Teaching Students about Church Planting

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The Tates have served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

June 10, 2023

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,

One of the classes that I am teaching this term is Church Planting. Even though I spent fifteen years in Kitale doing church planting, I still hardly feel qualified to teach this course to new ministry students. It is such an important subject for my students to study and I can only pray that I teach them properly and to do everything I can to help them understand the importance of the subject and how they should be doing it. But what I’m teaching them has been a hard sell so far. Let me see if I can explain why.

My students are studying for ministry work. They are diligently studying the Bible and what it means to work in the ministry of Jesus Christ. They are good and godly students who want to know Jesus, want to know the Bible, and want to minister the gospel in the lives of people and in the world. But they usually also come with a certain mindset. I’ll call it a Traditional mindset. They come to Bible school, many of them want to become pastors. They are thinking of becoming pastors of already established churches, of preaching the Word of God and ministering in that church, of seeing that church grow bigger, and of eventually building a bigger church to accommodate this bigger congregation.

There is nothing wrong with the above model, is there? No, there isn’t. It is the same model that most of us are familiar with and, if we are pastors, it is the model we are probably participating in. So, no, there is nothing wrong with the Traditional model. But I am trying to teach these young Bible students something a little different. I am trying to convince them to consider a slightly different model. I don’t know what to call it, so I’ll just call it the Different model. In the Different model that I’m teaching them, I’m trying to convince them to go to a location where there is NO church already present, where there may not be any Christians at all, where the gospel needs to be preached, and where a new New Testament church is actually needed. My students can usually get on board with this pretty well, after all they are godly students wanting to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus. Where they start jumping off the wagon, however, is when I begin to teach the really different part of the Different model. I am trying to teach them to start churches that will reproduce themselves and start other churches and to teach them principles on how to do that. They were on board at first because, while they do want to fulfill the Great Commission, they also want to start churches that will eventually become big, have lots of people and tithes, and be able to build big church buildings and have lots of structured programs. When I began telling them that church buildings are not always conducive to churches reproducing themselves because poor communities cannot reproduce such a thing, they began jumping off board. When I began telling them that when their church becomes big enough (defined as too big to meet in their house anymore) then the church should start convincing some of its members to start a new church in another location, even more jumped off board. After all, how can their church become big if they are always sending some of their members off to start a new church somewhere else? I think their biggest issue might be, “How can I ever get enough financial support from my church if my church membership is never more than 15-25 people?” The other issue they face is the issue we all face – the mindset that “Bigger is better.” They want to pastor a big church because “Bigger is better” for a thousand and one reasons. I want them to start churches that will start churches that will start churches so that the gospel will spread, the kingdom of Christ will spread, and there will be a church presence preaching the gospel in every place in Kenya and in every place in the world. It is a hard sell, even for godly, Jesus loving Bible students at Bible college. I can see some changes in them, though. They are beginning to ask themselves the question I ask them all the time, “What is your goal?” Is your goal a big church, with a big membership, a big offering plate, a big building, and a big reputation? There is nothing wrong with that goal, my beloved students. But consider another goal – a dozen churches, spreading out over the city, preaching the gospel and reaching the lost, all with the purpose of spreading the Kingdom and starting more churches that will all be doing the same thing.

“My beloved students – What is your goal?”

Blessings to all,
Roger, Julie & Chloe

CONTACT INFO

Roger & Julie Tate
Moffat Bible College
P.O. Box 70
Kijabe, Kenya 00220
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.


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Adjusting Back to Life in Kenya

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Nathan and Carrie Radford serve the Lord in Kitale, Kenya. Their main ministries include indigenous church planting, a prison ministry, and a hospital ministry for mothers with premature babies.

March 5th, 2022

Dear praying friends,

Another month has come and gone, and we are already into the third month of 2022. Time passes so fast, and may we be busy in our service to the Lord. This prayer letter will share current prayer requests, as well as update you on my (Nathan’s) upcoming ministry plans.

