And on every missionary blog/newsletter you'll find...

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You'll find the words, "So it's been a long time since we've blogged" or "sorry I haven't been able to get around to an update but things have been crazy." So joins the Fergusons amongst these missionary excuse-makers! Haha! Well, we've had quite a month so far. Oh and please forgive me because I am behind on my support thank you cards and (of course) my blogging.

VISITORS!
It seems like this months has been the month of visitors. What an AMAZING blessing! We can't tell you how much we look forward to this part of our time here. We LOVE talking to new people about what God's doing in their lives, what brought them to Kenya and what God is or has taught them.
Jonathan just left the house to see a movie with some visitors we've had, Ray and Nate. Ray and Nate attend and serve Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. It's been so neat to have these new friends and people from our area come to stay with us and with Robbie and Elizabeth. We've been so blessed by their gifts! Ray and Nate work in the office for the Children's Ministry at Costa Mesa and have a great heart to do whatever needs to get done! They've done everything from build chicken coupes, to helping us chop wood, working in an orphanage, moving large boulders, helping the church move. They've been such a blessing to our family and Living Water Christian Felloship. Nate also plays the guitar and leads worship so we've been taking advantage of their gifts as much as possible! What an amazing time it has been to watch these to 21-yr. olds just come out to serve in whatever capacity they can. What an encouragement it has been! We'll post a picture of all of us together soon. If you are interested in reading about their adventures, I'd HIGHLY encourage you to. The blog is: seraphim188.blogspot.com.

The Herscowitz Family is a beautiful family that's been serving Jesus in Kisumu, Kenya for 5 years and the Lord called them back to their hometown in California. We can't begin to tell you all we learned from them and what a blessing it was that this family ended their time in Kenya in our home. The Herscowitz's departure was delayed for several months due to some hold-ups with their son, Paul's adoption and visa issuance. What a test of faith it was! Down to the day they before they were supposed to leave they STILL hadn't received the proper documents. We prayed in faith knowing God had a plan and the Lord saw to it that the visa was issued the day before they needed to leave. Praise God! We were overjoyed that they were finally able to take their son home but so sad that their time with us was over. We'd spent many late nights talking and we were so encouraged by their witness.

We've had a few other visitors come and stay including a couple that just moved out to Kenya two weeks ago from Georgia and another young guy from Texas who will be here in Kenya will mid-June.

We are SO excited for this week! Our very own Helen Parks will be coming to stay with us for TWO WEEKS! We are so excited! I may just burst into tears when I see her! Praise God for all the new and old friends. We can't tell you how nice it is to have people around and how we get the incredible privilege to watch and learn about their experiences on the mission field and as a follower of Jesus.

Women's Bible Study!

I am so excited I got the opportunity to join a Tuesday Bible Study lead by a long-time missionary, Vicky Vule. We are going through the Beth Moore study, "A Woman's Heart". I have found myself SO excited about the homework and SO looking forward to Tuesdays to just be fed and poured into. What an amazing gift it has been to join these women!

U-Turn For Christ Pig Roast

U-Turn for Christ is a ministry here in Kenya that helps Kenyans get off of drugs and alcohol. At the facility, they are introduced to Jesus and have Bible studies amongst other things. Every year they put a pig roast together and Jonathan had the honor of attending this fun-filled celebration. The families of those in U-Turn are welcome to come to the event and it's just a neat day of celebrating what God has done. I stayed home and Jonathan, Josiah, Christopher, Ray and Nate attended the pig roast. Jonathan was especially encouraged by the testimonies that were personally shared by those in U-Turn. The even was scheduled to start at 9AM and Jonathan thought, "Hmmm...I'll show up at ten so we aren't the first ones there." Jonathan called me and says, "It's 10:15 and we are the FIRST ones here!!!!" Well, that's Kenyan time for ya'!

Well, since it's been so long, that's enough catching up for now. Thanks so much for stopping by and catching up to what the Ferg5 are up to!

