Moving to....

By Sara:

We are excited to share with you that we will be continuing with World Renew next year and moving to Nakuru, Kenya to work at an Anglican Bible College and Farm!

Here is a map to show you where Nakuru is (kind of in the middle and to the right).

This is the beautiful area where we will be located (so start saving your money to come visit Kenya):

World Renew has been working very hard on our behalf (thank you to World Renew staff!) to put together this position and we're really looking forward to continuing with an organization that we love in a part of the world that we love.  It is going to be really hard to leave all the people we have gotten to know here in Uganda and the community we have become a part of, but we are very excited for this opportunity we have in Kenya.  We are also thankful that we will be close enough to visit and see our friends from time to time.  Over these past two years while traveling so much, we realized we feel a general calling to East Africa, and can see ourselves working here for the long-term, but without limiting ourselves to staying only in one country.

Over our discernment process we also realized that we needed a more stable type of position with less travel.  Driving 3-5 hours every day that I want to work with farmers in the field is not sustainable.  Teaching agriculture from a fixed position is much more appealing.  And while Anthony feels very privileged and full of joy to have worked with pastors teaching TLT, he has always been someone who'd rather be at home every day instead of traveling, so his current work of being away from home 50% of the time is rather taxing. 

As we've mentioned before, World Renew works with partner organizations, organizations that are doing direct work on the ground, by giving support, advising, and assisting in the good work they are already doing.  World Renew is partnering with the Anglican Church of Kenya in the Nakuru area, specifically the Anglican Development Service.  The Nakuru Diocese has a Bible college called Berea Christian College, just outside of Nakuru.  They also have a 250 acre farm that is right across the street from the Bible college.

We are going to be able to live on Berea's campus, so we can walk to work every day!  The college is providing housing for us and we will even have a fireplace which might sometimes be necessary to heat our house.  Not all of Africa is hot all the time.  The campus is about 30 minutes outside of town in a rural area.  We look forward to living away from the busyness of town, but close enough to enjoy the grocery stores and restaurants.

Anthony will teach classes at the college, including Church History, Systematic Theology, Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction to biblical Greek, Homiletics (which includes hermeneutics), Missions and Evangelism, and Apologetics.  He is very excited about this because these are topics that he is passionate about.  Anthony is filling a need because the faculty are over-stretched and one lecturer is retiring before we come.

Here are some photos of the Bible College: 

I am going to be teaching some hands-on, practical classes at the college on some basic agricultural techniques and working with the school to develop agricultural curriculum.  I will also help the school to make some agricultural demonstrations on the school land.  Additionally, I will work with the actual farm across the street, both to learn from the people who work there as well as to contribute from my knowledge, specifically about conservation agriculture.  Further, I will be working periodically with the development team either at Berea College through the demonstrations or out in the village.  As you can see, my time will be divided between several places and there will be no shortage of work for me to do.

The farm grows coffee, tea, vegetables, and raises dairy cows.  Here are some pictures.

Over the past two years we've made several trips to Kenya, and visited Berea College a couple times.  We've really enjoyed getting to know some of the staff from the development team, getting to know the Bishop, and the staff at the school and farm.  We look forward to working with them and they are also very happy for us to be joining them.

World Renew is also working in the region of Turkana, in northwestern Kenya.  During school holidays (once or twice a year), we will travel there to help with World Renew's work.  Anthony will probably start a TLT group and I will do some agricultural or livelihood (like baking, making soap, etc.) trainings.  We shared about Turkana before, when we visited there earlier this year.  You can look back on some pictures here.  Due to the work in Turkana and because of the distance we are from Nakuru town, we will be needing a vehicle for our work in Kenya (unfortunately in my opinion - I think vehicles are a pain!).

We will have a new budget which we can share more details about later on, but it will be at least slightly larger than our current volunteer budget.  For now, please know that we greatly value your continued support as we go to Kenya.

So, what are the next steps?  After we finish up our work here in Soroti in January, we will make one or two trips across the border to Nakuru (it's not very far) to transport some of our belongings (and the dog) there.  We will be able to store some small things (like some clothes, cooking implements, books, etc.) in the house where we will live at the school, though we are still selling all of our big furniture off before we go.  After that, we'll be in the US from February until about July for a whirlwind tour of visiting churches, family, friends, and meetings/appointments.  We'll return to Kenya in July with a month or two to get ready for the first semester.  This position will begin with a three-year agreement and then we will see where God leads from there.

We've already started learning Swahili and will continue to work hard at it.  We want to become fluent as this language can be used in most of Kenya, very unlike our situation in Uganda working with people of multiple languages.

All in all, there's a lot to do in the coming months.  Anthony's a bit stressed wanting to get started writing his lesson plans already.  But we are thankful that we have a plan for moving forward and we are excited to continue sharing interesting information about Kenya with you!  We can't thank all of you enough for your patience in waiting to hear from us, and for your faithful prayers and encouragements over the last year as we were discerning God's call.