Still from the Diaspora with more....love

with love from the diaspora

This Month

Hello Beloved of The Lord,

I trust that you are all keeping well and that The Lord continues to grow you from strength to strength. It is another new month! We have been meeting at John Mark and Catherine's place during the month of August. We will move to Muleshes (Steve and Lynett's) this month. The time remains the same 6:30pm to 8:30am. Lynett has exams and so she is kindly asking us to keep time so that we can finish on time.

We will be welcoming new members to the Jamhuri e-group. Please, let us all be there.

This is a picture of Lynett and their two children Brian and Faith.

Looking forward to our time together.

Blessings,

Gideon Ochieng

More Than A Friend

Have you ever wondered why your friend who you have known for a long time all over a sudden does not remember who you are or is very casual with you on the phone? Have you wondered what happened between the two of you and tried to explain yourself, and he gets it all, but does not seem to hold the same feeling of excitement as you are? Now try that three times getting the same reaction or more of an obvious pretence that he is cool with you? Well, if your answers are yes to all these then there is a higher possibility that you are stuck in the past and need a reality check to move on. This is exactly the situation I found myself in a few months ago. I met a friend who was so excited to see me. He was the one who spotted me first on the street. We took a few minutes to catch up and soon got down into the old good days memories. We exchanged phone number to connect at a later date. I did call the next day; just to say high and to tell him how excited I was to see him and to find a good time for us to meet. He did not seem to know who it was though admitting that he knew me. I tried this several times and the last time we spoke he sounded as though he really was not getting what I was saying. Well I felt bad because we were buddies, from school, very tight buddies. However, this was many years ago, over 15 to be exact and I just realized that this guy must have changed by now, maybe married with several children, a boss or a servant somewhere. May be he became a Christian along the way may be converted to another religion or better still he became a Kenyan and patriotic one for that matter not wanting to associate with anyone who will make him chose between brothers, friends or enemies. I then realized that the truth may be that I am just stuck in the past and I need to embrace reality that things do not remain as they are. The difference between yesterday and today is huge let alone one year and to expect that there be no difference in a span of 15 years is insane. This led me to entertain the idea that I might be insane.

My friends are my friends and I want to remain friends with them, it is better to be stuck in friendship that in loneliness. Friendship makes the world a better place, transitioning we are to a better place but, even between transit points the experience of friendship and friends makes the journey less stressful and insane I will be by choosing to be stuck with you as a friend. You are a friend who makes me stick in time and help me journey through time into eternity.

He called me as I was writing this and said that he remembers, but he sounded drunk. It was in middle of the day, and I thought to myself, “Maybe I need a different reality check which does not require me to move on alone”.

“A man of many companions may come to ruin,

but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother”. Proverbs 18:24

(This is a picture of Tara, Foulata's Daughter. She has two siblings Sonia and Sam)

From Australia

Dear friend,
Here I go again with group mail, best I can do for now. I try as much as possible to respond to individual replies so please go ahead and write back.

I hope you are well. If I haven’t written or replied mail, please understand and forgive me. Though not the best excuse in the world, my life has been a bit of a roller coaster and I can’t promise things will be much different in the near future so please bear with me.

Our family grew from three to five with the birth of Nuru and sifa on 21/04/09 at the Townsville hospital. They came at 34 weeks, each just below 2kg and had to stay in hospital (Neonatal ICU then special care) for almost 5weeks. Now they are home and our lives have changed forever. With no Wanjiku/Nekesa? Ndinda (if you know what I mean) offering a helping hand, everything is up to Tony and I so I leave it to you to guess how much sleep and rest we are getting. All that rhetoric about resting for six weeks after having a baby is luxury that either belongs to Africa or a few lucky people whose parents/family can offer some relief of sorts. The girls are doing well and we can’t complain. Instead we thank God. As you would know, to whom much is given, much is expected. Fortunately, they just grow and grow, as in they are almost double their birth weight already. Baraka is very excited to have two sisters and he knows babies come in doubles since my sister had twins in October last year. Now he is praying for two little brothers and advises me to eat plenty of food so that my tummy can swell and grow babies...there is beauty in innocence.

Well, am off now; duty calls. Here are some pictures.
Greetings from Tony and Baraka.
Much love and blessings.
Truphena

E-Group this week

Hello friends,

We had a great meeting. Pastor Mark, our new E-groups pastor paid us a visit. We took time to share with him about how we came to group and what this has meant for us. It is always refreshing to hear about the growth that is taking place in the group and know that God is at work each and every day in our lives. Pastor Mark challenged us to consider growing further by sharing some of the leadership skills we have acquired over time, with others. How? By signing up to lead another E-group. I do hope that you will say yes. 

We would like to hear from you, the Noltes' in Germany and Truphena in Australia. We love you and we continue to pray for you. For those who we have not seen for a while, please let us know how you are fairing on. We would love to hear from you.

The Lord bless you this day.

Gideon 

Baby Mitchelle and Beautiful Jamuhuri

Pray

This week we would like you to focus your prayers on  The Transformation Track – following what Pst Oscar preached about yesterday.

1.      Pray for our NETWORKS – all those who don’t go to church and we are in contact with. Pray that we as congregation would all be bold in inviting our non-churching going friends to church. Pray that God would give us the sense of urgency about the lost and that we will begin to step out and share the gospel with our family, friends and acquaintances.  As in the book of Acts, we pray that God will “add daily to our numbers those who are being saved!”

