2022 Mission Trip

2022 SLF Mission Team Pictured Above: Josh Roraback, Joey Sutton, and Mark Cole

2022 Mission Trip Updates By Joey Sutton

Saturday - August 27, 2022 - Received 8:38 a.m. Local/4:38 p.m. Kenya

The last update!

Today our journey in Kenya comes to an end. We are currently at the airport, waiting to board our 6:10pm flight to Doha, Qatar and then our 1:40am flight to DFW. As excited as we’ve been to be here, we are all ready to come home! This morning we woke up early and went to the Nairobi National Park to see some of Africa’s animals in their natural habitat (or as close to it as is possible now). To a person, Kenyans were eager for us to see their country and it’s animals and experience it’s culture and hospitality. They were also eager to invite us back soon! Our driver for the week, George, was outstanding. We couldn’t have asked for a more hospitable, friendly, and knowledgeable person to make sure we made it safely everywhere we needed to go the entire week…he was also an excellent tour guide at the park. He’s been providing transportation for Mike Curry’s teams for some time now and has proven to be very reliable (especially when it comes to operating on American time vs Kenyan time).

Two things happened this week that Mike says have never happened when a team was in country:

1. It only rained one afternoon in Kisii.

2. No one was sick or had any unexpected downtime.

Again, thank you Lord for watching over us and keeping us from sickness or bad weather so that the work we’ve been called to do was not impeded. Again, thank you Sovereign Life family, and other dear brothers and sisters who have committed to pray for us. And thank you to Pastor Lucas for adding these updates and pictures to the website and sending out the remind notices.

God willing, we will see you tomorrow!

Thursday - August 25, 2022 - Received 1:39 p.m. Local/9:39 p.m. Kenya

Today our team went to meet with Christiano and his wife at their home. He told us more about how he started in ministry and his passion to move the Kenyan church away from tradition and back to Biblical faithfulness. He has been training pastors in this area for over 10 years. Before the ministry training center started 3 years ago, he was meeting with pastors on Saturdays and walking them through some of the same curriculum he’s using with the students currently. It’s been obvious as we’ve encountered various people and pastors in Kisii land, there is great respect and reverence for him. We shared with him more about our church and how we came to partner with the training center through Mike Curry. After meeting for several hours we walked away confident that our priorities in ministry are aligned, we want to hold the word of God high, base our lives and ministries on what it clearly teaches, and teach others to do the same. We talked about long term vision and agreed to work together on a five year strategic plan that will guide our mutual efforts and investment in the training center. We also discussed the possibility of he and his wife coming to visit our church in 2023, which he was very much open to do.

After tea and lunch in his home, we walked over to the training center to share some last words of wisdom and exhortations with the students. We cautioned them to hold their positions as teachers and preachers of the gospel very high and not cut corners in the way they handle the text, to write down and recall all that the Lord does in their lives and go back again again for encouragement, and to embrace the hard times as opportunities for their faith to be tested and matured. We gave them the opportunity to ask questions - they wanted to know about our favorite verses, our approach to Bible study and discipline, how we maintain balance between work, family, and ministry and how we’ve come out of a time when we were discouraged. After many hugs and handshakes and goodbyes we left with Pastor Christiano to visit a couple church plants in “the bush”.

The first church was more recent and came as a result of having ministry students go out for door to door and open air evangelism. The students were going out to this area,( about 20 minutes by car, much longer on foot) and spending a few days evangelizing and then sleeping in a room next to where the church is located. The second church was farther out and was the result of a partnership with Christiano and another area pastor to get a church in area dominated by Seventh Day Adventists. The pastor there was a businessman who moved from Nairobi but the elders recognized the gift he had, and encouraged him to pursue ministry. The church is growing, but not without its issues, particularly harassment from the SDA. One of the men we met with there asked us to pray for the church, to which we said we would and would share their story with our church. He replied with something that caught me off guard… “Now the universe knows we exist.” Meaning, now he knows they aren’t bearing this burden alone, because we have heard their story and will share it, brothers and sisters on the other side of the planet can pray. I can’t remember if I said this previously, but I drastically underestimated the level encouragement they receive when visitors come, it’s very special and a reminder that God remembers them.

