March 30, 2022

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,

So much has happened since I wrote to you all last time. When I wrote to you last time absolutely none of what I’m about to tell you about was even a thought in our heads. I guess a lot can happen in just one or two months.

Yes, we are still in Kenya. No, we are not currently in our hometown of Kitale. We are currently living in a town called Kijabe. Let me explain how it happened and why and what has transpired since we arrived here.

As you all know by now, Julie and I have legal guardianship of Chloe and our great desire is for the Kenyan government to allow us to adopt her. Since there is a moratorium on foreign adoption right now, we have to wait for that to happen. As you also know, Chloe has been diagnosed with Autism and there are several severe challenges that come with Chloe’s particular case: Violence, melt-downs, extreme emotional dis-regulation, sensory overload, behavior challenges, learning challenges and even physical challenges. All of this has been taking a toll on Chloe, Julie and me. We were in desperate need of help. Julie had tried and tried to get help from organizations and doctors in Kitale and even in the Eldoret area. No help was forthcoming anywhere near Kitale. Every organization and doctor that we would meet with would say to Julie, “Wow, Julie. You know so much more about this than we do. You could teach us about this”. Hmmm. Not helpful. 

I’m going to try and make a long story short. We believe God heard our cries of desperation. We believe this because we could not have orchestrated ourselves getting into the position we are currently in. Julie awoke from sleep one night remembering that we had friends who had a son who was an Occupational Therapist at a mission hospital in Kijabe. What happened after that were many great turns of events with God orchestrating things very quickly to get us to Kijabe where some help might be available. From the time Julie woke up that night to the time we arrived at this temporary house we are living in was 17 days. That might not sound very quick, but, believe me, that was quick.

Now we are in Kijabe, home of a local mission hospital and about 40 miles from Nairobi, where additional help has been forthcoming. This sounds overwhelming (and it is) but Chloe is now seeing a team of people who are all attempting to help her and us: Occupational therapist, physical therapist, psychologist, developmental pediatrician, gastro doctor, ABA therapist, to name a few. Some of this team is in Kijabe and others in Nairobi and it keeps us hopping and very busy, believe me. But, it is giving us hope that we can find the help for Chloe that she needs. We don’t know exactly how long we will be here but this house we are currently living in is available only until the end of July and housing is very difficult to get here in Kijabe. I also don’t exactly know how to ask you to pray for us except to pray that Chloe and our family can get the help we desperately need.

In addition to all this, God orchestrated one other thing (among many others). While I was here, I went to an ENT doctor at the mission hospital on account of my severe snoring and sleep apnea. He is a world class doctor from the States but was only going to be here for a couple of months. Another long story made short is I ended up having surgery here in Kenya (a scary thought) on my nose and throat. The surgery I had consisted of many procedures in both my nose and throat. I was supposed to spend two nights in the hospital but after the first miserable night I begged the doctor to send me home (it seemed like anything and everything the hospital could have done to make my night more miserable was done).  My first week of recovery was pretty rough. I lost 14 pounds in 10 days as I couldn’t eat anything solid. But now I am pretty much on the mend (4 weeks later) and Julie says it has already helped with both my snoring and my sleep apnea.

Praise God for all he is orchestrating in our lives right now. None of it has been easy, but we praise Him because we truly believe it is coming from Him.

Blessings to you all,
Roger, Julie & Chloe

CONTACT INFO

Roger & Julie Tate
P.O. Box 96
Kitale, Kenya 30200
rojuta@gmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.