Mosaic Global Mission

Dearest Friends,

Well, after an amazing 3 weeks in America we arrived back to Kenya very thankful to be able to sleep! Our dark container was wonderful and in a few days we felt back on schedule with no jet leg. The flight went well and all our luggage (9 footlockers!!!) arrived safely! Praise the Lord!

These past few weeks we have been busy getting back into the swing of things here in Loy, but it has been really fun too! The weather is so much cooler. Still hot, but such a difference over March and April that we have been sleeping and waking up rested—a huge blessing. Another blessing has been the arrival and visit of my friend Abby. She has been seriously awesome. Not only have we had a blast together she has been helping me wash dishes, was clothes (she has mastered the wringer washer!) she plays with Belle, and we just laugh a lot. Wasn’t God so kind to give me a friend for a few weeks as I adjust back to life in Kenya? Paul meanwhile has been enduring a house full of girls! Haha

The work here is exciting. Paul and I (well, I help a bit!) have started teaching the youth Sunday School class which is great. We are really looking forward to getting to know the youth at our church. Paul is going though Hebrews. He is also going though Hebrews in morning devotions so we are all learning great truths from this epistle. The daily work seems to consist of much dirt digging and rock hauling as of late, so us girls bake lots of cookies and treats for the hard working guys.

I have also learned a new skill this month as we helped a friend build her jikoni (kitchen). We helped with her walls by “playing in the mud”! Seriously, it can be hard work making mud pies of the right consistency for her to mold into walls. It was wild. So much dirt and water and “getting dirty” as Bella kept saying. We had such fun and were very dirty, but now a very nice kitchen is standing tall in her yard.

We took Abby to a nearby mountain called Porr. We camped under the stars on the top of the truck and then hiked in the morning. Because of taking turns carrying Annabelle (yes, we will blame her!) it took us 2 hours to go up and down! Bells was strapped onto backs the entire time so she keeps asking to “climb more mountains?”. She obviously doesn’t think it was too tiring.

We are getting ready to drive down to Nairobi this Sunday as the shipping container is coming!!!! My wringer washer and blender as well as all our pictures, clothes, tools, etc. are finally arriving after waiting for them for a year!!!! We are beyond excited. Now, if you come visit us I will be able to make you a smoothie—and wash your clothes!

Ok, I need to let you all go! Thank you for your prayers and support. We are doing so well. God is just taking such amazing care of us!

Love, Callie plus 2

Click the attachment to read the latest update from Shayne & Tari Russell in Masai Mara, Kenya.

The Russell Report Update – June 2011

I tried to send an email from Livingstone when I arrived last weekend, but I am not sure if it went through or not.  So I am just wanting you to know that everything is going great here.  It has been so wonderful to be with Karin and Theuns.  I have seen many of my Tonga friends and have seen how much they have grown.  They all say how much their learning of Biblical Finances has impacted and changed their lives.  They have been teaching their churches and families about it these past several years and have seen the fruit of it.  I am pleased!  They are following what I did exactly.  They are so gracious and happy to see me.  It feels like I never left.  It’s funny how it all just comes back to you… the indiosyncrasies of the tribe, the way of communicating with them (with a mixture of halting English, Tonga, and hand gestures).  It is such a blessing to be here.  I am especially happy to see the graduates of my first class doing so well.  Albert and Oliver’s Harvest For Christ Churches are growing now with about 150.  Fanwell is now in charge of the medical clinic on the base.  Kenny is now the principal of the training school and has been translating my classes.  It is so clear he is operating in his gifting!  I am so enjoying the classes.  They are going great and I can’t wait to fill you in on all the details.  I will be teaching through Sunday.  Will head to Lusaka next Wednesday.

For now, please know I am so thankful for your prayers and encouragement!!

Blessings,

Judi

Dearest friends,

What a crazy month this has been! Before leaving Loy we were able to have the first service in our new church building! As you can imagine we were all thrilled! At the time of the service the roof wasn’t entirely on but enough had been finished that the sun wasn’t shining on our heads. :0 And because it is such a large building and designed well, everyone felt the breeze and therefore felt cool during the service. It was amazing and wonderful!

There was also some excitement in the form of a fire the very day before we left. Praise the Lord no one was hurt and we were able to use our pump to put the fire out. We are not sure how it started but the palm trees and the brush surrounding them were burning very nicely when we got the news about the fire. Again, praise the Lord the fire didn’t reach town and no houses or buildings were burned.

This year’s Mission Conference was amazing as well. We had so much fun! All the meetings went well and we were also blessed to have an awesome guest speaker –Atan Kaston, TMM Missionary from Israel.

It is so hard to believe that we are back in the States. Our stay so far has seemed like a whirlwind! But we have been having so much fun! My sister’s wedding was wonderful—it is such a blessing that we were able to attend it! We also loved seeing extended family members too!

We have also been (of course!) shopping for tools, and various items. Our footlockers will definitely be full when we head back! This past weekend we went down to Florida and enjoyed seeing our church family too!

I think that is it for updates. Bella has been so funny. The first time we went into a grocery store she said, “Nairobi!” She thought we were in Nairobi because the only grocery store we go to in Kenya is in Nairobi! She was also rather distraught when we finally arrived after our many plane rides and there weren’t any goats or sheep to greet us! Thankfully, she has been having a blast with the many animals here at the mission!

As always, thank you for your prayers and please keep praying—for our travels, for our return, for our families.

