Support Letter

Dear Friends and Family,

I am so excited to share with you all that I am going to Elangata Enterit in Kenya this summer with sweet friends involved in our college campus ministry, Campus Christian Fellowship! We will be flying out of the United States on June 22^nd and will return on July 6^th.

Campus Christian Fellowship became the sole supporter of a school of over 600 children in rural Kenya called Elangata Enterit (“Dry Crossing”). We have committed to sending $600 each month to provide school supplies, dormitories, food, water, clothing, and transportation for teachers to receive paychecks. In addition to sending them financial support, CCF has been faithful to go, providing an opportunity to see how the money is being used and to share with the school’s children and teachers Jesus’ love. We want our support of Elangata Enterit to be a relationship through the common goal of glorifying God and serving the least of these.

Is it helping?? Before CCF supported Elangata Enterit, it was one of the lowest scoring schools in the region. The school is now in the top two or three. One of the OVCs (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) was one of the highest scoring on his national exams and is now attending a quality secondary school in Kisii, a larger town in Kenya. The percentage of girls attending school has been steadily increasing, currently up to 15 percent of the highest grade (significantly higher than other maasai schools in the district). What exciting work the Lord is doing here!

God uses more than just the people going. He uses the entire Church to move in big ways, and I would love to invite you to be a part of it! First, our team will need to be covered in prayers: Prayers for encouragement, health, and hearts that are anxious to love and be changed. Elangata Enterit will need prayers: That they will see Jesus in our team, that they will know He is their provider, and that more people in the community would accept Him as Savior. Pray that the trip glorifies God and furthers His kingdom.

Second, we need to be supported financially. I need to raise $3,745 for the trip. God is so faithful to provide, and I am confident He will use His church to get our team there. If you would like to support our team financially, please send a check to 912 E. Randolph St., Kirksville, MO 63501, made out to New Mission Systems International (NMSI). It is beautiful to me to see my friends and family partner with our team to serve in Jesus’ name.

Any news, prayers, and thoughts about the trip are on http://elangataenterit.blogspot.com/ and will be updated as often as possible. Feel free to check it out!

Love,

Katherine Kennison

Anxiety vs. Big God

June 22nd is getting closer! My support letters have gone out and I've gotten responses from several people. We baked about every kind of dessert for Saturday night's "Coffeehouse," a variety show for CCF's Parent's Weekend, and asked for donations for the trip. It was encouraging to have a couple people say they were sending financial support. Overall, though, this process has been terrifying. I am still waiting for $1,895 in the next two weeks and $3,295 before the end of May. Very little money has come in so far.

I was telling my roommates last night that this semester has been one of learning for the seven thousandth time what it means to trust God. I'm graduating in May and have had to be very flexible about money for graduate school, roommates for an apartment, and the decision of where I should be in the fall. These things have definitely given me some real anxiety and feel pretty small, but in many ways, they've been a reminder of how faithful the Lord has been in the past and how he will continue to be so next year. 

Raising money for a trip to Kenya seems totally disconnected from this trust in my mind! The idea of trusting God to bring in the money has felt pretty elusive. So all I've been able to do is ask God for more faith and ask him to provide. I will get to see his faithfulness regardless of the outcome, either in Kenya or in the U.S., wherever he puts me. God is BIG. He is so capable of pouring out all the funding we need or keeping me here for other reasons. He is all knowing and has designed this summer with my good and his glory in mind. He knows what the people of Elangata Enterit need and how our group will work together. He is so much bigger than me. So I can rest in him.

Our team is now finalized and we have been enjoying getting to know each other and talking about details of the trip, from the kinds of spiders we should expect to how the village views Jesus. I'm so looking forward to getting to know this group better and sharing some incredible experiences together.

Please pray that God will bring peace about raising support, that I will grow in faith from this process, and that he will provide the funds to send our team if that's his will. Pray that our hearts would be prepared for his plan and open to glorifying him in whatever capacity he chooses. Pray for the boys, girls, and teachers in Elangata Enterit, that they would continue to witness his faithfulness to their village and that they would have food, clean water, and a quality education. Pray that his name would be made known there as Savior and Lord.

Help my Unbelief

I am SO excited to be starting the long process of preparing for the trip to Kenya. God's been nudging me in this direction all year, and it feels wonderful to finally give a definite yes to those nudges. I know I'll be changed by this trip, and I know God will use us to give love and encouragement to the school at Elangata Enterit.

At the same time, I have gotten to see my lack of faith so clearly the past two months. As Kenya has turned from a vague thought to actually choosing dates and writing support letters, I have felt so insufficient. I've worried that I'll either be a tearful wreck the entire trip or a stone-cold, rich, snobby college student to these people. I've been scared that it will ruin my life or that it won't change it at all. I've worried that the trip will not be helpful to the teachers or students, that I won't be bold enough speaking about Jesus, and that the trip just won't happen at all.

This is where I should say I've gotten over all these worries by trusting the Lord's faithfulness and remembering how much he's provided for me throughout my life. So far I'm still just scared. So today, I guess my big prayer is that God would help my unbelief. I want to believe that he is a strong, good God who is far more interested in loving these people than I am, and will remember them far longer than I will. I also want to believe that he is interested in changing my heart to look like his, and that he loves it when I ask to love more like him.

And while I ask for a stronger faith in who the Lord is, I will also ask him to be taking care of his people in Elangata Enterit. They are praying for...

-Housing for 10 teachers

-4 additional classrooms (enrollment at the school has now exceeded over 600, and the demand for new classrooms is growing)

-10 toilets for girls

-Water Supply System

-Clearing six acres for farming around the school

-Building a permanent gate

-6 dairy goats and 6 dairy cows

-A 20% academic improvement yearly

Please pray that money for our team would begin to arrive and that God would prepare our hearts to be changed.

I love you all.