From Ken

Good morning! It is Friday morning and we are in our 5th day of our History Makers conference. It has been an incredible experience this week having this opportunity to teach, mentor and share with many people. Yesterday morning, we taught on evangelism. In the afternoon, we travelled to Kibera, the largest slum in Africa with an estimated 1 million people living there. I had done some research on Kibera but was not quite prepared for what I experienced. Kibera is located on the outskirts of Nairobi and is a poverty striken place. In the US, we would not want our family pets to live in the kind of conditions we saw. We walked through many alleys, down old rail tracks and even had the opportunity to go to a small church located toward the center of the slum. The church is an outreach of Global Outreach Assembly. There were a number of children there. We sang songs with them (in Swahili), prayed and I had an opportunity to give them some Chick-fil-A mini plush cows; if you could have seen their shining faces. We went to a "park" which was a large open area in the middle of the park. Just over 1 year ago, just after the Kenyan elections, there was much violence in Kibera and a massive blood shed and killings that occured in the very place where we were standing; an experience that I will never forget. We conducted a short worship service. In addition, many of the History Makers (the participants in the conference) went around the perimeter of the park and shared with many many people. Many of the people that we spoke with are orphans and many of them have been born in Kibera and have never lived in any other place. Some played football (soccer) with the children and youth, some just held young children and we ALL prayed!!! God answered your prayers and ours and we saw a total of 53 come to Christ! We will all need to continue to pray for them as they have much to overcome. I had a bag full of Chick-fil-A cows and cow pez dispensers and tried to hand them out selectively in the park. The word got out very quickly that there was a white man with gifts and I was completely swarmed by too many children to count. All the gifts were handed out (so to speak) and someone even took the plastic shopping bag that I had brought them in. The mini-cows were in plastic bags with a Chick-fil-A advertisement inside. At one point, I saw 2 small boys fighting over one of these advertisements; this moved me greatly that this would be so important to them.
I hope as time allows, I will have an opportunity to share with each of you about more of my experiences here this week.
I came here to teach and mentor but I will certainly not be coming home the same man that arrived here just 5 days ago.
Please continue to pray for our next few days. We will have graduation for the History Makers tomorrow/Saturday, going to church on Sunday (I will be preaching or giving my testimony which they consider preaching), going to Nairobi Game Park for a safari and leaving at 11:10 PM to head home.
Thank you for your prayer support!