After our visits we came back to the hotel, where an inauguration gala for the county governor is being hosted, so it’s very crowded…and the Wi-Fi (which was spotty at best) has been dragging. Tomorrow we begin our long journey back home. I’m tearing up as a I type this sentence. This has certainly been one of the best weeks of our lives, and knowing the amount of prayer, love and support coming from our church family back home is overwhelming. We are so excited to see our families and friends and to share with you and celebrate all that the Lord is doing in Western Kenya.

Please pray for our travel tomorrow and Saturday. We are set to arrive in DFW Sunday morning at 10:00am

Please pray for the smaller “bush” churches with no outside support, who are completely dependent on the Lord to provide.

Please pray for the ministry students that they will watch their lives and doctrine closely as they move on from the school.

Wednesday - August 24, 2022 - Received 11:21 a.m. Local/7:21 p.m. Kenya

Today we went to a pastor’s conference hosted by Pastor Christiano’s church. The attendance was slightly less than anticipated but still good considering it rained yesterday. Think about what it would cost to come to a conference like this. Some people came from great distances, but even for local people, the rain yesterday perhaps would have cut into their time to buy or sell goods/food in the market so today would be needed to catch up. Or the soft ground would be the perfect opportunity to break up their soil, considering they do it by hand; so I was thankful for the people who came. We had a time of worship and then Mike taught a session on the Great Commission. The lesson was a caution against the quick and easy path in evangelism of pushing decisions instead of making disciples, only one of those was commanded by Jesus and only one leads to multiplication. It was an important message for the pastors to hear because open air evangelism and crusades are a common practice in Kenya, and often times produce numbers but no lasting fruit. 50 people might raise their hand for Jesus but only 20 come to be baptized and follow Jesus. It was also a lesson that we needed to hear. I’m thankful that our church doesn’t attempt to manipulate people or manufacture numbers but are we actively making disciples? Disciples who are able to make disciples? Honestly, it was a little bit of a gut punch because it’s not just SLF the entity that’s called to make disciples but each of us individually who make up SLF. So when I change the question from “is our church making disciples” to “am I making disciples”, it gets a lot harder to answer honestly. But I hope to change that.

After a short break … 1 hour because we were operating on Kenyan time vs American time… we a had time of question and answer and then a brief presentation where Pastor Christiano was inducted as a member of the United Bible Society of Africa. They do work to get Bibles into the schools and provide resources for churches, but only work through their members, so it’s important that Christiano is connected. We broke for lunch around 2:45, beans, cabbage and chapati, which Josh helped prepare personally.

It was nice to talk with the training center students, as well as some of the other pastors that came to the meeting. It was difficult to hear about the struggles they have especially financially because by comparison we are all immensely wealthy and just don’t have those struggles. We also have to be very careful to not make any promises of financial support or hint at the possibility. Instead we have to continually point them back to the Lord who is far more able than any of us to provide and marshal the resources necessary to meet their needs because He knows them better than even they do.

We are back at the hotel and about to eat dinner. Tomorrow Josh, Mark and myself will spend the day with Pastor Christiano to get to know him further and discuss more in depth his vision for the training center. He is also taking us out to a couple bush churches, and then we will visit with the training students for a final exhortation.

Please pray for the pastors from Tanzania as they travel 6 hours by public transport back home.

Please pray for our time tomorrow with Christiano that we would have a mutual understanding on how best to continue to support the Ministry Training Center.

Please pray that there would be a shift in Kenyan evangelism that would be geared more toward making disciples and less concerned with numerical results only.

