Fundraising - the "raisers" prospective

FACT - we have 37 children in the sponsorship program of Neighbors Outreach Worldwide. Fact - Len and I serve God and as such, had to give up our jobs in the US to do what He has asked of us. Fact- we focus on widows and orphans living in poverty in Kenya. Fact - we provide bible studies for a wide age range of people in our community. Fact - the vocational training center will open mid to late 2015. Fact - God provided all of these opportunities.

FACT - out of sight out of mind - so when I am in Africa, y'all might forget about me.... can't have that

FACT - in order to do all of this, it takes money. While we do our best to be proper stewards of each and every dime we receive, there is always a need.

FACT - I detest asking anyone for money, talking about money. The only thing I like about money is counting it ( goes back to my old bank teller days.) So when you see me while I am here in the US the last thing I want to do is ask for money. But it is necessary.

FACT - without the help of our friends and family, this ministry will wither away. And so I thank God for each and every one of you every single day.

FACT - though I like to, I am not always able to write a note of thanks to everyone. I send quick emails from time to time ( our closest friends understand they won't be getting a note every time they donate) and then I try to write. There are days however, when all my plans fall apart and you may not see a thank you for weeks, even months. What I want to remind you of is that your reward ( or thank you note) is not on earth , but in heaven. And if you do not get a thank you for me it's because my head and my heart are already on to the next need of our children or the community in Githioro.

What I want each and everyone to know is that I pray you will all give. All of my pleas by email or facebook are not for me, it's for the ministry and our desire to help those who need it most.

Just a few thoughts....

Changes... inside and out

Today while I was in the US still helping my Dad recover from bypass surgery, Len was in Kenya continuing to prepare for our new phase of ministry. We are excited to get into the community where we will be serving and he'll begin preparing the house where we will live in a few months.

We are so blessed. This house will be a wonderful place to live among, serve with and care for the people of Githioro and the surrounding communities.

Len sent pictures of this wonderful house and I am anxious to get back to Kenya. I have to say I realized today how far the Lord has brought me  in the last ten years. When Len and I put the addition on our house after we got married, I was obsessed with many things.... but I was most obsessed with the master bathroom. I found pictures of a cabinet and had it custom made. I HAD to had a clawfoot bathtub... had to have six nozzles in the shower... had to have pine floors... took several weeks to decide on just the right toilet.

So today, Len sent pictures of the house and here's the master bathroom. I am happy now that my anxiety about which shower curtain would be best has been relieved.

Perspective

As most of you already know, my Dad found out about a week and a half ago that he had to have open heart surgery .Apparently, I am very hard on the hearts of the men I love most . Len, my husband, had a quad bypass in 2006. Now Daddy will have a triple or possible quad.

So now I know what it feels like to be half way around the world when someone you know has something major to deal with - although he's calling it a bump in the road. And it will be a bump, but I know from watching Len that the next two weeks are going to be tough on him and on my mother. It is incredibly hard to watch someone you love suffer.

Our passports were with Kenya immigration finalizing our work permits. Work permits are very difficult to get in Kenya right now and we have been working on it for months. So we had to wait for the process to be rushed and finished before i could get a flight to come home. At first, I was flying out last Friday... then it moved, and moved and moved again.

Today, it looks like I will be flying out. I think without the Lord by my side I would be completely nutty by now. But beyond that, the Lord has given me the greatest friends and family ever. Len has been a rock. I pretty much shut down after Sunday - felt desperate.  We came to Nairobi and " the boys" Anderson, James and Timothy came with us. They have been a great distraction as we hang out waiting.
One of them will stay one more night with Len so that he is not alone. Peter and Mama Shiko are here as well... holding my hand, praying, just "being" with me. I am blessed

So... as I thought about how much I miss my family - especially my Mom and Dad right now... the reality of the life of these boys smacked me right in the face. Anderson and James are total orphans. At such a young age they lost the two most important people in their lives. I have had my parents for such a long time and that is a blessing. I still get to talk to them and ask them things. I do not take that for granted. And I am gonna love those boys harder because they deserve it. They have been good to me and I thank God for them. These are the three taken at the beginning ot he year on their first day of high school.

Just when you think God is done....