2.      SUNDAY SERVICES – Pray that everyone who comes to our services will experience God. Remember the 5 Wows/awe moments in our services:

a.     The first wow is the pre-service experience – that people will be received well by the guards and the greeters and that they will walk into the service with a sense of expectancy.

b.     The second wow is the worship – pray that our worship team will always prepare well and also submit their ministry to continued prayer. We need at least 20 more people to join our team as vocalists and instrumentalists – pray that those gifted in the worship ministry will rise up and be engaged in this ministry.

c.     The third wow is the service events and community time when we all talk to one another – pray that those with the gifts of the Arts will take the challenge to engage.

d.     The fourth wow is the sermon.  Pray that we will always be true to scripture in our preaching and that we would also be relevant for life application.

e.     The fifth wow is the after service fellowship time. Pray that people will move out of their friendship circles to meet new people and that will build a stronger sense of community at the Chapel.

3.      REGULAR ATTENDERS/ATTENDEES - About 80% of our congregation consider themselves regular members. It is however easy to hide in this crowd and  be a part of Chapel but not be involved or accountable in any way. Pray that God will move people to greater commitment. That they will not be comfortable to hide in the crowds any more but that they will begin to PLUG IN. We are asking that the Regular Attenders attend our 10 week PLUG IN classes that help them understand what the Chapel is about and also begins to help them strengthen their Christian foundation even as they grow in relationship with God, with others and the world at large.

4.      E-GROUPS - Pray for Pst Mark Kiiru who recently joined us on staff as our E-Group pastor. He is married to Irene and they have 3 daughters. Pray that he will settle well in ministry among us. We are praying for 100 people who will sign up to lead our E-groups (Ekklesias). Pray that we will have at least 50% of our congregation in E-groups by the end of the year.

5.      SHEPHERD LEADERS -   these are the congregation members who can say: “I am responsible for others.” These include our E-Group leaders, our Sunday School Leaders, Expression Leaders and other ministry Leaders. Thank God for these men and women who give of themselves to care, shepherd and nurture our members. The 7 pastors at the Chapel cannot give sufficient pastoral support to all our congregation members. Pray that this year God will raise another 200 people to be Shepherd Leaders among us.

6.      FRONTLINE VISIONARIES - these are the men and women who give of their lives to reach out beyond the Chapel community. These are the people who have clarified their calling and involved in impacting the wider society for Christ. Some of them have begun Social Justice Ministries e.g.  Jane Wathome who is the founder of Beacon of Hope – a ministry to families infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Yesterday we said Kwaheri to Pst Gowi who  is transitioning out to seek political office in the next elections – he  is one of our Frontline Visionaries.  Pray for our Frontline Visionaries – that God will continue to use them powerfully to bring positive impact to this country and beyond. Pray that many others at the Chapel will rise to their calling and begin to take bold steps towards in reaching WIDE.

Have a very blessed week! 

Secret Agent in love

This is what happens even to secret agents when they are in love. Their bullets turn into flowers.

This was a special valentine.

Paul and Liz

Hello beloved of Christ,

I trust that this finds you well this morning. I just wanted to share with you some pitures from Paul and Liz's wedding! The wedding was wow!They got married and we were there to witness. We rejoice in The Lord because we have a new member added to the fellowship.

Enjoy the pictures and pay close attention to the special agent, the man in shades! He made sure that security was kept tight.

Prayers

Hi Beloved of The Lord,

My prayer is that this finds you well. It was great spending time together and fellowshipping around food. I had a great time and hope that you all did. As you are all aware, we met at a time when our country is going through some tough times. The fire accidents that have taken place this week are without a doubt something that calls on all of us to pray to God to come through for us, to help our nation and to have mercy on us. It is easy to treat this as an incident far from you especially if there is no one in the circle of your friends or family was involved. The truth however, is that it is was by grace that you were spared and for this very reason we need to be in prayer for every person affected and as a country seeks God’s face on all matters that are surrounding these mysteries.

I continue to thank God for each one of you for inspiring me to love The Lord and to live for him in this community of believers and in a neighborhood where Christ needs to be lifted up everyday, so that the World may see, know and experience the power of his saving grace. My prayer for each one of you is that you will continue to share this love of Christ with everyone who is willing to listen. I pray all the more that the children that we raise will truly be men and women of faith. Our pictures this week will be of children who I have no doubt, God loves so much.

This month we will be meeting at Alice and Henry’s place.

May you have a doubtless week, will you?

In Him,

Gideon

Thanksgiving

Beloved,

It is my hope and prayer that you are well as you read this. I would like to thank God for the many things that He is doing among us. We are thrilled as first timers primary school parents, Gabi joined Class One at Logos Christian School while Samara is on her Second year in Kindergarten.

Paul and Liz are getting married soon, the 14th of February to be exact. Foulata, Samuel and Sonia are back in town after spending nearly two months in Mumias. Alice and Henry are preparing to send their daughter, Petra, to Form One and Ernest and Emily are waiting for the arrival of their Number One it is so exciting.

It has been dry lately and as we are all aware the President declared national disaster on the 16th  of this month because of the persistent draught. When I woke up this morning I saw dark clouds a sure sign that we will soon have the rains despite the weatherman's report. In the meantime please be thinking and praying for those people who are affected the most and I was just thinking, if you come across where you can donate food stuff, please do consider forfeiting lunch once or twice a week, share it with someone one in need.

     

 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.  Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk,  and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
 Isaiah 58:6-10

We Are Meeting This Wednesday

I trust that you all had a great holiday. I am looking forward to our time together this Wednesday, just incase you did not receive the email I sent out about the venue; Gideon and Cecilia will be hosting this month's meeting. We will be planning for the year during our first meeting, we will also take time to pray for one another and commiting this year to The Lord. 

If you did not have a chance to say bye to Truphena and Baraka, you missed out. They relcated to Australia on the 5th of this month. They have not yet communicated but I believe that they arrived safely.

God Bless you,

Gideon

Jamuhuri This Morning

In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice;

in the morning I lay my requests before you

and wait in expectation.

Psalm 5:3