Tuesday - August 23, 2022 - Received 9:16 a.m. Local/5:16 p.m. Kenya

Today was another good day. It started off at breakfast, Mike received a call at 7:45am from our driver George that the fuel pump in our van went out and needed replacement; we were set to leave at 8:15am to drive to the training center. We prayed that the Lord would provide a way to transport 7 people to the training center relatively quickly. The hotel we’re staying in responded quickly to our needs and provided their van and we were able to leave on time. This may seem like a minor thing to us, and honestly it did to me, but we have to remember that transportation here is hard to come by especially for groups. For these pastors, they might be called to preach in a church outside of where they live, and they depend on God to provide the bus fare or means to get there. It’s another area, in addition to regular food, electric bill, school fees, etc that these pastors who have given their lives to ministry depend completely on God to provide, and when He does they rejoice.

At the school, we heard the testimony of a pastor named Joseph from Tanzania who was previously a Roman Catholic priest. He had grown tired of preaching “the lyrics of men”, (meaning the writings/teachings of the Catholic Church) instead of the Bible. He began preaching the Bible in his church and pointing people to Jesus, and was called before a council and told not to preach these things. One day he went to an open air evangelism event being preached by one of Mike Curry’s ministry partners, a pastor named Patruba. There he believed the true Gospel of grace and gave his life to Jesus and was baptized. He renounced Roman Catholicism, which caused tension with his family and was even told by his friends to leave town because people were going to poison him. After Patruba confirmed the sincerity of his conversion, he helped Joseph plant a church close to where he lives and they are seeing many people come to faith in Christ.

We were also able to present the students with a gift from one of Mike’s financial supporters in Arkansas. He sent three suitcases full of men’s dress clothes, suit jackets, dress pants etc. with us when we flew out and we delivered to them to Kenya. These weren’t hand me down used clothes, these were very nice, high quality clothes. Mike explained to them that the value of the clothes on the table were greater than Christiano, Patruba, and Agnes’ combined monthly ministry budget. He explained that Americans and American churches are very prosperous and very generous, but demand financial integrity from ministries they support. He then warned the young pastors of the dangerous temptation of money, and to always guard themselves against it. He stressed the importance of honesty and transparency with their needs, and to always place their hope in God, not money, to meet their needs. Words we all needed to hear!

We enjoyed a lunch together, and then the rains came. At that point we decided it probably wouldn’t be very safe or fruitful to trudge down muddy footpaths in the rain, as most people would be in their homes trying to keep the rain of their walls (mud brick walls dissolve in the rain).

All in all, I think we’ve developed a great rapport with the training students and Pastor Christiano, as one of the pictures below will demonstrate. There is true joy in our fellowship and time together. Tomorrow, we will be traveling to Pastor Christiano’s church for a training conference with area pastors and evangelists, this will be an all day program.

Please pray for Pastor Joseph that he wouldn’t be tempted to go back to Roman Catholicism, but would remain faithful to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ in spite of the hardship he faces.

Please pray the conference tomorrow would be well attended, that the rain would hold off, and that the information would be helpful for those in attendance.

Monday - August 22, 2022 - Received 1:45 p.m. Local/9:45 p.m. Kenya

Today we went and spent the day at training center with the students and Pastor Christiano. We used our time in the morning to get to know one another by sharing our testimonies. It was incredible to hear how many of these students were rejected by their families after coming to a Christ or by committing their lives to gospel ministry. Many of them have a direct connection to Pastor Christiano in that he discipled them when they were younger or he led them Christ. The standards to get into the training center are high and the discipline during the 18 months is rigorous. The students are up at 5:00am everyday and read their Bibles for two hours and spend an hour in prayer. After that they spend the morning in class and after lunch they go and do one on evangelism until the evening. Also, they all participate in leadership at Christiano’s church or at another area church on Sundays and throughout the week as needed.

As we heard their testimonies we were able to address various ministry questions and offer practical wisdom. The curriculum they use to train is thorough, accessible, and helps with practical application of concepts. Christiano is also an expository preacher and is training them to preach and teach verse by verse.

After a lunch of lentils and chapati bread we divided up into teams and went out in the community for evangelism. Each of us were grouped with three students and given a direction to start walking and a time to be back. It was striking to all of us how quickly people would allow us into their homes, and how polite and open they were to talk about Jesus. The training students had a hard time understanding why we were shocked, we explained that American culture is very different. We were all impressed with our partners, their passion for evangelism and knowledge of the Scriptures were both impressive.

At the end of the day we met back up with Mike for dinner at the hotel. We also met Agnes, a ministry partner from Kisumu and a group of pastors from Tanzania. They will be joining us at the training center tomorrow and the pastor’s conference on Wednesday.

Please pray for our time tomorrow at the training center and in the community that it would be effective and fruitful.

Please pray for continued good health and adequate rest for our team. So far the local food hasn’t bothered us too much and other than some fatigue we’re doing ok.

Sunday - August 21, 2022 - Received 2:04 p.m. Local/10:04 p.m. Kenya

Today was just a great day all around. We woke up early and left for Pastor Christiano’s church around 8:00 and arrived at 8:30, just in time for prayers. A common practice for the churches that have the equipment is to take big speakers, place them outside the building pointing toward the neighborhood and turn the volume WAAAAY up, so that the people outside hear what’s going on inside. As with the worship service, the prayer service was very expressive. These weren’t silent prayers but very loud, bold prayers spoken into a microphone and carried through the speakers. The prayer service lasted until about 9:00, during that time Pastor Christiano showed us around the property and the improvements they had been able to make. Like us, their church is experiencing growth and facing the challenge of where to put people, but the Lord has provided space for them to expand and accommodate double what they are seeing now. I lead the Bible study at 9:00 and surprisingly had little difficulty communicating through a translator…mostly because Collins ( a pastoral student at the training center) was a skilled translator, and Mike Curry provided good advice “Speak in thoughts not words”. As I mentioned, the worship service was very expressive, similar songs to what we sing, with a little more tempo, but everyone in the church was all in, even if they couldn’t sing, it was very sincere. After the worship service, Christiano broke protocol and had everyone spend 3 minutes greeting everyone in the church. Mike Curry preached, we had a time for people to come forward for prayer, and an offering. The service ended with Josh, Mark and I coming up front and extending a greeting, to which Mike asked the church what message we should bring back to SLF, and they said almost in unison, “Tell them we send greetings.” A very warm and endearing thing to send for sure.

The service ended around 12:30 and we met with Christiano for a lunch prepared by some of the ladies in the church, and then attended a training meeting for leaders in the church. At 4:00 we left and headed for Kisii to participate in an open air evangelism event put on by Pastor Daniel’s church. They set up large speakers in a town market, some of the students performed dances and the Mike Curry preached. There were probably 50 people who stood around watching, mostly young men which is unusual, but very important, as the men get harder to reach later into adulthood. One young man came forward to profess faith in Jesus, and will meet and follow up with the pastors in training at Daniel’s church.

It was encouraging to see that all of these local pastors have at least two or three young men (some are teenagers and many of them orphans who live at the church) who they are discipling and preparing for ministry. Everything here seems to be geared two multiplication, though it’s not without its challenges. We finished with dinner and discussed and celebrated what the Lord had done today.

Please pray for our team, the next two days will be spent shadowing at the Pastor Training Center, in the morning we will join them for their classes and then after lunch we will go out for door to door evangelism.

Please pray for the all the pastors in the Kisii area. They see the most difficulty and danger from 7th Day Adventists, who are militant and harder to reach them the Muslims in the area. Kisii is their African headquarters and they hold a great deal of power. At times they have engaged in threatening behavior toward anyone who would preach a Gospel contrary to theirs.

Saturday - August 20, 2022 - Received 1:38 p.m. Local/9:38 p.m. Kenya

Today was another travel day. Mark finally made it Kenya and arrived to the Heart Lodge at 3:00am, only to wake up at 6:15 so we could head for the airport at 6:45! We flew across Kenya to Kisumu and the met our driver George who had gone ahead of us with most of our luggage. We then drove south from Kisumu a few hours to our final destination of Kisii, where we will be staying and participating in ministry for the rest of the week.

