Habari za leo! Good day!
We are now at 9 weeks! We spent a great deal of time on Friday, getting more shots, sorry Jacob :( and getting prescriptions filled out for malaria meds, antibiotics for the boys to have ready incase it is needed, etc..... It was an exciting day to be in the preperation mode! Only 2 more shots for Bob and the boys and we will be done with immunizations. Which will make Jacob very very happy :) Support money is coming in. We are thankful for all those who have supported us and are praying for us! We are still looking at needing 3,000 more.
Also we have come into contact with a lady who is in ministry serving in Nairobi, who may have some alternate housing for us, that would be cheaper. Please pray for God's Will in this. If we got quality, safe, yet cheaper housing, we would be free to do more ministry in further areas of Kenya. We would like to get to Northern Kenya to visit an Orphanage there, that is ran by local Ohio people, as well as look back into the possibilty of going down into Tanzania.
Please keep praying for us! We have seen God move in many awesome way thus far due to the prayers of you! Asante Sana for your love and support!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Update
Habari za leo! Good day!
We are now at 9 weeks! We spent a great deal of time on Friday, getting more shots, sorry Jacob :( and getting prescriptions filled out for malaria meds, antibiotics for the boys to have ready incase it is needed, etc..... It was an exciting day to be in the preperation mode! Only 2 more shots for Bob and the boys and we will be done with immunizations. Which will make Jacob very very happy :)Support money is coming in. We are thankful for all those who have supported us and are praying for us! We are still looking at needing 3,000 more.
Also we have come into contact with a lady who is in ministry serving in Nairobi, who may have some alternate housing for us, that would be cheaper. Please pray for God's Will in this. If we got quality, safe, yet cheaper housing, we would be free to do more ministry in further areas of Kenya. We would like to get to Northern Kenya to visit an Orphanage there, that is ran by local Ohio people, as well as look back into the possibilty of going down into Tanzania.
Please keep praying for us! We have seen God move in many awesome way thus far; due to the prayers of you! Asante Sana for your love and support!
We are now at 9 weeks! We spent a great deal of time on Friday, getting more shots, sorry Jacob :( and getting prescriptions filled out for malaria meds, antibiotics for the boys to have ready incase it is needed, etc..... It was an exciting day to be in the preperation mode! Only 2 more shots for Bob and the boys and we will be done with immunizations. Which will make Jacob very very happy :)Support money is coming in. We are thankful for all those who have supported us and are praying for us! We are still looking at needing 3,000 more.
Also we have come into contact with a lady who is in ministry serving in Nairobi, who may have some alternate housing for us, that would be cheaper. Please pray for God's Will in this. If we got quality, safe, yet cheaper housing, we would be free to do more ministry in further areas of Kenya. We would like to get to Northern Kenya to visit an Orphanage there, that is ran by local Ohio people, as well as look back into the possibilty of going down into Tanzania.
Please keep praying for us! We have seen God move in many awesome way thus far; due to the prayers of you! Asante Sana for your love and support!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
God is Good...
All the time......
and all the time God is good!
Just got word from the Kenyan Embassy that starting April 1st, VISA fees for adults are being cut in half, and children under the age of 16 will have NO FEE for there VISA!
Thank you Lord Jesus for showing us your love and faithfulness through this time of preparation for our journey.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Just.....
As you can see in this picture of the shed, the sign above it says "Just A Shed". As I drove past this last week, I thought to myself, hmmm, yes here in America that is just a shed. Just an added building to our homes for the storage of our stuff. I was amazed at it's beauty, the nice metal doors, with handcrafted design, elegant doorknobs that lock, and the nice windows on each side of the shed, giving light to the lawn mower stored inside. Then tears came to my eyes, and I capture the picture of what I saw in Africa. The "just a shed" buildings made out of scrap metal, mud, whatever resources they can find and how it is not just a shed, it is there Home. Home to many people who will all squeeze into to sleep at night, with no beds, no windows, no door with locking doorknobs.
