The past couple months have brought some exciting events. We thank you for your continued prayers and support that allow us to do God’s work in Kenya.

I was reminded recently that God will use even the smallest interaction to begin changing someone’s life. A young man visited the church a while ago, and I asked how he heard about the church. He told me that one day I said hi to him while I was driving into the church. Teddy lives in an apartment just behind the church. Since his first visit, he has received Christ and been fully committed to the church and all of our activities. I hope to baptize him, along with several others who have recently trusted Christ. One of those is a young man named Andrew. He came to church and raised his hand during invitation, and I was able to lead him to Christ. Just three weeks ago, a 16-year-old young lady named Joy came to church after being invited over a year ago. Since receiving the invite, we have changed locations, but she still found us. She raised her hand during the invitation, and my wife was sweetly able to lead her to the Lord. All three of these young people have joined our Bible institute.

Recently, we were blessed with a visit by a group from Teaching All Nations. God had been stirring a desire in our hearts to start a Bible institute at our church. I wasn’t sure how many people would commit to attending, but God did. On Saturday night, we had a service to introduce the institute, and on Sunday, we had an afternoon service doing a sample TAN lesson. We had 24 people attend, well above my expectation of 2. We are now averaging about 15 every week at the institute.

With the group visiting, we took the opportunity to host a Ladies’ Meeting. Elizabeth was excited to be able to host and be a blessing to other missionary ladies, national pastors’ wives, and other local ladies. Initially, we thought we might have about 40 ladies come. As time went on, we were able to invite churches we didn’t previously have contact with, and our expectation grew to 80. A couple of days before the meeting, we had more ladies RSVP, and our number grew to 100. The actual number of ladies who attended was 127, representing 12 churches. My wife had several local ladies visit who had never come to church. It was a wonderful meeting. Robin and Cecia Ogle, along with the entire TAN group, were such a blessing. The spirit of the group was very sweet. We had several ladies ask us when the next meeting was going to be. One of the biggest blessings of the meeting was seeing several men from our church take the day off from work to cook for and serve the ladies.

We have now been in Kenya for six years! We praise God for sustaining us and using us to do His work. A lot has changed in these six years. In the first place, our ministry focus has changed. Upon being full-time in Kenya, we realized working with national pastors was not the best use of our time. Are you familiar with the phrase, “You can’t teach old dogs new tricks”? After seven months of working alongside national pastors, we came to this conclusion, and God led us to start and pastor a soul-winning, Bible-believing church as a model for church plants to come. With starting a church came the unplanned expenses of church rent.

Secondly, in the last six years, living expenses in Kenya have risen by 25%. Thirdly, our family has grown by two, but what impacts us most is that our children who were once nine, seven, five, three, and one are now
fifteen, thirteen, eleven, nine, six, four, and one. They warn you about it, but you are never fully ready for that teenage appetite.

In the coming weeks, I will emailing be my missionary information packet to like-minded churches in an effort to raise the additional monthly support necessary for continuing our work here in Kenya. Please join us in praying that this need will be met and that God’s work here can continue to grow and flourish.

Upcoming Events

• Church Yard Sale – June
• Vacation Bible School – June
• Youth Conference – August
• Regional Church Fellowship (hosting approximately 12 churches and 300 people) – September

Upcoming Ministry Opportunities

• We have a desire to start a radio station with conservative music, preaching, and teaching. We will need to purchase a computer to stream 24/7.
• Jesus Film outreach
• National Pastors’ Conference in rural Kenya.

Your missionaries,

Corey and Elizabeth McDonald and Family