God Has Not Forgotten

How powerful are those words! We landed in Kenya only a few short days ago. Praise God that we got here safely and are able to be here and bless people, yet I feel like we are the ones getting so blessed! Everyone here is so giving despite not having much of their own! It is so convicting to a lot of us and it is difficult to just sit back and not be able to give much back but our ministry! And how truly excited they are for our time here.
Yesterday was our first full day here and it was supposed to be our day of rest. The day consisted of a wonderful Kenyan Church service welcoming the mazungus (thats us white people + Anthony- who is considered white here! haha). We sang, danced and praised the Lord for the work he will do during the crusades here! This service was so long and so powerful and I believe a lot of us will be learning to whole heartedly do worship, despite how silly it may seem to us now! I'm so excited for God to be breaking down those barriors for us! Grace, the woman who the 5 girls are staying with, spoke so passionately about how God has NOT forgotten the people in these lands with so much power and I know I got so excited about the work they KNOW is going to happen. There are no doubts in any of our minds that something powerful is going to come out of this ministry here! Bwana asifiwe! Everyone says amen? :)
We Canadians are quickly getting used to a lot of rice, pit latrenes and sponge baths! It is all so wonderful, and the landscape? How can we not praise the Lord after seeing the beauty he has created!
We are being so blessed by all the children we encounter! They all love to shake our hands and say "how are you, how are you?" because that's all a lot of the public school kids know how to say. The private school kids do know quite a bit of english though, along with a lot of the adults, which makes it quite easy for us muzungus! But we are still practicing the lines that Kennedy taught us, way back during the planning for this trip in Caronport. The people all light up when they see us, they wave, they laugh and sometimes run after us. I'm always left wondering what they are saying to us in their language.
Jet lag? I think we have all defeated it and are just ready to start the crusades tomorrow. Please be praying for the Lord to change these peoples hearts, so that they can say "blessed be the name of the lord" despite anything they are going through. It is difficult to see the street kids and the poor kids and I just want to pick them up and take them home, instead I just pray that something will change in their hearts and the Lord will see them and fill their hearts! Please keep these hurting kids in your prayers!
It is almost time to me to return to Benyore, but I hope you will remember these prayer requests:
- safety against disease and infection
- effectiveness in ministry
- that the language barrior won't be a problem
- physical strength for the team as this will be a tiring time (long days, physically demanding, spiritually demanding)
- wisdom and clarity for the leaders of the crusades (July 29th-Aug 1st)
- team unity, we need to stay connected so there is no room for the devils attack in this area.

This is all that comes to mind, and I will be checking in as much as possible(every few days) to keep you all updated. I hope you realize I did just travel 10 minutes by motorbike to write this to you. It was sweeeeeet! So I will be coming back again to write more, especially for this experience.
God bless you all for your prayers, support and love.
Nakupenda from Africa,
On behalf of the Caronport to Kenya team, Deana Phillips!


Ps. Happy birthday Daddy :)