He is good!!

With Easter just a day behind us we are still basking in the memories of the blessings of yesterday. Jonathan had a Seder Supper with the whole church for Easter service and so many were blessed. It was so amazing to see people draw correlations from the Old Testament to the New Testament concerning the practices of this Seder Supper. Knowing that the Jews don't recognize Jesus as their Messiah, we as Christians can clearly see Jesus wrapped in every bit of the ceremony. It was amazing! I would have to say the highlight for me was watching a sweet woman in our congregation named Phyllis leaning forward and hanging on every word that was being said, taking notes. It was fun to watch the kids search for the hidden bread and see their excitement as they traded their found treasure for chocolate. Benjamin, now 20 months old was searching with the other kids completely unaware what the other kids were doing but he sure knew when it was time for chocolate! He began squealing in excitement and searching for the place where he saw Jonathan hide the chocolate. What an amazing day!

With the rains that have finally made it, we have had an influx of bugs. Poor little Benny got a bug bite on his arm that got infected and basically looks like a huge boil covering about 1/3 of his forearm. He's now on antibiotics and we are hoping it gets healed soon. With the rains, we always seem to get these flying termites (you might remember a post we had when we were at language school, where I had taken a picture of a pile of termite wings...bleh!)but we have witnessed "June bugs" coming in ENORMOUS proportions. Just this morning when I opened our front door, I witnessed THOUSANDS of June bugs dead on our porch. Thousands. It's nightmarish. I think they are mating at night and then dying? I don't know I have to look it up.

Update on Jonathan and the accident: We are so glad that Agnes, the girl who was hit is okay. She doesn't have recollection of the accident at all so she had called Jonathan a few weeks ago to ask what had happened. She told Jonathan that she's praising God that He allowed her to survive the accident and she's telling everyone what God has done for her. After Jonathan spoke with her over the phone he said he felt as if a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. His anxiety about driving and the accident seemed to really cool down. Please keep us in prayer for safety on the road. Just the other day I saw a man dart out from behind a huge truck and he didn't even look to see if their was traffic. I thought I was about to witness a horrific accident but praise God the car that was about to hit him braked barely in time. The pedestrian who had darted out kept a big grin on his face and trotted across the busy road as if he was not about to meet eternity. Mind boggling.

Last year, Calvary Chapel Missionaries/ministry leaders in Kenya gathered together for a retreat where we were refreshed and renewed. Next week will be our second Calvary Chapel Missionaries/ ministry leaders Retreat. We are so excited to meet new families that have come this year and reconnect with friends serving in different parts of Kenya. God is doing an amazing work here in Kenya and it's amazing to be a part of it.

Much love received! We went to the post the other day looking for an Easter package my grandma and sister had sent and although it hadn't come, we were surprised to get a couple SWEET packages from our fellow "Refugees", the Hinrichs Family and the Shuerke Family. The kids were blessed with some new books, some cool "grow a bug" little plastic bugs that turn enormous when we put them in water (just in time for the rains!), and a really cool letter from The Shuerke (yikes, spelling??!!!) family who blessed us with some books for the kiddos and enormous encouragement. Thank you so much, Refuge Family for praying for us and sending us sweet gifts of love and encouragement. The kids have been talking about their friend, Wyatt, in America, and asking us what we think Wyatt likes. It's so cool to have those connections even though they've never met! Our God is so good! If you are reading Shuerke Family and Hinrichs Family , thank you so much for the blessings!

As I'm sitting here typing I'm listening to Watermark's Album "The Purest Place" and listening to these lyrics from the song "The Purest Place" which are resonating with me in reflection of all that's happened:

"If there's such thing as too beautiful If there's such things as too wonderful If there's such thing as too marvelous Jesus it's You, Jesus it's You"

God bless you guys!

Accident Prayer and Praise Report

Hi friends and family, Thank you for always keeping us in prayer here in Kenya. Last night, while leaving Calvary Chapel Nairobi's Bible College, there was a woman standing in the middle of the road with her back to on coming traffic attempting to cross the road. When Jonathan saw her he slammed on his brakes but there wasn't enough time for the car to stop and the woman was hit. We are praising God that she is okay, Jonathan and a family member of hers took her to the hospital where she was completely examined and xrayed and she has no broken bones, fractures or any serious problems resulting from the accident. Please keep her in prayer as the next days/weeks(?) she will no doubt be in pain. Please keep Jonathan in prayer as he is very shocked by the accident. Thank you, Adrienne

