Fingerprints, Quality Control & The Test

There are many tasks involved in foreign mission work that could easily be overlooked and are not quit as exciting or rewarding as evangelism, discipleship and church planting. But nevertheless, items such as renewing our work permit/visa and alien registration are just as important.   For without a valid work permit you are an illegal alien in a foreign land.

Now I do not want to get political here, but speaking from the stand point of an alien resident in a foreign country, I get somewhat disturbed by the laxity of the USA with regard to enforcing the immigration laws of the land.   As good Christians should, we have complied with the letter of the law to be legal residents of Kenya.  But for some reason our great country has the tendency to reward illegal aliens which I believe only promotes lawlessness.  Ok, I am climbing down from the soap box but this week we were fingerprinted by the immigration office as the final step of our approved work permit/visa. 

What all this means is that as long as we obey the laws of the land and fulfill our job description we are welcome to remain in Kenya for the next three years as foreign Missionaries.

 This is great news as we just received this email from the US embassy with regard to work visa’s:  “U.S. citizens who are living, working, or visiting Kenya MUST have a valid visa or work permit to stay in Kenya.  If you do not have a valid visa or work permit, you risk serious consequences to include detention, deportation, fines, and possible imprisonment.  Kenyan immigration officials have been conducting random sweeps of businesses in Nairobi and detaining foreigners found to be in violation of their visa status”.

In addition to renewing our work permit, we were able to help the Landmark Baptist Church of Soysambu put the tin roof on the new sanctuary.

Pastor Japeth and the members of LBC Soysambu really struggled with lining up the tin roofing material due to poor quality control.  

The material was the same brand but did not line up at all.   Somehow they managed to make it work but not without significant effort on their part.

For a church that has been meeting under a tent for the last two years, this was a huge step.   You could see the joy on their faces and hear the excitement in their voices as they see God blessing them through answered prayers.  We look forward to worshiping with them next week under the new roof.   This Lord ’s Day we worshiped at the Landmark Baptist Church of Namarambi which is located at the base of Mt. Elgon.
                                    Pastor Daniel Preaching 

As we rotate among the twelve churches we have help plant and organize over the last five years there is a blessing in knowing that we are following a scriptural church planting method established by Jesus himself and continued by His Apostles.   The missionary handbook we are following is found within the inspired pages of the New Testament.  As we continue to plant and water seeds we are seeing God give the increase through the lives of each church member and the development of it’s leaders.   It has been said that test of all teaching is practice and the test of all organizations is naturalness and permanence.  Pastor Daniel and the members of the LBC at Namarambi are exhibiting huge steps of growth in all three of these areas. 

                                     Terry Listening

We have been taught that the Missionary is the least permanent part of the work and it does our hearts good to see this mature Church family in unity as they worship and serve the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord’s.    I am not saying our work with LBC Namarambi is complete but I am saying that the more mature the Church, it’s leaders and member are, the less the Missionary needs to be involved.   Thank you for your prayers with regard to Terry’s health and please continue to pray for her as she is still suffering a bit from something intestinal.  If she is not better in the next day or so she will be going to the Doctor.    We thank God that we have access to one of the finest West German trained Kenyan Doctors here in Eldoret as well as all necessary meds.  

God Speed,

Bro. Chuck & Sis. Terry Fernandez
Kenya

Phil. 4:13