| DickersonMissions.com Newsletter | |
| | About Our Donors | September 2007 | |
| "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27 This issue is a tribute to our supporters. As local vessels of your global generosity, we wanted you to know how your hard-earned donations are moving from us to those in need. In January 2007, we used exclusively personal funds to purchase a home in Langata, a suburb of Nairobi. Besides investing in Kenya with hopes of recouping our investment later with a profit, we wanted to free up donor funds that had been allocated to the rental of our former place near Dagoretti. Well, it has been working. Below we introduce you to 25 of the 29 people you have been directly supporting as a result of your donations. That's right, 29 people. | | | Mr. Odhiambo is a contractor responsible for the installation of our electric fence and a number of renovations. While we purchased the electric fence with personal funds, we had an incident with Meshack which resulted in our supporting him with a portion of your donations. As he oversaw the installation of the electric fence, Meshack suffered a gran mal seizure, the result of a previous nearly mortal wound in which the left portion of his cranium was fractured. In fact, the wound point is still clearly visible where the skull never closed and you can actually see the vessels just below the skin expanding and contracting with each heartbeat. During the seizure, Laura was able to stabilize him before taking him to the hospital for treatment and resuming a regular prescription of vital anti-seizure medication. Your donations have helped him to recover and avoid recurrence of such seizures. Now he is back at his position of foreman on some small projects that we are undertaking and he has had no further episodes. | | Elizabeth is an evangelist to patients at Kenyatta National Hospital. She stayed for a few months with us in our new home in early 2007. During that stay, she was diagnosed with severe diverticulitis and underwent a nearly $4,000 surgical operation which has extended her life, thanks to your consistent support. | | You would really like Fred. He is a young, meticulous, enterprising man. A Quaker by faith, Fred has ambitious plans to help himself, his family, and others. He recently drafted the code of conduct and regulations regarding the security of our property. As one of our two night watchmen, Fred is able to support himself; his wife Belinda, who is in college; and SEVEN other family members with the salary he receives in his position at our home. And just to be clear, we pay him are very competitive, fair market wages; so he is a wise and frugal young man. | | John is our other night watchman, working three nights then off three nights by alternative with Fred. Because of this schedule, he was able to enter Bible School during morning hours. He soon graduates from Bible School with plans to be a minister. John supports himself and his wife and son with his salary. | Mama Methenge, aka Leah Mumbi Munyiri Mama Methenge is our cook and domestic manager. She is an aunt of Bishop David Thagana of Glory Outreach Assembly, the church through which we have our work permits allowing us to remain in this country. She has never been married, yet has had three children by three men: one son by rape and one daughter and one son by two companions who deserted her either before or after their children were born. Her offspring are described below in the order presented in the preceding sentence. | | David Munyiri Maina David, a man in his late 30s, was an outcast of the community in Nairobi South 'C' due to the stigma of being HIV positive. For months and years he teetered between life and death, at one point so gaunt that his mother could easily carry him on her back to the clinic or hospital. The free antiretroviral drugs (ARV) from the government were no longer working and causing devastating side effects, including deafness. Thanks to your help, he now consistently receives ARV drugs, vitamin B12 injections, and an ample diet, resulting in a recent checkup in which his viral load (the number of HIV viruses in his blood) has become undetectable. His CD4 (a marker showing how healthy the immune system is) is still very low, but has markedly improved. He also now has hearing aids! (He lives with us and helps around the house as groundskeeper as he is able.) | | Paris Paris, in her mid-30s, lives in Bahati with her 13 year old daughter Michele whom, just as her mother Leah reared her, she has been able to raise without the benefit of a husband. Thanks to you, Paris receives support from Leah each month. | | Leah's youngest, Michael Methenge, graduated high school in recent years and now plans to attend college. He suffers from asthma which, because of you, is well treated with modern medicines. In addition, he is receiving eye medicines to prepare him for a cornea transplant. Because of your faithfulness, Leah is also able to provide him with a portion of her monthly salary, which he uses to live with his sister in Bahati and visit his mother at our home in Langata on a regular basis. | Pauline Mbeke Ndunga, daughter Caroline and son George Pauline and family were an answer to prayer by Laura. The day after Laura had meditated with God regarding how we might help some of the needy in Kenya at our new house, Pauline and George arrived at our gate, having met Mama Methenge in February. Pauline's story of abuse and neglect, like that of Mama Methenge, has been repeated tens of thousands of times over in this country. Her father endeavored to burn her to death by locking her in his house along with the rest of his family while he set the fire to the outside walls and roof. Fortunately, the wind, rather than causing the flames to lick higher and engulf the home, instead blew the fire out. In another incident, he tried to poison her but that too, failed, thank God. She had George two years ago by a man promising marriage, who left her when George was three days old. Another man before that sired her daughter Carolyne. Carolyne has entered Form 1 (like 9th grade in the US) and you are helping to pay for her education. (Elementary school is free here, but secondary schools are not yet free, although many in government here are working toward that end.) She's in the top 10% of her class and dreams of becoming a doctor. She came to us with severe chronic asthma, only going to a hospital in emergencies. Now she's under a doctor's care and receiving daily medicine that has subtantially helped her breathing. You should see her smile! For now, Pauline and her two children live with us in an outbuilding that houses three quite snugly but comfortably. | | Andrew Andrew is our primary groundskeeper and was working at our property years before we arrived. He assists Meshack in projects such as the electric fence and in the clearing of substantial undergrowth on the property. Andrew is as strong as an ox, consistent as a chanticleer, and as faithful as a St. Bernard. He supports himself, his wife, and their soon-to-be born first child with the salary that you are ultimately responsible for providing | | Bible Study Each Friday, all of us but Meshack and the night watchmen meet in our kitchen for Bible Study. Most recently, Pauline invited her pastor, his wife and several friends from her nearby church to deliver a message. They preached on The Parable of the Sower and The Ten Commandments. As a result of our Friday morning Bible Study, several people, including Andrew, have received Christ as Lord and Savior. You have provided easy-to-read English (NIrV) and Swahili Bibles for this study. Each Saturday, Laura drives 3 hours to and fro Christ Compassion Rehabilitation Center (CCRC) to teach Walking the 12 Steps with Christ, a study based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. This study was introduced to CCRC by Dr. Paul Beecham, an Atlanta psychiatrist. Twenty to twenty-five youth from CCRC and community members from Joska attend each Saturday. Many of you have given directly to CCRC and others help pay for the fuel costs for Laura's trip, as well as the teaching materials for this study. | | These descriptions cover 25 of the people you support in Kenya. There are others, including the four Dickersons, as well as frequent missionaries from East Africa needing prayer, encouragement and rest, and from the United States stopping by as they minister here in Kenya. Thus, you are helping well over 30 souls with each contribution you make to the Dickerson missions. | | All for Christ,
Don and Laura Dickerson
www.DickersonMissions.com | | |
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