Ann and Bob are in Kenya working with the students and staff of Bridges Kenya.  The country is in the grips of a two year drought.  This means that the crops have failed four different seasons.  People and cattle are dying for lack of rain.  There is lots of coverage on the local news.  We are having a good but challenging time here with the Bridges staff and students.  Last week the NIV large print Study Bibles arrived after 6 months of waiting.  Bob presented a Bible to each of the 38 pastor students and they were very happy to received a new Bible.  Also last week the much awaited tent (20 X 400 arrived and the pastor students were so excited about it that they did not wait for the tent technician, they put the tent up themselves and moved their desks and chairs in immediately.  It was a great week which concluded with Ann demonstrating soap making for them and then each of them gave their personal testimony to Bob.  Their stories are amazing.  The personal sacrifice they go through just to attend the school is awesome.  One of the students boards a matatu (mini bus) at 1 a.m. to ride the 150 miles to reach the school.  Many others also come long distances and often with no money to return home, they have to earn some money to get transport back home where their family is with little or no food.  Please pray for these people and this Godly work.

In August the budget for pastor training was short by $260.  The very next week we received an unexpected gift from a first time donor in the amount of $200.  Praise God!  A few days later another unexpected miracle arrived in the form of a check for $50.  Isn’t God great!  Then the next week our Sunday School class surprised us with a generous cash donation.  Our prayer is that we are good and faithful stewards of the resources God trusts us with and that the people we serve will give the credit to God as there source.

Female circumcism, FGM (Female Genitial Mutilation), or “The Cut” usually occurs in the month of August or December when the young girls are out of school for school break.  Young girls are captured or trapped by their female relatives and forced to undergo this horrorable and painful procedure.  Many many young girls in Africa are being subjected to ”The Cut” this month.  Bridges has a Rite of Purity Passage training program and ceremony that teaches the evils and dangers of this custom and shares the Christian prospective.  The Rite of Purity Passage training is being taught this month in Kenya in two different locations under the leadership of Bridges personel.  This training has been taught in Kenya by Bridges at various locations for the past 5 years.  Several hundred young girls and their mothers and grandmothers have participated in this training and many have shared with us the value and enlightenment the program brings to them to help them combat the old customs and dark cultures of their tribalist history.  Some of the girls we know have escaped “The Cut” only by running away from their family and villages and taking up a new life elsewhere.  Some of them are now in our ICAN program and are receiving an education and the love of a new Christian family.  Now they have the opportunity to grow up as whole and complete individuals not fearing the scars and female problems of the old ways but looking forward to the joys of the future, the joys of marriage, sex, and child bearing.

This month also, I have visited the ICAN children both at homes and in schools.  The children are doing well, coming up very well in health.  They are co-operating with their guardians.  Guardians are comfortable with them.  I have interacted and talked with these guardians and they say that the ministry is of great importance and even doing quite a notable job.  It has really changed the lives of these most neglected and frustrated children who could not think about their future.  Now there is hope.  The feeding they are getting is causing great and incredible change as far as their health is concern especially this time our country is very affected by drought.  In schools, I have received good reports from their teachers.  That these children are at peace.  They are actually concentrating in class.  Their initiatives and progress is quite notable.  They are committed and dedicated in their class work.  They have done well in their mid-term exams and are improving in grades.  In fact all this could not be possible if the ICAN program had not thrown its efforts to support these children.  They are praying and thank donors for the greater job they are doing to them.  May the Lord shower the donors with His richest blessings.  Sarah Mike

Morell Pastor School which is under Bridges International Development, is like a clinic for spiritual diseases encountered in the Churches.  Before I joined the school, my church was undergoing many problems.  I could not know whether it was me or the Church that was causing these problems.  When I got an opportunity to join the school, I was eager to find the healing of my church problem through the teachings.  Through Pastoral ministry course, I got many challenges that an untrained Pastor could be the main cause of his Church problems.  I eagerly followed the teacher through these courses and I got healed of my weaknesses.  Pastoral ministry course changed my Pastoral way of leading and shepherding the church.  I came to know; poor pastoral methodology affects many Churches and causes them not to grow.  After two years, I came out with full knowledge.  As I lead the church now as per the way I am trained, the church is running well.  Where there were conflicts, they are no longer there.  The church was completely healed from serious problems which were making the church to be dwarf and plateau.  Right now, my church is healthier, growing well, spending more energy on great commission and discipleship.  The school has brought the medicine of my Church surely.  Be blessed.

I am greatly impressed by the training I have undergone in Bridges international Development.  I left the school when I was well informed and totally competent.  My church by then was showing slow growth, but out of the inspiration that I got from the class, I fully committed myself to work hard and applied every principle taught in school to make the church grow.  I chose to drive the church in obedience to great commission.  I tried to copy in New Testament disciples.  They devoted in worship, fellwoship, and edification of the Church.  I mobilized my members to focus on this, if we could, to realize the purpose of Jesus for the church.  Through the training, I got my church members to join hands.  This made the church to grow in a high rate and speed.  I am happy to see the church grow in a healthier way.  The church is now incurring gradual expansion in mnay areas.  Spiritually, through discipleship class, we have grown members in the word of God.  Economically, the church is well built, with many instruments.  Members give generously to the work of God.  Numerically, the number is yearly increasing: by now, we are from 100 to 300 members.  I really thank God for such a good opportunity of joining this wonderful wchool.  To God be the glory.

Thank you for checking out our newly revised and updated website.  Thanks also to our daughter Kim (a nurse) and to a college student, Joseph McWilliams for the revision.  At Bridges we try to keep our expenses at a minimum and these two helpers have done this revision at no cost to us.  Yeah!!!  If you think they have done a good job, as I do, make a comment of encouragement to them.

Food shortages and lack of rain plague the countryside of Kenya!  We are receiving these reports each month from our staff personell in Meru.  Some students are not able to attend classes due to the food shortage and increased cost of transportation.  Please pray for these people and their country in this time of desperate need.

A beautiful, pregnant female goat now resides on the Bridges compound in Meru, Kenya.  We are anticipating the day soon when she will give birth and we will have a new kid and our own supply of goat milk.  A well bred milking goat like ours is capable of producing about as much milk as a Jersey cow and is much more practical for the African family.  The goat has her own elevated home and is supplied daily with nutritious feed so she can produce lots of delicious milk.  This project is another of our economic development demonstrations for the students and staff to learn how to become more self sufficient and provide good nutrition for their families.  May God richly bless this goat project.

Bridges was blessed so greatly in 2008!  The ministry has grown, the number of ministry projects have grown, the funds donated for ministry has grown, the number of donors has increased, the staff in Kenya has matured especially in leadership, funds were donated for a tent, funds were donated for a goat for the school, the goathouse was completed, 30 more women graduated, and a great group of seven Christians from Texas spent 10 days with us in Kenya in July.  It truly was a blessed year.