Wednesday, May 1, 2013

I'm going to KENYA!



                About a year ago, I received a beautiful email from my friend, Nichole Coates, telling me about her family’s ministry in the rural area of Turkana. While reading that email, I felt my heart drawn to Kenya for the first time. She wrote:  “The people from each hut would welcome us warmly and would sometimes call their friends to come hear “what God had to say to them.” [At one hut we] found two women who had been severely burned when cooking—the skin on their legs pink, twisted, and peeling. They asked us to pray for them and afterwards, although they were not healed, they began to cry and thank God repeatedly in Ki-Turkana for coming to their hut that day…. My father and brother’s group on the first day walked into a village in which the people had never even heard the name of Jesus….. And Tabitha, the people are excited to hear! They cheer when they hear that Lazarus walked out of the tomb and clap when we tell them David knocked Goliath down. I’m always reminded through their wonder that God’s word deserves our excitement.”
                And so, beginning with that email, God has worked in awesome ways to guide me to going to Kenya myself! I will be going with SIM, an international, interdenominational mission board working in 65 countries in Africa, Asia, and South America. I will arrive in Nairobi May 13th and will be there until July 24th. While there, I will have a huge range of experiences, from city life in Nairobi to going to Turkana for a week—a two day’s drive into the bush and sleeping in tents. I will get to interact with kids in Sunday school and MK teenagers, go to the slums and teach English in a juvenile center, as well as attend a Bible study with young women and take lessons in Swahili.
To be honest, my time in Kenya will probably be most impactful on my own life. I want to do long-term missions work when I graduate from college and this opportunity is going to be a huge learning experience. Africa will be very different from my experiences in South America with my parents and I’m super excited about working under a variety of different missionaries. I will get many new ideas of how to do ministry while getting to know a different country and culture and see how God tugs at my heart, guiding and preparing me for my future.
Please pray:
 -for divine appointments and conversations. I know that any influence I have will not be of my own accord but because God has prepared encounters and the right words to be spoken.
 -that I will be teachable and able to absorb as much insight and wisdom as possible from these more experienced missionaries, growing immensely in preparation for my future in long-term missions.
 -that I would bless and encourage the Kenyans and missionaries I go to serve.

1 Peter 4:11a If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.

In His service,
Tabitha Greenwood
If the Lord leads you to invest in His work through my time in Kenya, your prayer support is crucial. If you feel called to support me financially, my need is about $5,000, including airfare, daily living expenses, and travel within the country. I have bought my plane ticket but other funds are still lacking.

For more information email me at tabitha.greenwood@gmail.com. 

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