I am in the process of recruiting potential younger Kenyan men to disciple, train, and send out to start churches in their village areas. I have spoken with different men who have lived in Africa or are living in Africa about church planting, and they had a basic model to follow: recruit the men, (preferably men who are already employed), disciple them so they have a firm foundation in their faith, then send them out to villages to start churches.

This is the model I followed this past term, and it was the best progress of any prior term. Unfortunately, covid came to Kenya and we had to close things down. Now that it is possible to meet again, by practicing social distancing, and also masks are encouraged, we can continue.

Lord willing, I plan to start in a village called Taito, which is about a fifteen minute drive from Kitale town. In all of these endeavors, it is God that gives the increase. I am reminded of 1 Corinthians 3:6, where Paul says “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” Amen. It is the same today. We must trust God for the results in all our endeavors.

In family news, our daughters have adjusted well back to life here in Kenya. They are homeschooling, and my wife is doing a great job teaching them. She is very qualified, and I am blessed with all the sacrifices she makes daily, and for our family. Please pray both for her and our daughters as they continue along in this school year.

There have been many changes in the missionary community since we have returned, and unfortunately, the family that had a daughter our daughter’s ages moved away to another area. We are blessed that there are some Kenyan girls nearby who speak good English, and they are invited to play with them at any time. This is a major blessing. Would you please pray with us that God would provide other families with daughters that could be friends with our daughters? This is a big prayer request for  us now, and we are waiting upon the Lord. Psalm 27:14 says “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.” May we wait in faith, trusting Him each step of the way.

Thanks so much to each of you for your heart for missions. We appreciate the prayers, sacrificial giving, and letters so much. May God bless each of you.

Until next month,
Nathan and Carrie Radford

Contact Info:
Nathan and Carrie Radford
naterad[at]yahoo.com
P.O. Box 4150
Kitale, Kenya
East Africa 30200

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.


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Seeking a Place to Meet; Update on Josiah

The Tates have served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

July 20, 2020

Greetings in the Name of Jesus Christ,

As you read through my newsletter for this month you will probably say to yourself “haven’t I heard this before”? Well, even to me some of the things I will write about in this newsletter sound like a broken record – skip, skip, skip. I definitely feel like we have been through this newsletter before.

The reason for the broken record this month is because, once again, we are definitely looking for a new location to worship in for Upper Room Baptist Chapel. We started the Chapel in 2018, meeting in a room on the top floor (the “Upper Room”) of a building in town. In August 2019, while I was in the States taking Amy to college, we encountered problems with another church that had moved in across the hall and greatly disturbed our services with their amplifiers and speakers and loud music and screeching preaching. Not being able to resolve the problems with this other church we decided to move out.  In September of 2019 we moved into a house, sub-renting the place from a school that also met there. It was an excellent venue for the Chapel, and we all enjoyed meeting and worshiping there. The Chapel began to grow numerically and spiritually. Then, in March of 2020 the big boom hit – Covid19. The Kenyan government shut down everything as I mentioned in previous newsletters – schools, churches, government offices, etc. This shutdown ultimately caused the school from whom we were sub-renting to financially implode and subsequently go belly-up and shut its doors for good.The shutting down of the school left URBC in a quandary. Now we again needed a place to worship.  Because we liked the location so much, we considered taking over the entire rent of the premises and just using it entirely for the Chapel. We approached the landlady proposing the idea. It would cost us a lot more money, but it would cause the least disruption to the Chapel and since the Lord’s work is more important than money, we thought it was a deal worth pursuing. It turns out, however, that the owner of the building is a Somali lady. Now, I am not disparaging Somalis or putting them down at all, but the end result was not surprising. Somalia is 99% Muslim and the Somali owner is a Muslim. She was not mean about her decision and she was not discriminating against us because we are Christians but she felt like renting her place to a “Jesus church” was against her Muslim beliefs. She thought that her Somali community here in Kitale would persecute her if they found out she was renting her property to a church and decided not to rent it to us. That is her prerogative. But this did leave us in a familiar position – once again looking for a place to worship.

