Watching Doors Open in Kenya - Tim Hunt, Chairman

Heart for Africa will serve in its fourth African country in 2007 after God threw the doors to Kenya wide open.

The team exploring options spent from Nov. 22 to Nov. 29 in Kenya meeting with potential partners and discussing how we could work together. Heart for Africa Vice-President Janine Maxwell led the North American team which also included new operations director, Rob Shoemaker, and board Chairman Tim Hunt.

We invited the leaders of our two Swazi partner children’s homes, El Shaddai and New Hope, to join us in Kenya as well as Lad Chapman (Heart for Africa Country Manager in Swaziland).

We visited inspiring programs run by African Enterprise in one of the major slums in Nairobi and then traveled to Ndalani to spend three days at the Mully Children’s Family Home. We also visited the sister facility a few miles away at Yatta where Mully is teaching practical skills to teen-aged mothers so they have a way to earn an income. Seeing what God is doing at the Mully Family inspired all of us, particularly when you see kids from toddlers to teen-agers all coming together to celebrate what Jesus has done for them.

We returned to Nairobi for meetings that would transform the trip. The first was with Dr. Meschach Ong’uti, founder of "Help a Child Face Tomorrow", is a specialist who has been a leader in pro-bono cleft-pallet repair for kids. Dr. Meschach explained his plans for a medical mission team in Kisii, a very poor region of Kenya about two hours from the capital city of Nairobi.

The next meeting was with Bishop David Thagano from Glory Outreach Assembly (GOA) whose ministry has six pillars including evangelism and discipleship. The bishop was very excited as he had just returned from a hugely successful evangelism drive and was dispatching an emergency discipleship team to the area to spend a month working with the new believers. His enthusiasm and passion was contagious and inspiring.

Janine pulled out a map and asked where the evangelism campaign was, it was located about 25 miles from where Dr. Meschach already was working. Incidentally, Dr. Meschach’s group already has a list of more than 150 orphans in the target area. Bishop David was interested in expanding into that area, but thought a medical mission would really help draw people.

In 2007 we have 3 trips planned for Kenya partnering with GOA and Dr. Meschach's medical teams to bring H.O.P.E. to the area of Kisi. A medical mission will be included in each of these so we are actively looking for Doctor's and any medical professionals to join us. The first team will leave on July 9th and is being specially designed trip called the NextGen Team where parents and teenagers can go to Kenya and serve side by side. The other teams will travel in October and November. Please consider joining us for this important work.

God is moving and He’s using us in His efforts. Praise Him and join us in 2007.