"Just A Home"
Lord, may we never take for granted the "Just A Shed" things we have. I thank you for making my heart ache for the people of Africa, who take such Pride in their "sheds", (homes).
"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the Love of God be in him?? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:17-18
Jesus, thank you for your truth. Thank you for opening the door up for us to not just love in words, but to take action in truth by going to Kenya to seek justice for the poor and needy! To take your Word and spread it to those who's ears are open to hear it. I love you Lord
Thursday, March 19, 2009
11
We are now at 11 weeks and oh so counting down!
We have sent out support letters, and have started parking our vehicles outside due to collections for our upcoming Fundraiser Garage Sale.
Please continue to pray for:
Funding
Visa's to go through smoothly
Good health
Continued Open doors to serve in Kenya
For a huge successful garage sale (April 23rd & 24th)
Asante to everyone for your love, encouragement, and support! God is good!
Monday, March 2, 2009
Starvation and Strife in Kenya
NAIROBI, Kenya — One year after this country exploded in ethnic bloodshed, trouble is brewing here again.
Ten million people face starvation, partly because farmers in crucial food-producing areas who fled their homes last year have not returned, instead withdrawing deeper into their ethnic enclaves, deeper into fear.
At the same time, public confidence in the Kenyan government is plummeting. Top politicians have been implicated in an endless string of scandals involving tourism, fuel, guns and corn.
On Wednesday, United Nations officials called for the country’s police chief and attorney general to resign after a United Nations investigation revealed that more than 500 people had been killed by police death squads. One of the Kenyan whistle-blowers himself was shot to death after providing detailed evidence.
“There’s a lot of anger,” said Maina Kiai, the former director of Kenya’s national human rights commission. “If we don’t start resolving these issues soon, things could be worse than before. There could be complete collapse.”
The grand coalition government that was formed last year between Kenya’s governing party and the opposition, after a deeply flawed election, is now widely dismissed as the “grand letdown.” It managed to stop the bloodletting between different ethnic groups that tore this country apart in 2008, killing more than 1,000 people, but has accomplished little else.
The only thing Kenya’s ruling class seems to agree on is refusing to pay most of its taxes, even though Kenyan politicians are already among the highest paid in the world, a stunning fact in one of the world’s poorest countries.
“Corruption is the glue holding this government together,” said John Githongo, the director of an anticorruption institute here.
Kenya’s legendary safari business, an engine of the economy, has not bounced back either. Tourist arrivals were down about 35 percent in 2008 compared with 2007, leading to thousands of layoffs and a steady stream of unemployed youths marching back to the already teeming slums.
President Obama, whose father was Kenyan, has become a savior to many people here, in part because Kenyans say their own leaders have been such a disappointment.
Ethnicity and the country’s lingering Balkanization are topics studiously avoided in Parliament. Few of Kenya’s politicians seem ready to tackle land reform, constitutional reform or the dangerous culture of impunity, all of which were called urgent priorities after the bloodshed last year. Many Kenyans are urging the International Criminal Court in The Hague to get involved, because they have no faith that the Kenyan justice system will prosecute the well-known political figures suspected of orchestrating last year’s killings.
“This country hasn’t healed,” Mr. Kiai said, “because we haven’t done anything to heal it.”
Many victims of last year’s violence feel totally abandoned. On a recent morning, Mary Macharia stood in a long line of sick people at a hospital near Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, her eyes on the floor.
A shiny, bubbly scar stretches from her ear to her lips. The right side of her face looks melted. A glance in the mirror jolts her mind back to the burning church where her daughter was killed a year ago, along with 30 others.
“Some days,” she said, “I hate myself.”