Since then I have been looking for a new place to worship but the available places are severely limited and expensive. I just looked at a place today that could meet our needs and be an OK place to meet but I feel like the property is overpriced.  I hope to look at another place tomorrow but I’m not sure how that will turn out either. Please be in earnest prayer that God would lead us to the right place, a place that would meet our needs at the right price and that could be used to glorify His Name, spread His kingdom here on earth, and provide spiritual and physical growth for the Chapel.

In other news, we were able to get Josiah on an evacuation flight out of Kenya and to the States. He needed to get back to the States in time to quarantine for 14 days before school starts but there have been no international flights out of Kenya since March, and none scheduled until sometime in August.  This didn’t give Josiah enough time to make it to school. Then on Friday, July 10th, we received an email from the embassy about the evacuation flight leaving on Monday, July 13th. Julie and I thought about it for two minutes and decided to get him on the flight. We booked the flight that day, Friday. Saturday, we spent getting everything ready for him to leave Kenya and get back to the States. Sunday, Josiah and I drove to Nairobi. Monday afternoon I put him on a plane leaving Kenya forever. This all happened very, very quickly, much too quickly for his mama and me. One day he was here at home with no idea of when he would be leaving and the next day, literally, he was gone – Flying from Nairobi to Qatar to the United States, flying for the first time by himself, and heading to America to start his new life without the help of mom or dad. Very hard for Josiah. Very hard for mom and dad. Please pray that God would be with him in a very special way, strengthening him, giving him courage, and filling him with His Holy Spirit.  Pray for mom and dad too.

Blessings to you all,
Roger, Julie, Amy, Josiah & 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.


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Hesitating to Collect Offerings

Tate_profile

The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

June 27, 2019

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

So, I started the Upper Room Baptist Chapel almost nine months ago. A number of people have attended and gone but I have been blessed with a few families and individuals who have faithfully attended and been an integral part of the Chapel. Since I started the Chapel almost nine months ago, I have not collected an offering or “passed the hat” in any way. I have been very hesitant to do so for various valid reasons, these reasons being especially relevant for here in Kenya. However, over the last few months at various intervals almost all of the faithful attendees to the Chapel have asked me why I haven’t taken up any offerings. They have respectfully and lovingly questioned some of my reasoning with some good, logical reasoning of their own. One thing that I have heard from most of them is that they want the Chapel to continue long term and they know I cannot possibly be around forever. They want to help support the ministry and ultimately see it become self-reliant. This is obviously a good, reasonable and Biblical goal (and quite lofty) which I whole-heartedly approve. Seeing as most of the faithful attendees have approached me on this matter at one time or another, I feel it necessary to discuss the reasons why I have hesitated such a long time to inaugurate the collection of offerings.

15 Valid Reasons Why I Have Hesitated to Collect Offerings at the URBC: 1. I don’t want anyone thinking I (or the Chapel) just want their money; 2. In Kenya, too many pastors (and churches) are in it just for the money. To them it is a job, a lucrative job, and people are easily fleeced; 3. Too many Kenyan pastors and churches completely misuse donated money, stealing money from the offerings for their own personal use; 4. Misuse of money causes Kenyan people to not trust the pastor; 5. I want the focus to be on the gospel ONLY and not on money (in some churches it’s just money, money, money all the time); 6. I don’t want anyone to think they cannot come to the Chapel to hear the gospel because they cannot contribute; 7. I don’t want anyone feeling pressured to give money they don’t have or to take food off of someone’s table (a reality here in Kenya); 8. I don’t want any unbeliever to think we are here just to collect their money. I don’t want them to even come close to thinking that; 9. Money can be a cause of division and fighting among God’s people. I have seen it cause countless troubles in Kitale churches as when there is money in the coffers people viciously fight over it; 10. People with the money tend to run a church with their money and have a greater influence within a church; 11. Pastors focus more on people with money than people without money (James 2:1-4); 12. Ministry becomes one of numbers and money; 13. Pastors become afraid of preaching truth out of fear of losing tithing members. Pastors become puppets of tithing members; 14. People will come to our Chapel only for the expectation of getting some of the money in the coffers; 15. I don’t want people to give money just so they will in turn receive material blessings, a typical and universal teaching here.