As we prepared this fall to begin our second full year of ministry in Kenya, we were blessed to be able to stay at the Spiritual Life Center of St. Matthew's UMC - our home church. Len and I had been very restless at the latter part of our first year's stay in Kenya. We both felt God trying to speak to us about our ministry in Kenya. And so when we got back to the US, I spent a lot of time in the spot pictured below - praying, reading, praying, studying - and well maybe a nap or two. My dear friends Daphne and Elaine invited me to a bible study that began two days after we arrived home and that helped me "stay in the word" as soon as we got home even though my head was really spinning trying to figure out what our ministry in Kenya was really supposed to look like.

Part of what the Lord kept saying to me over and over was just three words... WIDOWS AND ORPHANS.... WIDOWS AND ORPHANS..... Every scripture... every thought. And then it happened. I had already begun to very amateurishly  draw a picture of what I thought God wanted me to be doing... how he wanted me to live in Kenya... how he wanted us to minister.  Some friends and I had talked about what that "compound" would look like....I asked them each to draw what they saw.
Each of us, without prompting of any kind drew something that looked like this. I shared this drawing with Len - in fact, it was sketched out on a whiteboard that sat in the middle of the floor of the SLC.

Shirley Sprouse came over to visit us at the SLC one day because she  had heard from the Lord about a foundation of some sort having to do with our ministry in Kenya.

And so after  a blessed time at home , we returned to Kenya to begin ministry still feeling that God was trying to tell us something.

One day just a very few days after we got back to Kenya, Len was out with our friend Sam. He passed by his church and just for information shared with Len that it was indeed his church and then was telling of the struggles the church was having as well as the opportunities.  He described current projects, prayers they had about future ministries and Len sat quietly and listened. All he said to our friend was, you have to talk to Susan about this. You see, Sam had described what God was telling me in the US  in the fall.

And so Len shared the story with me, and then Sam came to the house and began to tell me about the compound of his church. And I began to weep. I asked him to hold on and brought out the very first pencil  sketch God had shown me. All of the items on my sketch were in that compound or planned to be in that compound. That drawing was a real place - the foundation was there. Coincidence... I think not.

And then we went to look at it. I was literally speechless. Never had God spoken so clearly as he did with this plan. Things began to happen. We started to become a part of that church. Turns out the pastor's house is empty because the pastor has his own house. So they had a church member just living there for security purposes and prayed for someone to come and live there. A primary school was already in the early stages of development. This is a google maps view of the current church and it's compound. We are blessed that the AIC church in Githioro has agreed to allow us to be their partner in ministry in this community.

So, in July we'll begin a new phase of ministry in a community - living in community with those we serve. Our first challenge is to raise funds for a well. That community suffers greatly because water is not readily available and many walk miles and miles daily for water. In the dry season, water is not available. Getting water to that community will be our first priority. And it's a big goal. It will take about $23,000  to dig this well that will provide water for the community, the church, the vocational training center and eventually a hospital.

We will be calling this new ministry Neighbors Outreach Worldwide. We hope that this "banner" of ministry will allow for others to join us in ministry whether it be  in Kenya or any other place in the world.  You are all part of the ministry. Len and I happen to be living and working IN Kenya but all of you are helping us minister here and are ministering in your own place where God has put you.

We base this ministry on Mark 12:28-31

Mark 12:28-31 The  Greatest Commandment

28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.30And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’31The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

We are Neighbors Outreach Worldwide - Called to love and serve our neighbors.

www. neighborsoutreachworldwide.org 

More to come.... please keep praying

In His Service
Len and Susan Eastwood



God is Good

Yeah... I know... haven't posted a blog since October of last year.... but hold on to your hats... big stuff coming. God is AMAZING.....

You will have to hold on just a little while longer for full details of changing ministry for us in Kenya. Ask and you shall indeed receive......

Love to you all... please visit soon... I'll post this to facebook when we have more details.