Love,

Callie, Paul, and Annabelle

I love a good story, one filled with adventure and miraculous signs and wonders, the emotion and the drama of it gets us all fired up. I would love to have such a story when sharing with you, how it is that we the Butler family made our decision to go to Ethiopia but the truth is a lot more sober and a lot more natural.

For us the call to foreign soil has been a long one, we chased down the odd opportunity and often found dead ends. We have always wanted to be missionaries, but didn’t know where to begin. To cut a long story short we met Renaut! It is said of Renaut, that he could sell ice to Eskimos or in our case, mission to missionaries.

Joking a side, the lord placed such a peace and joy in us for the project in Ethiopia,and honestly it just felt like this is what we have been waiting and praying for, for a long time. It was a decision made in our little cabin in the woods over a cup of coffee, whilst changing a diaper.. Sometimes you just know and drama isn’t necessary, although we did dance a bit after!  God has continued to confirm this decision in us since we made it, and we are becoming more and more excited about bringing the tangible gospel of Jesus to Axum, Ethiopia.

We as a family (India too, if she really knew what was going on) are so excited to be beginning the next chapter of our story with Mosaic. We have been so blessed by God’s orchestrating hand in our lives.That God would bring a couple together from across the world to the metropolis of Oakland, Florida only to send them off to Ethiopia is just the beginning of the kind of story that God is all about.

Right now we are just continuing to invested in our time here (Hermeneutics, building construction, gardening, animal care, auto mechanics, etc).  We have started a children’s class at the church we are attending up here in Robbinsville.  The class walks children through a very basic understanding of the gospel and Christian doctrine.  We are loving the time we get teaching the children and the class has grown from about 4 to 14.  We will continue to work hard in our studies and love the people of North Carolina until we get back down to see you after graduation in August.

We really appreciate your prayers and support and look forward to getting to know you all better.

Brandon, Natasha and India Butler

Dearest Friends,

I cannot believe May is almost over! This year has just flown by as the month of June will be our one year anniversary in Kenya. Isn’t that wild? In many ways it has been an insane year, but God has been so faithful and we are very grateful to be serving the Lord out here.

This is our last week in Loy for a while as we are getting ready to head down to Nairobi and then to Mombasa for our yearly mission’s conference. We are pretty excited about seeing all our fellow Kenyan missionaries and relaxing for a few days. Annabelle is excited about seeing the ocean!

Our even more exciting news is that my sister is getting married June 17th of this year! And, we are able to go back to the States for the wedding! So after our 5 day mission’s conference we are flying to the US. We will arrive June 14th and we are staying exactly 3 weeks. It is a very quick trip so unfortunately we won’t be able to see all of you guys. But, we will be spending the weekend of June 26th in Florida to visit our church family at Mosaic. So, if you are in the area, please come to a church service and we will see you!

Please pray for the work here in Loy, especially this week as the work crunch in on! The guys (and ladies!:) ) are working very hard and long hours trying to get the church roof on and finished. Please pray for safety and speed in the work. This church building is going to be such an incredible blessing, and we are all thrilled to see the progress!

This month I also got malaria again, so after a quick trip to Gatab for a blood test, a round of medicine, and lots of sleep I feel like a human again! Praise the Lord for medicine!

As always, thank you for your support, prayers, letters, and emails. We love you guys and we are all doing really well.

Love,

Callie for all three of us.

Dearest Friends,

Happy Easter or Pasaka! (Pasaka means Easter and Passover in Swahili) We are so excited about celebrating the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior! We started celebrating early last Saturday by decorating Easter cookies with some of the Sunday School girls. Everyone had a blast as for some that was their very first time decorating cookies. Annabelle had fun decorating one cookie and eating all the others.

Well, we are as busy as ever this lovely (well, actually insanely hot! ) spring. Men’s and Women’s Bible studies, literacy classes, Sunday School, morning devotions, the list goes on. The tractor has been fixed!!! What a blessing! So please keep praying about our station’s water supply and all the work that needs to be done before it is finished.

Our church building is getting closer and closer to being finished. (You can see it in the background of the second photo.) As we speak the guys are even working on the benches—with backs!!!!—that we will be using. We are so very excited about all the space that will soon be available for use!

We are also growing trees in our “lawn”!  In the second picture you can see Annabelle standing inside the palm tree branches that Nilockichoi is building around our new little trees to protect them from the wind and sun. Bells loves helping Auntie Nilockichoi and I love practicing my Swahili with her over water and chai breaks. :0 She is a godly, kind women, and so patient with my baby Swahili. We laugh a lot.

Nilockichoi’s husband, La Sarge, had an adventure this past month. He went down to Nairobi with Jim (Paul’s dad). La Sarge has lived in the Northern Frontier of Kenya his entire life so can you imagine how different a city must have been for him? He was amazed at all the people and cars, and well, everything. He told Jim, “I feel like I have opened my eyes in a whole new world that I didn’t know existed.” Jim bought him his first ice cream while in Nairobi. LaSarge said it made his teeth hurt and he had a headache for 3 days after eating it!  haha Oh the fun we have with the people out here.

Please pray for our church family. I am still, and will be for some time, learning about the people here. It is hard to be a true follower of Christ anywhere in the world, and it is definitely not any different over here. Please pray that those who belong to the Lord in Loy will stand strong, and that they will be pillars of truth and righteous here in their community.

Happy Resurrection Day dear friends and family. How truly awesome to serve a risen Savior who has conquered death for eternity!

Love,
Callie, Paul and Annabelle