Updates and travel changes

Hello family and friends!

First, let us say Praise God and Thank You for all of the financial support so far! We have raised $3000.00 already...almost 40% of our goal! We are so humbled by God's people and the support and encouragement we are seeing! We still have quite a ways to go and would certainly appreciate your continued prayers for the rest of our funding. We believe HE will provide!

At our meeting on February 3rd, it was decided that we will be traveling to Kenya the last two weeks of July, rather than the first two weeks. This is due to the fact that the World Cup of Soccer is in South Africa from June 16th-July 16th and airfare will be extra steep during that time! We will wait until people are leaving Africa!!!

We were also able to spend quite a big of time talking with two people from Northwest Church in Shoreline, WA who will be coming with us on our trip. This will be Larry's 4th trip to Kenya and Julie's 2nd. They both work very closely with Christian Relief Fund as well. We learned about the AMAZING work that this church and CRF are doing in Kenya.

CRF provides assistance to 420 children that attend the Rig Road Orphan Day School in Kisumu, Kenya, where they receive 3 meals each day in addition to daily classes. These kids all come from the slum around the school each day and are also able to take a bag of food home to their foster parents at least once per month. We will be spending some time at this school and probably doing a VBS program here. www.ringroadorphanage.org

58 children are cared for in nearby Lakeside orphanage where we will be doing some specific work. One of our main objectives on this trip is to see if and where Renovo might want to get more specifically involved on a long term basis. This orphanage is small enough that Renovo could be able to support it! We will most likely be constructing a small building at the school for the grounds keeper who is currently living in a hut.

Child Sponsorship helps 167 children in Eldoret, 64 children in Mombassa, 185 children in Malindi, 10 children in Alara. The Kitale Childrens' Home gives full-time care to 41 children and an additional 89 are sponsored in their own homes in Kitale. CRF sent $16,000 for food relief. $15,070 sent for mosquito nets, fire extinguishers, scholarships, scouting projects and farming. An AIDS Testing and Counseling Center opened in May 2009 and CRF sent $45,600 to cover costs of supplies and staff.

So, as you can see, CRF is doing great work in Kenya! Keven and I are even more excited now to get there and serve God's people.

We would appreciate your continued prayers for this trip...that we would be faithful to this calling, that all of the prep work we have to do would go smoothly, that the people we will meet in Africa will be ready for us and that we will be ready for them! Our kids need your prayers as well. They will be 6 & 4 1/2 when we leave. They will be in very capable hands and are very excited to have some quality time with cousins but 2 weeks is a long time without daddy and mommy. Our prayer is that they will be completely unaffected and instead see their parents choosing to serve the Lord when he asked them to.

Our next meeting is March 4th where we will continue to develop our agenda for our time in Kenya. I will update after that meeting.

Thank you for joining us on this journey.

In the powerful name of Jesus,
Keven & Alicia