Across Kenya, near the western town of Kisumu, Millicent Awino is all alone, a young woman who used to have two children and a decent job packing flowers. She is essentially a serf now, her time, her sweat and her body at the beck and call of her ex-husband’s family, the only people who would take her in after she fled the violence that consumed her son and daughter and the ethnically mixed town where she used to live. She recently had another child, by the ex-husband who came into her hut one night, but the baby died of malaria.
“I think I’m done with children,” she said.
She also said she would never return to her former home.
Kenya, once a nation of so much promise, remains a land divided. The country pulled apart in 2008, when hundreds of thousands of people fled ethnically mixed areas for the safety of homogeneous zones. This was the result of a disputed election in which the president, Mwai Kibaki, was widely believed to have rigged the results to stay in power. Supporters of the top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, who hails from a different ethnic group, then vented their rage on Mr. Kibaki’s people.
On Jan. 1, 2008, Mrs. Macharia and four of her children ran from their farm near Eldoret, in the Rift Valley, to a nearby church to seek shelter.
The Macharias are Kikuyus, Mr. Kibaki’s ethnic group. A mob made up of men from other ethnic groups surrounded the church, barricaded the doors and set it on fire. Mrs. Macharia tried to escape but tripped on a burning mattress, falling on her right side. She had her 3-year-old daughter, Joyce, tied to her back and the little girl flipped into the flames.
Mrs. Macharia remembers her daughter screaming: “Mommy, don’t leave me here! I don’t want to die!”
But people inside the church panicked and Mrs. Macharia, 41, was trampled at the door.
She spent the next six months in the hospital, getting skin grafts and other painful operations. She wants plastic surgery, she said, “because I don’t like the way people look at me now.”
But for the first time in her life, she is broke. Her family used to have a nice farmhouse, sheep, chickens and cows. Now they live in a one-room apartment atop a sun-baked hill, surrounded by other Kikuyus, living off handouts.
“We used to have it all,” said Haron Macharia, Mary’s husband. “Now, we’re beggars.”
He said he could never go back to Eldoret because his neighbors had turned on him and they were like “snakes.”
The Macharias are worried about their 12-year-old son, James. He, too, was trapped in the church that day, though he survived.
“He won’t stop talking about killing,” Haron said. “He wants to burn everything.”
Over the summer, Kenyan children rioted in hundreds of schools, ransacking classrooms and burning down dorms. Ostensibly, the children were upset about exams. In truth, it may have been a collective outburst after all the violence they had witnessed.
Mrs. Awino’s two children, Wycliffe and Cynthia, were victims of revenge. Mrs. Awino, 24, is a Luo, a large and historically marginalized ethnic group, and while she was at work on Jan. 27, 2008, packing roses for $2 a day, a Kikuyu mob burned the house where her children were staying.
Her losses do not seem to end. After her 3-month-old baby died in early February, Mrs. Awino’s in-laws called her cursed and told her to leave.
“I would,” she said. “But I have nowhere else to go.”
Ten million people face starvation, partly because farmers in crucial food-producing areas who fled their homes last year have not returned, instead withdrawing deeper into their ethnic enclaves, deeper into fear.
At the same time, public confidence in the Kenyan government is plummeting. Top politicians have been implicated in an endless string of scandals involving tourism, fuel, guns and corn.
On Wednesday, United Nations officials called for the country’s police chief and attorney general to resign after a United Nations investigation revealed that more than 500 people had been killed by police death squads. One of the Kenyan whistle-blowers himself was shot to death after providing detailed evidence.
“There’s a lot of anger,” said Maina Kiai, the former director of Kenya’s national human rights commission. “If we don’t start resolving these issues soon, things could be worse than before. There could be complete collapse.”
The grand coalition government that was formed last year between Kenya’s governing party and the opposition, after a deeply flawed election, is now widely dismissed as the “grand letdown.” It managed to stop the bloodletting between different ethnic groups that tore this country apart in 2008, killing more than 1,000 people, but has accomplished little else.
The only thing Kenya’s ruling class seems to agree on is refusing to pay most of its taxes, even though Kenyan politicians are already among the highest paid in the world, a stunning fact in one of the world’s poorest countries.