Prayer Requests:
The church as they grow in the knowledge of our savior
The Bible school-Jonathan is starting to teach the book of Mark
The Fergusons as they drive around and Kenyans taking public transport-those who drive public transport are endangering people's lives on the road and in their matatus (mini buses). There isn't a month that goes by that we aren't nearly in an accident. It's by God's grace that He's kept us so far!
Adrienne and she is entering into the 3rd trimester and prayer for Baby Benjamin's health
Robbie (Senior Pastor) as he studies the word of God and brings it to our church body
Safety and preservation of Robbie and his family (mostly with driving and such)
The Fergusons, Robbie and Family, Nate and Ray's health. We've been battling colds, coughs, stomach bugs and such

Have a great week!
Adrienne for the Ferg5!

April Newsletter

Hello everyone! In the interest of saving money and time, we have decided to email our newsletters instead of mailing them through the postal service. We will also be posting the newsletter here on the blog, as well as having copies available at the Missions Table at Refuge. Here is April's newsletter, enjoy!

Jonathan

April 2010 Newsletter

Prayer Update

Hi Friends and Family,

Thanks for praying for us as we serve God here in Kenya. We wanted to update you all on the need for prayer as we have a lot of transitions coming.

Please pray for our leadership at Living Water. For unity and wisdom.
Please as our church was recently robbed for the second time in 7 months. Pray for salvation/repentance for the person/people involved.
Our church is undergoing MAJOR transitions with many things which I am not permitted yet to share. All these changes are good and we're super excited.
Pray for our congregation that they would grow in the wisdom and knowledge of God.
Pray for the Bible School as Jonathan began teaching "The Scarlet Thread of Redemption." It's an emphasis on showing God's plan of redemption throughout the whole Bible with an emphasis on finding Jesus in the Old and New Testament. Jonathan teaches every Mon, Wed., Fri.
Pray for the up and coming delivery of baby Benjamin. Our C-section is scheduled for Aug. 17th
Pray for Josiah, Christopher and Adrienne as we start homeschooling little by little.

We praise God for continually confirming our call here in Kenya. We are so excited about the plans God has for us and we rest that we are in His hands.

Blessings,
Adrienne

Kikuyu Wedding

The other day, while we were at home relaxing, we began to hear cars honking, or hooting, as it is called here. More and more cars were coming into our complex, all hooting. We went outside to see what was going on, and realized it was a wedding party. Adrienne grabbed the video camera and started filming this very cool event taking place.

We found out (by asking our neighbors who came out to watch as well) that this was a traditional Kikuyu wedding. The women from the groom's family had come to collect the bride from her parent's house. They sing outside the gate until they are let in, then they bring the bride out to a waiting car and take her to the ceremony.

Enjoy the singing and dancing!

Jonathan

Getting settled in

Since our last post we have been crazy with getting a routine started with our kids and dinner menus and finalizing all the paperwork for our car, getting a PO Box, painting the house, dealing with a sick kitten, potty training and ministry. Phew!

The move went great. On moving day, after 2 1/2 hours of waiting for our moving truck, the moving guy calls us to say the truck has been in the shop and it would be several more hours till he was able to get there. So a friend from language school called up someone that he knew who was supposed to have the same size truck we had ordered through this other place. But when he came to our house, he came in a pick up truck instead of a lori. I wish I hadn't packed my

camera because this truck was stacked so high it was truly a miracle that the movers actually made it to our house intact. The pictures shown are just ones I found online, but it'll give you a good feeling of how the day went. All of our stuff was moved that day with the exception of Josiah's bed frame, a stroller and my guitar. We were blessed that a few guys came out from the church. I don't think we've EVER had so much help during a move. It was great!

We got our car! We are the proud owners of a Toyota Carib. Since we don't have any of those in America, I posted a picture for you. This is not a pic of our actual car but our looks just like it!

Today we went to get our ultrasound of the baby and found out we are going to have a boy!!! Woohoo! Benjamin David Ferguson is expected to be here early August. We appreciate your continued prayers for this pregnancy. It has not been an easy one!

Well, we are excited to get our first painting project underway. We are painting Christopher and Josiah's room with a cars theme. It's coming along well, we should be finished by tomorrow! The picture shown is one we found online and decided to do a car theme instead of an airplane theme. We are so excited to post the final picture!

Our tests went great at language school. Although we haven't gotten the results of the final written exam, Adrienne got a 6.7 out of 7

on the oral exam. Please pray as Jonathan will be taking his oral exam this week. We got news of Jonathan's dad who was due to have surgery on his carotid artery so that took his attention away from taking the oral exam.