Refreshed and Renewed

A little over two years ago we moved our family of four into an exciting adventure in Nairobi, Kenya. Excited to start a new life as "missionaries" we began an intensive language coarse to learn Kiswahili. We knew little about how anything would pan out. Did we have enough money to make it to next month? How would we get a car? We coasted on trusting in the one and only thing we knew, God called us and he would be with us. Everything was exciting because we were taking God at His word. About a month into our move, everything from within me cried out for my life in America. The comforts, the certainty, my friends, family, convenience. Although I've never seen this first hand, watching me was probably a bit like watching a drug addict give up their habit. I frequently called home in tears over hearing their voices, I craved to walk through malls sipping coffee, I craved my independence. One thing was for sure, I was sinking. I would be crippled somedays with thoughts of helplessness, fear, anxiety. Just a bit of peace was all I wanted. In my mind I knew peace came from our Lord but in my flesh I wanted just one more hit of America, a coffee shop, a bit of shopping, anything to get my mind off of my quiet, unfamiliar, uneventful, frustrating life. We began to wake up from awful nightmares and an alarming event where a frightening confrontation between our guard and a drunk really caused me to pray and read God's word faithfully. I understood for the first time what I had to change in my life to hold on to God without resentment or fear. I begged God to become our hope, our light, our familiar place. I wouldn't take back these two years in Kenya for anything. It was in this desert where I found the only well spring that became my refuge. And Jesus met me there. When I've spoke to wonderful families such as some missionary friends of ours. I've always wondered how they have this unshakeable trust in the Lord. It was because God has placed them in fires that they clung to the Lord. I am in a lot of ways like a new born baby, clinging to it's mother, waiting for the next feeding, tired, joyful one moment, in tears the next. These last two years have been precious for my personal growth in Christ and have been priceless as a family. We have grown together in Jesus and in his Word and have seen the work of His hands. The best part and worst part about being a missionary is we don't actually have any long-term plans. God holds it all. The work God has done in our lives has proved that He will never leave us or forsake us and He is absolutely faithful, even when I am faithless. We attended the missions conference this past week and were renewed, refreshed and reminded that this work in Kenya is His work, not ours. He gets all the glory and praise because He has done great things in us and in His church! We praise Him because He is letting us be involved in His precious church, He's working in us and He's not finished with us. We are so thankful to have spent this precious time with our family and friends. A special thank you for all your love and support during our visit. We will be flying home, Tuesday, Jan. 17th. We are excited to kick this year off, praising our Lord for the great things He has done in 2011 and we are excited to see the great things He has in store this year!

Ephesians 2:19-22 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Adjusting to American Life

We have been in the states for about six weeks now and we can hardly contain the whirlwind of events that are swirling around us. One of the main reasons for coming out was to be a part of my

younger sister, Kristin, and her fiance, Kevin's wedding. We have been swimming around in the world of wedding events at my grandmother's house (where we are currently staying). With less than one week till my sister's big day and all of the wedding events and other appointments it was inevitable that someone was going to get sick. So here I am, day 2 of residing in what I refer to as "the bat cave" and loading myself up with orange juice, Emergen-C, 7-up, tea, soup, Nyquil and whatever else I can get my hands on to heal up before the big day. And most importantly, staying away from everyone else in the house is absolutely ESSENTIAL. Not only are the bride and groom at the same house, but the ring bearers (Josiah and Christopher), the officiator (Jonathan), and of course two bridesmaids (myself and my sister, Erica). So everyone is avoiding my sick space like the plague! But I am so blessed that they are all still taking very good care of me and everyone seems to be chipping in to take care of the boys. Benjamin has started walking and he is SO great at his balance now. A minute ago I left the "bat cave" and saw him walking around and balancing so much better. It's such a sweet time to have family all around and to have our little Benjamin in the beginning stages of walking. We enjoy seeing family get a kick out of him too. We were surprised by my sister and brother-in-law who flew in from Australia on the day before Thanksgiving. We thought they were coming in on Friday but the surprise was on us this time!!! We have never had the chance to meet our Australian born brother-in-law, Mitch, so we were beyond blessed to meet such a precious addition to our family. Cheers mate! Thanksgiving was an absolute dream for our family. The company was amazing and we got to connect and catch up with so many family members. The time was precious, so refreshing and dear to me. I even signed up for the Long Beach Turkey Trot and ran my first 5K before the Thanksgiving festivities began! I wanted to update the blog with a few pictures of what we've been up to while we've been here. I hope you enjoy them!

Fergusons are here, SURPRISE!

We are so blessed and thankful to have made it here to California safely. After traveling with a 4, 3 and 1 yr. old for 19 hours, we were praising God for our sanity! We were so excited that we had our whole family and friends believing we were coming home on November 10th when the WHOLE TIME we had planned on coming in Oct. 19th. We had each and every surprise planned for months and we could hardly wait till we were finally embracing family after two long years away from them. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers. Our first thoughts as we came back into America were, "Wow, everything is so big and open here." And we were in awe of all the advertising. It's funny how much we can forget by being over seas for just two years. Jonathan has been invited to speak at a few churches to share what the Lord has been doing with us in Kenya and to teach some studies. We are so excited to meet new friends and are thankful for the opportunities to share with other believers. Tomorrow Jonathan will be teaching at a church in Arizona called Cross Connection International Fellowship. Please pray that the fellowship is blessed by the teaching and pray for opportunities to minister in this sweet fellowship. Things have been a whirlwind since we've arrived and we ask for your continued prayers for our family as we adjust for this short period of time. We will be in California till mid-January. Special thanks to my best friend, my grandma, Judy, for running around all over town to get everything in the house so we didn't have to worry about coming home and having to shop for diapers, find a high chair or stroller, get food. And thanks for keeping up the web of lies on our behalf so we can surprise the rest of the family. Special thanks to our F5 care team; Linda and Ross, Dorrys,Susan and Les, Katie, Nikki, The Copalbo Family and the Hinrichs Family for the goody basket and for all of your arranging and running around on our behalf so we can settle quickly. We just love you guys and are so thankful and blessed. We thank you again for your out pour of love for our family. If you would like us to share with your small group or church, please contact Jonathan Ferguson at mungubariki@gmail.com. Love, The Fergusons