Do these sound like valid reasons to hesitate to you all? But my attendees have valid arguments too and I know that giving to the Lord’s work is Biblical and vital to the health of the ministry. We will be discussing these matters at the Chapel. Please pray with us as we want to follow the instruction of the Bible and the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in Kenya,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)

rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!

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.


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Foundational Teaching from Colossians; Battling the Flu

Tate_profile

The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

May 30, 2019

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Thank you, Lord, for Your mercy and grace, especially (this month, at least) for mercy and grace towards your missionaries doing your Kingdom work. This missionary, for one, desperately needs it.

I need God’s mercy and grace to do the work He has called me to do here. I can’t help thinking “Maybe I shouldn’t be trying to be a pastor of a church here”. The culture is against me. My inability is against me. Satan is against me. Kitale, in general, is against me. Even nature is against me (yea, I got really sick this past month). But God is for me and I don’t yet feel like He has changed what He wants me to be doing.  Thus, I need to trust Him and obey Him and keep doing what He wants.

Things at the Upper Room Baptist Chapel are progressing. I’ve been wondering if a Sunday would come when nobody would show up. I thought that Sunday had come a couple of weeks ago. When 10am rolled around nobody else was there. When 10:07 rolled around there was still no one else there. But at 10:08 someone showed up and a few more trickled in after that. But our attendance that day was only 6. I worried that the low attendance would stay low but the next week we were back up to 16. Again, it is not about numbers. URBC is about proclaiming and living the Word of God and we will continue to be faithful to do just that.

I have finished preaching through the book of Colossians at URBC. The great foundational teachings of this book are vital to the people here in Kitale. Through this book, we at the Chapel learned who Jesus really is, who we are in Jesus, and what Jesus has done for those who trust and follow Him. If we could just learn and master this one book of the Bible, we would go a long way in our walk and relationship with God and in the Kingdom of Jesus. Last week I began a new short series preaching through some of the Psalms. It will be short because I obviously will not be preaching through every Psalm. I will probably only preach through 4 or 5 of them before moving on to something else, maybe to return to Psalms again at some future date. Last Sunday I preached through Psalm 1. It would be difficult for me to say whether the message was good or not (although I pray that it was). You see, I got really sick with the flu.  I prepared my message while sick with the flu. I preached my message while sick with the flu. Then I came home and collapsed on the couch. Even for the next two days I was pretty much incoherent on the couch while sick with the flu. I am even late writing this update because I have been sick with the flu. It was a pretty nasty bug that Chloe and I shared but hopefully Julie will avoid. I will have to ask my Chapel members whether the message last Sunday was coherent or not. I am very glad to be feeling better now.

In family news, we have more transitions facing us in the near future. Amy turns 19 in June and then in July she will be graduating from Rift Valley Academy where she has boarded and gone to school for the last five years. Following graduation, she will be leaving Kenya and returning to the States to go to college. I’m sure I will be providing more on this transition in the months to come but I want you all to be praying for Amy (and us) even now as she prepares to make this huge transition in her life. [Read Amy’s testimony here.]

Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in Kenya,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)

rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!

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.


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God is Blessing the Work in Kitale

Tate_profile

The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

January 1, 2019

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

It is the New Year. As hard as it is for me to believe that statement, 2019 is now here and ready for us. I write this on January 1st so today is page 1 of 365 for the year. My new year has actually started with a little adventure. I was driving to town today to get some dog food and as I was driving down the road my car broke an axle and my front right tire broke completely off from my vehicle. Next thing I knew I was skidding down the road with metal on concrete. Metal on concrete is not a lovely sound or a lovely feeling. But I am completely unhurt, for which I thank the Lord. While I was waiting for a tow-truck (which arrived in just 10 minutes), three different Kenyan friends who were driving by stopped and sat with me to make sure I was OK. It was comforting to know there were people who cared and would assist me if they could.

