment. This week I am involved in a Holiday Bible School in what is now my Church. (I have moved to the Church William was brought up in and where we will be married.) Today, Monday, I will teach the Bible Lesson and then I will be responsible for teaching and reviewing memory verses on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I will also be involved each day with a particular age group helping them with their worksheets which are based on the lessons. William has a lot of work on at the moment and is planning new promotional literature for FML. We are both busy over coming weeks with wedding preparation and family and friends calling to see us in anticipation of the event. Please pray for our entire team in Uganda, Kenya and here in Northern Ireland. We greatly need your prayers and the Lord's help in all we do. Please continue to pray for the country of Kenya in these days when the security threat is so great. Pray that there will be peace and stability and that the Christians especially will know God's protection. We thank God for the continued privilege of serving Him in Feed my Lambs. It is great to play a part in reaching boys and girls for the Saviour. We are thankful for our team in Kenya and Uganda and ask that you continue to pray for each one of them.
You are familiar with Pastor Aringo in the Nairobi office, Joyce in Uganda and Moses in Nakuru. In addition we have many people in different areas who assist us by helping to distribute the lessons and also marking the lessons. We would ask you to pray for them and indeed for the need of more markers as these are needed in each locality to avoid long journeys being necessary to collect and return lessons. We are approaching July. It will be 8 years since Feed my Lambs was formed and launched in Kenya. The Lord has brought us through many different circumstances, joys, encouragements, challenges and disappointments along that road, but we continue to trust Him to be our guide for the days which lie ahead. Many of you will have heard it remarked that we were hoping for 100 children to enrol on the lessons when we first started. Today thousands have studied our lessons, we have trained adults, we are working in almost every corner of Kenya and in Malaba, Jinja, Kampala and some areas in between in Uganda. Surely God has been good to us in allowing us this opportunity of serving Him. Here in Northern Ireland the next few weeks will be very busy as we have some meetings to attend and I am also involved in a Holiday Bible School. There will be much preparation for that this week. Our availability for meetings over the coming months is now very limited. Apart from the first few weeks in September when we have some spaces for meetings; we are fully booked until the beginning of November. Should you wish us to share with you this year, please consider contacting us as soon as possible. Thank you for your continued prayers for us. We value your support. Well I am glad to be writing this blog today...a little later than normal as my internet connection in the office was playing up on me. Just about everything which could go wrong, did go wrong. But I got here eventually.
Joyce had a good time with Pastor Joshua and she said the children are very happy with the lessons. I will be calling her later to hear more. We are discussing the best option regarding another area which she also covers. All is well in the Nairobi office in Kenya and Pastor Aringo continues to be busy. One of those who helps him in the office is moving upcountry and so will be leaving next month. Please pray for the right person to fill the gap. Moses continues to be busy with the school ministry and we appreciate prayer as we discuss some changes in that area and seek God for the best way forward. William continues to be busy with farming and coming up with many good ideas for the future of the work. He is a very organised, practical and logical thinker and very good at finding solutions to issues we face. He looks forward to continuing to represent the work here and is planning for our next trip and long term future in the work. I have tried to do a little more work this morning on the dictionary to help with the difficult words in the KJV version, but with the computer problems, I didn't get just as much done as I had hoped. My role while here in the UK is very much administrative and I sometimes get frustrated when people, even in other missionary organisations do not communicate. The need for guidance, wisdom and provision is still vital and we ask you to pray for direction in each aspect of the work. These past days have been busy for Joyce in Uganda. On Sunday she visited Churches in Busia who have children enrolled on our lessons. This area is close to the border between Uganda and Kenya. Later this week she will travel to meet with Pastor Joshua. He was the first to enrol children on the lessons in Uganda. We had the privilege of meeting him and visiting his school when we were in Uganda last July. We remember our journey there very well. It was a very hot day and as you turn off the main road you pass many very traditional African houses and huts with grass roofs. As you approach the brightly coloured traditional uniforms of Uganda school children stand out and let you know you are almost there. To reach his place is not easy as, for Joyce, it will necessitate a ride on the back of a motorbike....with one, if not two children, with her! Indeed, one of those little ones, Blessing, just turned 3 years of age a few days ago. Please continue to pray for this little family. We are so looking forward to seeing Blessing again and meeting Joseph for the first time when we return in the near future.
Of course the needs of the work continue to be a matter for prayer. This month has been very slow financially. In fact, one of the slowest ever. We would ask you to pray for the needs. Apart from the ongoing urgent need of Bibles, there are many everyday running costs for the ministry in UK, Kenya and Uganda. Things like office rent, phone calls, travel to places like we have mentioned above...all of these things are necessary. Please make these needs a matter of priority as we really need to see God break through on this issue. Thank you for another week of your prayers for us and the work of FML. I have just emailed our latest prayer letter. If you would like to receive a copy please contact me. Copies can also be posted if you provide us with your home address.
Please pray for Joyce as she will travel this week to a school we visited when in Uganda. This particular school was the very first to have lessons in that particular country. Pray for the ongoing financial needs of the work. Donations can be made via the link at the bottom of the home page or by cash, cheque or moneygram. If you are a UK tax payer it may be possible for us to claim Gift Aid on your donation. Please contact us for more details. Thank you to all who do contribute in this way. We will be having another clothes collection in a few weeks time; so please, if you are in Northern Ireland; consider donating some of your new or used adult or children's clothes, bags, shoes, curtains, bedding etc. We are always keen to have opportunities to share the work of FML and have bookings into next year. However, availability is limited over the coming months so please contact us as soon as possible if you would like to book us. |
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August 2022
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