Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Junior Soldiers, My Corps, and It's Way Too Hot

Dearest Ones,

The rainy season is over and it is now hot. Too hot. Non-stop sweating and 6 bottles of water a day is the current name of my game. But all is well. The fuit trees are starting to bear fruit, there are tons of baby animals, the children are back in school, and the youth programs are getting off to a good start for the year 2010.

The last month has been filled with office work and to be honest has felt a little bit "slow". I know that the things we are doing in office are important and vital to the effectiveness of the rest of the year's programmes and I'm sure that it will speed up with time after the start of the year. The first of the year is filled with establishing programs and budgets and plans, etc., and so we havent had much time to go "out" into the field and stuff yet.


I have become really proud of my Corps (church) to see how far they have come in the last year. The youth group is really growing, becoming more established and organized, and the music groups have come far. The band has set up a bank account in order to save money and buy instruments, we have been training new recruits, and the guitar group is growing in number and talent. Last week, we commissioned 15 new youth workers to help with the youth work of the corps and community.


Throughout town little roadside shops have been popping up called "Valentine Love Centres". These are the cutest little valentine's day shops you'll ever seen. You can buy plastic flowers, candy bars, fake bushes, cards, stuffed animals, clocks in the shape of wine bottles, and i even found a huge rubber tarantula in the midst of all this love. They are excellent. I love reading the cards, my favorite being "You make it easy for me to shower you with sentamentality" - how beautiful.


This past weekend I had the chance to travel to a brand new District of the Salvation Army called Lugari District. It was Junior Soldier Renewal Sunday, where the young people of the Corps renew themselves to God, and I was at the Matete Corps. I had the chance to lead the Renewal Ceremony for about 70 young people, and challenged the entire corps to encourage the youth and to renew their own promises to God as well. The ceremony was really beautiful and it is great to ee a church congragation which invests so much into their youth. I also had the opportuniy to dedicate 4 sheep which had been bought to distribute to members of the community. The goal of this programme is to "eradicat poverty", which is a huge but wonderful undertaking.


This month two Americans, named Shanon and Roxanne, from California came to teach in a Salvation Army school just down the road from the THQ. So now we are like a wazungu circus with all these white people running around. It has been nice to have some new faces and we are really enjoying them. They will be here for about one year.


Please pray for:

- The Territorial Youth Programs
- The THQ
- Our World Youth Convention Delegates and preparations
- Decision Making
- My corps (Kakamega Central and Mayfair Community)



God Bless friends,

Justin

No comments: