May 2025
For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. I Cor. 3:9
Dear friends and supporters of the Rendille Outreach,
It was almost one year ago that the Lord saw it appropriate to call missionary Judith Collins home to glory. It was a graduation day for Judith, as she had fought a good fight, had finished her course, and had kept the faith. But it was also a graduation day for the Rendille Outreach as they would have to move on to a new grade level – relying more on the Lord Jesus than ever before.
Our last letter, in October 2024, gave you a glimpse of the happenings up to that point. Today, I wish to bring you up-to-date on many of the ministries you have cared for, prayed over, and financially supported. Such support is sincerely needed today. I trust that you will see how some have planted, and others have watered, but indeed it is the Lord God who gives the increase.
I asked Peter for a summary of activities. The following represents that report.
1. Churches
Surely, and we are not bragging in any way, since all glory and honor goes to our Lord Jesus Christ. The BPC church in Kenya, and especially in northern Kenya is surely growing in number and also in the truth of the Gospel. As you know, we have one policy, that we never compromise our Bible with Tradition. Many religions usually put tradition as part of beliefs to be more acceptable. But we made it clear that from the beginning, we can be hated but we will not compromise.
In January, we made our yearly plan for the development of churches. We have three: Balaah, Hafare and Sunyuro. We also have Sulate, Hafare Hills, Ilmakinya and Farakore outstations. We have shelved the Nairobi Church for now because of a low workforce and more need in the north. But it is in our prayers. There is a small meeting of Rendille watchmen, and their families, which meet in my house in Nairobi where I live, and where tea is expensive. Sometimes we have more than 37 families represented. Lucy teaches children and I teach Bible discussion with adults. Sometimes we even provided the transport.
2. Evangelism
Our target is to meet, not only once, but as many times as possible, all the villages in every place. For example, we have 12 goobs in Balaah. We put Nacha (pastor of Balaah) and Lebu Letole to reach each of these goobs. We have three sets of evangelist groups: there are mamas, men (mostly pastors) and the youth (who go to school and from these goobs to get to their fellow youth, educated and non-educated). And we have seen these working well. The same is done in Hafare and Sunyuro. For the others, we pastors will take turns preaching every Sunday. Pastor James Segelan has six goobs in Hafare and Pastor Lawrence Orbora has nine goobs in Sunyuro. I (Peter) coordinate all the evangelism activities and materials, and look for funds for the satellites, preaching and the Nairobi fellowship group. Our target is to reach over 24,000 people with Christ’s message and love. Keep us in prayer.
3. Child Evangelism
In every church, the children are the future and continuation of faith. We have been blessed to have so many children who come to our Saturday classes. We arrange to meet these children (age 10-14), at their time away from school, to come and learn the Word of God and catechisms. We used to have children younger than these but we decided to stop younger ones, so they would be taught in their respective churches on Sunday. We have inherited, and used, Sunday school teaching materials from Judith. This was only meant for our churches. We have 700 children, or a little more, in this program. Lately, we have children from neighboring churches coming. Charles Luhlomele and I lead these. We feed lunch to these children when they come to classes as they come from far away. The books we have are designed to take a whole year and then they graduate next year. Our first class of graduates will be at the end of this year. After four years of intensive Bible study, every Saturday, they are now graduating.
4. Youth Evangelism
Every holiday there are three opportunities to evangelize the youth. In April, August and December we have youth camps where we teach the Bible, the Way of a Christian, Biblical Living, and sports. The youth also go to the goobs to meet their fellow classmates and share the love of Christ, and encourage each other. We help to encourage them with school fees. As a church, which has suffered many years of onslaught from the Moslems, it is an ideal thing to do. We have many of our members who became Moslems. But since we started this program, a number have returned to Christ. Thank you for your support and prayers.
5. Baptism
Baptism classes have been held, and we are trusting to have a service in December. We have contacted Faith College of the Bible for help here as we do not have any ordained men to perform the sacrament. We have many people taking classes under their respective churches, and have postponed this baptism for three years for the lack of a minister. May God bless.
6. Church Development
In all evangelism, which is our core work, there is also a need for some development. In February, we talked about the physical development of the churches. For example, our Balaah church building was built with the help of two American families, and is too small for us now. Having more than four services every Sunday is hard for us. We are trusting the Lord (who has provided material for us) will provide the needed transportation for these materials, water, labor and anything else which will come up. These churches, when done, will have enough space to house 300 plus worshippers every Sunday. A library is also needed to house all the wealth of knowledge from Judith’s library in Nairobi and offices for pastors. Please trust us with this and pray with us. We are very much afraid we are going to lose all these materials. At the same time, we are in the process of getting land for the Sunyuro BPC. We have the same promise of building materials, but we still have to purchase the land from the community.
There are also the challenges in evangelism. The Lord has provided the means of reaching as many people as we can through motor bikes. We are also very grateful for the people who provided fuel for these bikes. We are indebted to the people who provide for a yearlong fueling of the bikes for evangelism. But, it has proven to be very hard to maintain bikes. Many times the riders and the two passengers get into accidents, and they are very expensive to repair. Even now we are treating pastor Larawan for a recent accident. We are praying for a vehicle as this will help us in reaching many people with evangelism and preaching.
7. Balaah Primary School
In January, we planned for the whole year. First we had to do planning for PPI (pastoral) teachers. Our school, and some others, have adapted for this. We are going through the Catechism for the whole year.
The School Management Board removed two people, who were not following the principles of our Christian beliefs. This gave us 98% of the Management Board and strengthened our Bible position. The young pastors have also formed Wednesday Fellowship groups in a number of schools where they are meeting weekly for Bible study and prayer for one hour. Their target is 15,000 students, both in primary and secondary levels. Now they are reporting 2,000.
8. Upcoming Events and Prayer Requests
The postponed Youth Conference will be in August. There will be youth from the Balaah churches, along with some from AIC and Grace Baptist Church. Keep us in prayer.
Pray for the Mamas Ministry. It is going on very well, going to goobs for other mamas. Pray for the children’s medical insurance, this will come due this year. The government is not serious in many of the things they promised Kenyans, such as a free education. They have negated many earlier promises. Pray for the girls dorm (Purity Dorm – pictured left); all Christian girls. We are told to get a solar system for the dorm and to feed them. Food we can cover as Grace Baptist Church has pledged to feed them for the whole year. But the solar system and water tanks to bring water close, will be needed.
In September/October, there will be a meeting of the county education forum. This is when we are to have next year’s implementation. Pray that we will understand what is needed. We have given notice of removing our head teacher by the end of the year as his wife is a charismatic pastor, and we feel she is a bad influence to him and our school children. The population of the school has increased so much.
Thank you dear friends – Peter Lkayo
Your servant, in Christ,
Rev. Keith H. Coleman