As I mentioned, Jonathan's dad, Kim had surgery last week and came through the surgery successfully. He is now home working on recovery. Can you believe he wasn't on any pain meds after the surgery. What a man!!!!

Jonathan's grandma was also admitted to the hospital around the same time with high blood pressure. Apparently the 4th time she had been admitted in 2 weeks. She is now home but please pray for her health and full recovery.

So recently we bought a kitten off the side of the road. We figured this would be a great solution to cock roaches and spiders hanging around the house. BUT as we should've realized, buying a cat off the side of the road has it's share of problems. Currently the kitten is in quarantine in one of our staff quarters with ringworm, apparently VERY contagious. So we got her shots and cream for the problem and we're hoping it clears up soon. I would post a picture but she's losing hair around her face and is lookin' a little scary!

Hopefully by now, you should've received our newsletter. If you have not and would like a copy, please forward your mailing or email address us at Ferg4africa@gmail.com and we'll make sure to send one right out!

Blessings,

Adrienne

The next step...

Friends,

We have had such an emotional week, with this being our last at Language School. Today was heart-breaking as we said goodbye to our Joyce and all of the teachers that have helped us from the time we got here. The only thing that kept us from "losing it" is the fact that we still have to return for our finals and that I will see Joyce on Monday...

Free Cervical Screening for Women of Nairobi!

On Wednesday, Robbie, our pastor, picked up about 5-6 women to take for a free breast and cervical cancer screening. A team came from Loma Linda to put on this clinic and the women of Nairobi are so excited. Joyce, the lady who helps us with the boys while we attend class, and I met the ladies from our church to get in line for their free screening when we discovered there were women waiting from the day before! Needless to say, our women didn't get seen but praise the Lord, the guy from the head of the clinic has been in contact with me via email and arranged for our women to come and get an appt. His name is Mark and we've been in touch about this clinic for about a year. Mark is a Christian and has asked for your prayers during the clinic. He will come worship with us at church on Sunday and have lunch with us afterwards. This appt. was such a blessing considering the team will only be here till about March 11th and the women are served on a first come first served basis. The women from our church come from all different areas but Joyce lives near us in Tigoni, making it very difficult for her to get there early. Our women went away glad in their hearts that the Lord provided this screening and an appointment for them.

A Date with Joyce

So, since Joyce and I had planned on being at the hospital all day for this screening, now, we had the whole day to ourselves! A blessing because I wanted to take her to get her nails done and have lunch as a thank you for all she does. It was funny, Joyce and I had been talking about this "day of fun" since last week. We got to a place called Village Market where we could grab lunch and get our nails done but after talking more with her, Joyce wasn't so sure about the "pedicure thing". I don't think she had ever had one before, so we settled for lunch and an ice cream cone. (:

Car News

Also, this week we checked out another car. A Toyota Carib. Jonathan took the car to the mechanic and everything checked out great! We made an offer on the car and negotiated pricing today! Since we just worked out the pricing of the car, we are still going to be finalizing paperwork and such. We are so glad we are finally going to have a car! PRAISE THE LORD!

We got a package!

So today was especially emotional because we found out we got the car, we had to say goodbye to Joyce and our sweet friendships from Language School AND we got a package from our care team back at Refuge. Apparently the package was sent way back in December and we JUST got it today. Let me tell you how touched we were...We opened the package to find two hand-knitted beanies for our boys that had the colors of the Kenyan flag and said, "Kenya" on the front. These beanies were made by one of our girls in the youth group at Refuge, Jasmine. Our team sent birthday and Christmas cards for all of us, a book for Jonathan, a Phil Whickham CD, a new Veggie Tales Christmas DVD (that the boys are watching as we speak) and a touching DVD that brought Jonathan and I to weeping. The DVD was a slideshow put to music with all of our favorite people from Refuge holding up signs that said, "Merry Christmas Ferguson Family". Our friend, Jack, took pictures of the Jr. High all together with a sign that said they missed us. We can not tell you how much this touched us. The fact that they went to so much effort and seeing all of our friends smiling faces brought joy and gladness to our hearts. It also made us long for home. Thanks to our care team and to all our brothers and sisters at Refuge. We really want to try and figure out a way to show you all so bare with us as we figure it out. We love you guys!

Move on Monday!