We are in the mountains, about 5,700 feet elevation. It’s rained off and on this afternoon with chances for pop up storms throughout the week. The temps range from the upper 50’s to lower 70’s, very pleasant for outdoor work and being inside places with no air conditioning. Speaking of work, we had dinner tonight with Pastor Christiano and his family as well as Pastor Daniel and his wife, and lined out the ministry schedule for tomorrow…and it’s a FULL day. Our group will head over to Christiano’s church with Mike. I will teach a Bible study at 9:00, and then Mike will preach during worship service. At some point Josh and Mark will likely be called on to share their testimony and bring a greeting, which is a very formal and expected part of their worship services when visitors come. In essence, they will be letting the congregation know that we are here and bring greetings on behalf of the brothers and sisters at Sovereign Life Fellowship along with some other personal details.

After the worship service we will eat a quick lunch (protein bar) and then the church will gather again for training. This is where anyone who serves in the church in any capacity comes to be equipped. Mike will teach a session and then we will all participate in a question and answer panel to help address issues or difficulties that have come up. After that, we will drive into Kisii proper to meet up with Daniel and members from his church for a time of open air evangelism.

Finally, at 7:00pm we’ll end with dinner where Christiano and Daniel will join us to discuss the day and plan for the next day. As you can imagine coordinating schedules and drivers and lining people up to meet needs in different places is a Herculean task, but this is the norm for these pastors in addition to the struggles that face in their personal lives.

Please pray for all of the ministry activity happening tomorrow and that we won’t be prevented by rain from the open air evangelism.

Please pray for Josh, Mark and I that we would be faithful ambassadors of Jesus Christ and of Sovereign Life Fellowship.

Please pray for Pastors Christiano and Daniel and their congregations that they would be encouraged by our visit and would continue to see fruit in their ministry.

Friday - August 19, 2022 - Received 9:16 a.m. Local/5:16 p.m. Kenya

Today was mainly a rest day to catch up from the trip. Josh and I didn’t get to the Heart Lodge (a missionary house) until a little after 2:00am and went to sleep around 2:30.

We got up this morning refreshed and met with Mike Curry for lunch. We also met another one of his ministry partners from the US, Jeff Moser, and a local ministry partner Barron. After lunch we went over to one of the feeding stations and schools that Light Ministries operates. The feeding station is located in Mathare slum, one of the largest in Kenya where they estimate 800,000 people live. We met Pastor Kennedy who runs the school and feeding station. We also met his wife and several of the teachers and staff. All of them were full of joy and repeatedly told us of how God had answered prayer after prayer to provide the property, funds and people to be able to operate.

Pastor Kennedy showed us where the school originally started; it was located in a place where the sewage overflows and floods but in the past ten years they have built a permanent structure and can accommodate a large number of kids from pre-k to 8th grade. You can see the original spot from the third floor of the school, Pastor Kennedy says it serves as a reminder of God’s provision and goodness.

We also met most of the students, and there was a noticeable difference between the kids who are getting regular meals and care at the school versus the ones we saw as we drove through the streets. More than the food and academic education though, they are being taught the Bible and given a hope In Jesus Christ which is far better than what their surroundings offer. Before we left, the kids sang a worship song and Mike Curry prayed over them. It was a tremendous blessing to see what the Lord is doing through this ministry in the lives of these children.

We just got back to the Heart Lodge and will meet for dinner with Mike and Jeff tonight. Tomorrow starts early as we head for the airport to fly to Kisumu and then drive to Kisii.

Please pray for the work that Pastor Kennedy and the staff are doing in Mathare, pray for perseverance and strength to let their light shine in a very dark place.

Also pray for Mark as he flies in tonight, he likely won’t arrive until 2:00am and then we leave out at 6:45am, so it will be a very taxing few days to be sure.