MITS YOUTH AT CHURCH

Here the youth group from the Kamulu Church are meeting after the assembly. The Made in the Streets youth make up about 75% of the youth group. As a visitor to MITS once said, "Oh, I see what Made in the Streets is. It's a perpetual youth camp." In some ways that is true, but we also have the everyday life of study and chores and the ordinary life of being with the church.

A great number of our young people are doing very well in their spiritual lives -- and in service. They teach Sunday school, they lead songs and prayers, they serve communion and come to the Sunday morning Bible class for adults and youth. And they are in chapel every weekday before classes and skills training begin, where they lead songs and make talks and confess sins and encourage one another. Some of them occasionally go back to the streets with our Team members and encourage those who remain on the streets.

Later this year we will have a Vacation Bible School at Kamulu and then some of our Team and students will go to Nziu on the way to the coast and help lead a VBS at the Nziu Church of Christ. Please pray for these kids, that they may grow in spirit and wisdom, pleasing to God and others.

The Streets & World Bible School

Yes, yes, I know - it's the same picture as last time, but there is a new reason for showing it.

Sorry it has been so long since the last update - the Coulstons have been "on tour" with Jackton Omondi and Irene Akinyi in California, Texas, Iowa and Tennessee. Now we are all back in Nairobi. We had a great visit with congregations and friends who love us, with Rotary clubs and with family. Funds were raised for ministry and for building to house girls, boys and girls with babies.

The reason for this picture now is to point out the cooperation and mutual blessing Made in the Streets has with World Bible School. Of course our administrator, Francis Mbuvi, is married to Maureen, who is coordinator of a large World Bible School effort sponsored by the Golf Course Road Church in Midland, Texas. And we have had many World Bible School teachers visit us and help MITS while at the same time contacting students. One teacher, Linda Randall, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Central Church, has a student named Evans Ouma, who was baptized at MITS about 3 years ago.

Evans has become a staff member of MITS; he works on the farm, drives for the ministry, and, like all of the staff, he goes to the streets and teaches. The young man on the upper left in the picture with the brown striped shirt is Evans, sitting at Redeemed Base talking with and teaching some of the older guys who sleep there.

We are grateful for the relationship MITS has with WBS; may it continue forever. It is good news to WBS teachers that about 1/2 of the churches of Christ in Kenya were started by WBS students. Evans also serves in the church, often leading prayer or the Lord's Supper.

TEA PARTY by Darlene

It's December and I love giving parties. So on Friend Sunday, I asked Mbuvi to announce that all the church ladies were invited to our house Thursday at 4 for a Christmas Tea. OK, that was today. First, I was at the school, and Moses came to tell me there were women at the gate for me... for a tea party. In Swahili, hour 4 is our 10 am whereas our 4 pm is hour 10 -- confused? They were too. So I go home, make two big cakes, cut them into 15 pieces, and then, the rain started. Only if you've been here in Kenya during a rain will you appreciate how hard it is to walk in our particular kind of mud. I thought, "Oh, no. There won't be anyone for tea! Well, maybe 5 or 6." It continued to rain -- a lovely sound on our tin roof, and we really do need the rain. But my party..... Around 3 pm, I started making chai. I arranged chairs, etc. and I was ready, but not expecting many.

Well, by 4 pm, there were 33! I was thrilled! We prayed, and started the cake around. Then 5 more came. And another group, and another, and the rain keeps coming, and another 5. There are muddy shoes everywhere, I'm bringing out a pkg of cookies, making more chai, finding cups and chairs, and I stop counting after 50 women are in my house. I had no more milk or tea leaves for chai, no more food to offer, no more things we could sit on (Maureen even went home and brought all her chairs!) . And we were having fun!

One thing we did was share Christmas memories (around the small group of 50). As I listened to the women, they talked of sharing good food, special food like chapati and mandazi, and being with family and friends, and of going to church on Christmas eve. Not one mention of presents or busy schedules. I feel sorry for all of us with money -- we've been robbed.... in a very real way. There are certain advantages to poverty. We read Mt 2; Jesus' family sounds a lot like their economic situation -- and angels came for them.

Well, my guests left. The oldest woman, who had been a guest on Friend Sunday, gave me a hand woven basket; and I gave her a bag of our tomatoes and we were happy. We all sang "We wish you a merry christmas" I wish that for you all too!

New People in Kamulu

THREE COME FOR BAPTISM

An exciting day for the Kamulu Church. Brian Ochieng, a MITS student who comes early every Sunday morning to set up the chairs for worship, Evans Wambua, another MITS student, and Mercy Wanjiru, a teenager who has been attending worship for about a year chose to be baptized into Jesus.