Jehovah Jireh

One of the many blessings about being on the mission field is not only do we get to witness God move and change us and the people He's called us to but we see Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. One of my favorite things to do with our missionary friends before we moved to Kenya was find out all of the ways they have seen God work and the ways they were provided for. Over and over I've heard friends say, "We saw the amount of money that came in, we saw what needed to be paid and the we were definitely in the red! At the end of the month we saw the money we paid out and looked at what came in and we knew the Lord how 'multiplied the loaves'!" I loved hearing that story. I definitely don't love learning the story before we have seen the loaves multiplied. In light of the last post I just thought I would share with you a bit of how God has been faithful and as the saying goes, "Where God guides, God provides". This month has been a test of faith. Do we believe God has called us? Absolutely. With this truth firm in our hearts we wondered how we would survive this month and how God was going to provide. Immediately stuff began to pour out of my heart that surprised me. "Well, I guess we're done. We're going home permanently," I began to tell myself. "I don't even see how we have grocery money." I'm not saying this to guilt anyone but where we are weak God proves himself strong. Where we lack, He covers. Where we come up short, He is our complete provider. I did not have see or even have faith that we would make it through the month. I began to panic and lost sleep at night. Panicing and worrying about finances is like trying to come up for air when you feel like you're drowning in a pool and you're floundering to make it to the top. Yes, I've had time to examine this feeling well. The next day I went to my weekly Women's Bible Study. We are studying Revelation with Beth Moore and in the beginning introduction to the session she says something like, "I don't know what your situation is today and what you're dealing with at home but can I ask you, has God dropped you before? Why would he drop you now? Say it out loud altogether, (all audience in unison says) Why would God drop me now?" Tears began streaming down my face as I said, "Why would God drop me now?" In my heart I say, "I'm suffocating Lord, help me!" Then peace. I wish I could say that was the end of my wishy-washy doubt-to-hope-and-complete-faith experience but we love to grab back on to worry, don't we people? In my mind I kept hearing missionary friends say, "Never have we gone without". I tried to embrace it but quickly came sinking back down to the bottom of the pool with the reality of our situation. All I could do was pray. Can I make that story mine now? The one where God multiplies the loaves? Can I say that we've seen SO MANY miracles this month that we've lost count? Can I tell you that right now, at the end of the month we are not hungry but full? Can I tell you that God is good beyond compare? Psalm 65:9-13 says, "You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it.You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the wilderness overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing." One of my favorite passages where Jesus talks about worrying is in Matthew 6 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." His word is true. I hope this story blesses you. I don't know what your situation is today, whether you were just let go from work or can't find a job. Whether you are living in plenty or in need but God is Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. Can I ask you to do something strange right now and say out loud, "Why would God drop me now?" He won't. You are His child. Adrienne for the F5

A Request...

This is never an easy thing to talk about. Most missionaries would rather never mention this. But after much prayer, we felt that it was something that we should share with you all.

Over the last few months, our support levels have dropped. This happens to missionaries at various times, especially during the summer months. Each month our support level is different, but God has been good, we always end the month with enough.

The support we received this month was $500 less than what our usual expenses are, not inclusive of additional expenses such as doctor's visits, computer and car repairs, and travel expenses relating to our upcoming furlough. God again has proven faithful, continually providing additional support as we have needed it.

We currently are in need of an increase in monthly support of about $500/month. This may sound like a lot, but our current monthly support (after paying social security taxes and insurance) averages about $1100/month. We try to live very frugal lives, as this amount must cover rent for our house, utilities, food, rent for church, gas for the car, and any other expenses that arise.

As the month is drawing to a close, we are asking for you to prayerfully consider financially supporting us. At the end of this post is the contact info for Shepherd's Staff, the organization that handles our finances.

If you are currently supporting us financially, we want to thank you for this. We want you to know that you are just as important a team member as us on the field, for without you, we would not be here today.

Thank You!
Jonathan, for the Ferguson Five


You can mail checks to:
Shepherd's Staff Mission Facilitators
PO Box 53640
Albuquerque, NM 87153-3640
Please be sure to put Acct: 5509 on the memo line

Or, you can give electronically through credit/debit card by visiting:

http://shepsstaff.org/ferguson.aspx

and clicking on the "Donate Now" button.