We have closed out the old year at Upper Room Baptist Chapel on a positive note. Attendance at the Chapel has slowly gone up a bit and we averaged 17-18 people throughout the month of December. On the Sunday before Christmas we had 20 people in attendance, which matched the high attendance of our Inaugural attendance on October 21st. The work of Christ here in Kenya is not a numbers game but we are very glad to see that some people are interested in what we are doing here in Kitale. God really has been blessing the work so far in spite of my weaknesses. We have had other first-time visitors to the Chapel which has been encouraging to me as the minister of the work. In fact, one of the three friends who stopped by while I was waiting for the tow-truck was a man who has attended the services a number of times. He was talking with the tow-truck workers when they arrived and introduced me to them as “his pastor”.

A few short stories from the Chapel. First, I noticed that the room across the hall from our room was being used by a school that meets in our building. Each week I noticed that the room was unlocked and unused on Sundays. I decided to approach the administrators of the school to see if it were possible to use the room on Sunday mornings. Without reservation they agreed to let us use the room since they had no use for the room during that time period. They even agreed to let me use the room for no charge. So, we are now using that room each week as a Sunday School room for some of the young children who attend. This was a blessing from God. Second, we had a teenage girl attend one of our services. She has a Catholic background and regularly attends a Catholic church with her family. After the service she mentioned to Julie how different our worship and services are than they are at her church. Specifically, she said “You all actually teach from the Bible. At my church we are there for three and a half hours and the only thing that happens is one politician after another stands up and talks about their own political agendas. Nobody ever talks about the Bible at all”. She said she really liked what she heard at the Chapel that week. We pray that she is able to come again and hear the gospel message proclaimed again in a simple, easy-to-understand manner. Third, it was exciting to see my son Josiah and another teenager, Jesse, ministering in our services. Josiah and Jesse took over much of the music duties during the month of December while Josiah and Amy were home from school. What a thrill to see these young men ministering unashamedly in the Lord’s Kingdom. The other benefit is that they are both better guitar players than me. I would be glad to completely hand the music responsibilities over to them. Unfortunately, Josiah and Amy return to school on Saturday.

Happy New Year to all of you reading this update. May God’s grace and presence bless each of you all through this year.

Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in Kenya,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)

rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!

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.


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Faithful Attendees and Newcomers at URBC

Tate_profile

The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

November 27, 2018

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Wow, it seems so much has happened since I wrote last month about our inaugural service at the Upper Room Baptist Chapel. I was excited when I wrote to you all last month describing our first service. But I didn’t know who might return and who wouldn’t. Now I have more that I can report.

Since our inaugural service, we have been averaging right around 12 in our attendance each week. I am very happy that we have had that many in our weekly services. Especially since those who are attending seem to be truly interested in receiving teaching from the Bible and in knowing and following Jesus. The next four weeks after our first service saw pretty much the same 12 people attending the services. I think that they are definitely getting something they do not experience at other churches here in Kitale. Here’s a couple reasons why I think that.

First, I set up a time to visit one of the families in their home. Elphas, Ann and their daughter Esther haven’t missed a service since we started. I meet with Elphas every week to disciple him but I wanted to visit him at his home.  While I was in his home (a small, one-room apartment), he told me that he has gone to church for a long time but has never had a pastor visit him in his home. He didn’t know that was a thing pastors did. This week Elphas and I will visit a man named Joseph in Joseph’s home. Joseph was a first-time visitor last week.

Second, I’ve been told by others who have been coming that the teaching is simple, easy to understand and straight from the Bible. I say, “Praise God,” because that is exactly what I am striving for! This is definitely a rare element in Kitale churches.