50 is indeed the new 40

When I turned forty years old ( just ten years ago) I was still in the "it's all about me" stage of my life. I demanded from Len that not only did I require a party with all my friends and family, but that I also wanted to go to the Homestead for the weekend and spend an entire day in the spa where it was going to be all about me. The timing of other things gets a little blurry... I can't remember whether I had pitched a fit then for the Volvo convertible I had always wanted , or the emerald ring that I had always wanted... but all of those things I had gotten because I deserved them. And I got whatever I wanted. And guess what... I still wasnt' happy.
Ok... so I diverge a little now. In 1993 I was dating a young man much younger than I. There were many things about that relationship that were not exactly "right". Don't get me wrong, there were things that good about it as well, but it certainly was not the relationship God had planned for me. But several very good things came from that not exactly right relationship. And I don't want to go into details of that relationship because I don't think it fair to tell my side and not the entire story. And that young man remains a friend. so... anyway.
In that relationship was where my journey back to a life lived as God had intended began. It was right after that relationship ended that my search and journey back to God really began in earnest.  But during that,my friend was aware of my great love of gospel music. And in particular, he was very aware of my admiration of Mahalia Jackson. I would always say that when I went to heaven I was going to be able to sing like Mahalia Jackson. So, there was a play at the Swift Creek playhouse and he took me and I was touched...deeply. But not as much by the story as I was by the voice of Cora Harvey Armstrong. It was that day that I thought when I get to heaven I want to sing like Cora Armstrong. You could feel Jesus in her voice.
And so... the journey began slowly. In 1998 I met Len.  And after an interesting courtship we were married. But I knew the entire time, from the first date that this was the man God had saved for me.  When we got married in 2000 I wanted to have Ms. Armstrong sing at our wedding. She has been a symbol of my journey back to Jesus for a long time. But, alas, she was busy.
Over the last years I have followed her ministry. Through facebook I have been blessed by her workds of encouragement .
And so... now it is time for my 50th birthday. And praise God, it's not all about me.... not even close. It's all about giving God the glory for all that he has done in my life- a life transformed in the last 20 years... a life that is continuing to be transformed. And now Ms. Armstrong will sing on my birthday as we give God the glory.
I pray each of you will join us on that day for oysters and barbecue as we do the best we can to bless our minsitry in Kenya so that we can do what the Lord has asked.
Fifty is indeed the new 40 for me. I get the chance to do this birthday  a little differently- my birthday, a gift from God, a celebration of a life I have now given to Him to use in any way He wishes.

Delight yourself in the Lord and he will indeed give you the desires of your heart. And I apologize now Ms. Armstrong, but I might just have to sing along ( in a corner where no one can hear me)

In my last post ( I know, from WAY back in January) I mentioned a child who had ended up going to a dental surgeon.

His name is James Esenyen. James is 14 years old and in class eight.

In 2008 James’  father Joshua was training to become a police officer. While home from training one weekend, he complained of a very bad headache and went to the hospital.  They gave him an injection of some sort and some medicine and sent him home. Three hours later he died.

There were four children -Jackson, Eunice, Anderson and James. Their mother Mary was left to care for all four of the children. In April of 2012, Mary was infected with typhoid and died.  Four children were left orphaned.

 When James came to Holy Trinity to interview he came in his tattered school uniform.  I remember him very well. He was quiet and very respectful, but not much of a smiler. What I noticed most was that James had a terrible infection on his lower jaw the origin of which seemed to be inside his mouth. Infections scare me- particularly in Africa. Left untreated, death is never far to follow.

  And so James was enrolled in the Children’s Education Fund. He is in class eight at the school and doing very well. He is an incredible “footballer”  and all around athlete as well as a leader in the school. He has a great sense of humor and a delightful laugh.

After several trips to the dentist, it was found that James had lost a permanent tooth and that the roots were still lodged in  his gum. The source of the infection had been found. The roots were removed and James is healing very well now. 

James spends holiday with our Kenyan friends who live in the same compound that we do. There he has 3 brothers and two sisters. He is happy and healthy. We are able to watch that wound and make sure it is indeed completely healed.

James is a delight to be around. We took all the children to Lake Naivasha for a trip a few weeks ago. James helped prepare lunches and made sure all the younger children were ok.  Whenever we are working at the compound he is always first to volunteer.

Today James helped me clean out the pharmacy closet. I taught him a few things about the medicines we have and he helped me organize. We had some bibles in the closet. The only thing he asked me for was a bible . There were tons of soccer balls, clothes and tons of other things, but he wanted the bible. He did not have one of his own.

A few minutes into our cleaning project, James asked me if he had to call me Susan. I said no, but what would you call me instead? And he said I'd like to call you Mum. Many people in Kenya call me Mum. But few have ever asked if it was ok. This was different. The time we have spent together has been good for both of us. And so he can call me Mum and I am happy that he asked instead of just taking for granted it would be ok.

This afternoon we will be going through school supplies. James knows that God blessed him by sending him into our path. I hope he realized that God blessed me by sending him into mine.