The last bit of news is our move starts on Monday. Josiah, Christopher and I will spend the night at the new house on Sunday night and Jonathan will come back to Tigoni so he can be at the house when the moving truck comes. Please pray for this day, we have SO MUCH going on. This is actually the day that the appt. was made for our ladies at church so I am going to Kenyatta National Hospital and then I'm going to rush back to help with organizing things in and putting them in their right place. We are so excited about our new place and praise the Lord for all He's done. AND we'll get to Skype with friends and family without a problem on the internet.

New Class Starts for Bible School

Please pray as our church is beginning a new class at the Bible School and we have about 3-5 eager students. This school isn't designed to give people a degree in theology but to go through all the books of the Bible and get them grounded in the word of God. We are soooo excited and Jonathan is excited to FINALLY get back into teaching. Thank you Jesus!

Love you guys!

Adrienne for the Ferg5!

Don't be discouraged...

We are winding down from language school and can hardly believe next week is our finals. I can hardly believe we are about to end our time at school. This school has been such an unimaginable blessing to our family. There are hardly words to describe our experience here. We've made some amazing friendships here and it will be difficult to leave. The teachers here have been like our parents and mentors. We feel like kids that are going to make our attempt to move out of "mom and dad's place" for the first time. We look forward to posting some pictures when our connection to the internet is better.

Lately I've had some phone conversations with my mom and grandma, and in trying to articulate the blessing of being in Kenya, there are frustrations that surface about the injustices which happen to the people of Kenya. It's so easy to be frustrated when we read in the newspaper about discontinuing funding for children who need medicine for Malaria while then turning the page of the newspaper and reading about members of parliament who give themselves a raise when they are already getting an enormous salary. There are so many frustrations and we can get so caught up in the headache of the way things are run here and how they oppress the people. It's difficult.

Today we had lunch with a Kenyan couple whom I had just met and their perspective was refreshing and encouraging. I told them how it seems that people don't consider the enormous "in your face" corruption a problem because it doesn't affect their everyday lives. Her perspective really gave me some insight. She had said that the people of Kenya had been under oppressive governments before and the people never rose up for fear of gov't. But now that there is more "freedom to speak out" it has created a society of people that don't care about the level of corruption that people are involved in because it doesn't directly affect their lives. It has also made the people jump into "survival mode", where everyone just looks out for themselves. This woman explained about the frustrations and injustices she has seen. She shared her experiences about opportunities that the Lord has given her to speak directly to some corrupt official responsible concerning a few matters. Before approaching them she was confronted by others who asked her the question, "Well, who are you?" Good question. She thought to herself, "Who am I to approach these people?" After tracking down this certain person, she was just about to give them a "piece of her mind" when out from her mouth poured words of encouragement and edification to this person who was responsible for matters that brought injustice. She could hardly believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. This was not the plan! But God had other plans. The point was not that this person was doing an amazing job but it's God's heart to win the soul of the person. It reminded me of this scripture (Col. 4:5), "Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." (NIV) When we think the person deserves justice, He gives them grace so that they may come to know Him. This person had opened up his heart and let her know that there were corrupt officials above himself and that if she wrote letters and made " a stir" about the situation, he would be behind her. What a blessing! I know this story is a bit vague but I'm sparing the details to share about how much I was encouraged today.

Kenya is a country where there are so many relief funds and aid from other countries and organizations and still there are your poverty stricken folks and very rich folks. Seeing money falling into the hands of thieves is so disheartening when so many people can't get their basic needs met. Corruption runs so deep in the roots of Kenya.

But yet there's life here. There's a need for Jesus in this country filled with poverty, business, robberies, corruption, missionary aid groups and NGO's. There's a proud Kenyan spirit here that's just contagious despite the hardship. This country doesn't need more money but they need Jesus. He's the one that can change the hearts of the people, that will turn them from their sin. Jesus gets to the root of the evil and that's the heart.

It was refreshing to remember the reason why we came. Not so we can do or be everything the Kenyan people need. But it's to give them the only thing we have and that's Jesus. We can feed hunger for a while but God is the giver of the bread of life. We could dig bore holes to help the people get a drink but God is the one who quenches with living water. He's the provider, He's the savior, not us. And that is a huge lesson that I'm learning and will continue to learn here, I'm sure.

Adrienne