Last week I was really excited because we had four first-time visitors to the Chapel.  Each of these four-first time visitors came as a result of being invited by other regular attendees of our services. Two of these four I know to be very new believers. After the service and the “informal pastor” time and fellowship they stayed around and talked with me for nearly an hour. They told me that what they heard and experience at the Chapel that day was not like anything else they’ve experienced elsewhere. They said the teaching was Biblical as opposed to, in their own words, “Motivational speeches about succeeding in business” or “sermons about making money and getting ahead in life”. They also said that when I confessed I was not a good guitar player and that they should expect to hear mistakes, that they knew then and there that the Chapel would be different. This is because they said a Kenyan pastor will never admit to doing anything wrong. Finally, they appreciated hearing what the Bible actually says instead of hearing a list of rules and man-made laws about how they can be acceptable to God.

Dear Lord, Oh, how we would like to make a difference in the lives of these new believers and in the lives of the others who are attending and in the lives of many other Kitale residents.

Please make this your prayer for us as well.

Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in Kenya,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)

rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!

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.


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Room Rented for Start of Church Plant!

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The Tate Family has served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

July 28, 2018

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
We are able to thank God for an answered prayer. I have reported in past newsletters that I was looking for a room in town that I could rent and use in order to start up a new church here in Kitale. If you were following my former reports you would know the following: First, before leaving for the States for a month, I had located a room and agreed on a price with the owner, only to have the rate doubled when I went to sign the lease. Second, while I was in the States I had a couple of Kenyan friends who agreed to look for a place for me while I was away. And, now, one of those places my friends found has finally come to fruition and I can finally say we have a room and have signed the lease and everything is official. The room is on the third floor of a building in town, is located in a relatively quiet area, has plenty of natural lighting, good security, and even access to toilets. This may not sound like much to be excited about but finding all these things in one location is quite challenging here in Kitale. The portion of the room which I rented is about 20′ by 25′ and can probably comfortably fit 30 people (and even more uncomfortably). If we are somehow blessed with more people than can fit in the room, then we will be glad to come up with alternative solutions to that problem in the future. Since the time I rented the room I have been preparing it for use. The tile floor needed fixing, the doors and handles needed replacing, and the broken windows needed repairing. Also, the original room was quite large, and I could not afford to rent the entire space but only a section of it. Thus, I had to build a partition wall across the room to block off my section. Other preparatory activities are also ongoing in order to get the room ready for use. Please continue to pray for this ongoing work.

Again, I believe Kitale needs a church that:

  • Teaches the truth of God’s Word in a simple, clear, understandable manner
  • Worships God in Spirit and truth and simplicity
  • Loves, follows and obeys Jesus
  • Desires to spread the Kingdom of God

These are such rare qualities in churches here that I felt compelled to start one and pastor it myself.

One example of the reason why a church like this is necessary is a young man named Elphas that I have been meeting with. Elphas and I meet in a dungy, musty, smelly basement of a hotel in town. We get together there to drink tea and talk about the many questions he has about the Bible and about Jesus. This week we spent two hours just talking about what happens to people when they die, what and where is heaven, where do the spirits of believers and unbelievers go after death, and how a person can know he will go to heaven. After every question he asks me I say, “Elphas, I can only tell you what the Bible says about this” and then we go to the Scriptures and investigate what God has said in His Word. I am trying to show Elphas that it matters not what any man might say but only what God’s Word says. This week Elphas told me, “After talking with you I realize all my pastors are lying to me”. I don’t know exactly what he meant by this statement and I didn’t feel like I should follow up on it. However, it did reinforce to me that there are many Kenyans who are starving for the Word of God and wanting to know what it really means to follow Jesus and to know God.

Until next month, beloved.
May God’s peace and joy be with you.
For the glory of God in East Africa,
Roger & Julie Tate (and Amy, Josiah & Chloe)

rojuta[at]gmail.com
Visit their blog!

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.


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