“Corruption is the glue holding this government together,” said John Githongo, the director of an anticorruption institute here.
Kenya’s legendary safari business, an engine of the economy, has not bounced back either. Tourist arrivals were down about 35 percent in 2008 compared with 2007, leading to thousands of layoffs and a steady stream of unemployed youths marching back to the already teeming slums.
President Obama, whose father was Kenyan, has become a savior to many people here, in part because Kenyans say their own leaders have been such a disappointment.
Ethnicity and the country’s lingering Balkanization are topics studiously avoided in Parliament. Few of Kenya’s politicians seem ready to tackle land reform, constitutional reform or the dangerous culture of impunity, all of which were called urgent priorities after the bloodshed last year. Many Kenyans are urging the International Criminal Court in The Hague to get involved, because they have no faith that the Kenyan justice system will prosecute the well-known political figures suspected of orchestrating last year’s killings.
“This country hasn’t healed,” Mr. Kiai said, “because we haven’t done anything to heal it.”
Many victims of last year’s violence feel totally abandoned. On a recent morning, Mary Macharia stood in a long line of sick people at a hospital near Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, her eyes on the floor.
A shiny, bubbly scar stretches from her ear to her lips. The right side of her face looks melted. A glance in the mirror jolts her mind back to the burning church where her daughter was killed a year ago, along with 30 others.
“Some days,” she said, “I hate myself.”
Across Kenya, near the western town of Kisumu, Millicent Awino is all alone, a young woman who used to have two children and a decent job packing flowers. She is essentially a serf now, her time, her sweat and her body at the beck and call of her ex-husband’s family, the only people who would take her in after she fled the violence that consumed her son and daughter and the ethnically mixed town where she used to live. She recently had another child, by the ex-husband who came into her hut one night, but the baby died of malaria.
“I think I’m done with children,” she said.
She also said she would never return to her former home.
Kenya, once a nation of so much promise, remains a land divided. The country pulled apart in 2008, when hundreds of thousands of people fled ethnically mixed areas for the safety of homogeneous zones. This was the result of a disputed election in which the president, Mwai Kibaki, was widely believed to have rigged the results to stay in power. Supporters of the top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, who hails from a different ethnic group, then vented their rage on Mr. Kibaki’s people.
On Jan. 1, 2008, Mrs. Macharia and four of her children ran from their farm near Eldoret, in the Rift Valley, to a nearby church to seek shelter.
The Macharias are Kikuyus, Mr. Kibaki’s ethnic group. A mob made up of men from other ethnic groups surrounded the church, barricaded the doors and set it on fire. Mrs. Macharia tried to escape but tripped on a burning mattress, falling on her right side. She had her 3-year-old daughter, Joyce, tied to her back and the little girl flipped into the flames.
Mrs. Macharia remembers her daughter screaming: “Mommy, don’t leave me here! I don’t want to die!”
But people inside the church panicked and Mrs. Macharia, 41, was trampled at the door.
She spent the next six months in the hospital, getting skin grafts and other painful operations. She wants plastic surgery, she said, “because I don’t like the way people look at me now.”
But for the first time in her life, she is broke. Her family used to have a nice farmhouse, sheep, chickens and cows. Now they live in a one-room apartment atop a sun-baked hill, surrounded by other Kikuyus, living off handouts.
“We used to have it all,” said Haron Macharia, Mary’s husband. “Now, we’re beggars.”
He said he could never go back to Eldoret because his neighbors had turned on him and they were like “snakes.”
The Macharias are worried about their 12-year-old son, James. He, too, was trapped in the church that day, though he survived.
“He won’t stop talking about killing,” Haron said. “He wants to burn everything.”
Over the summer, Kenyan children rioted in hundreds of schools, ransacking classrooms and burning down dorms. Ostensibly, the children were upset about exams. In truth, it may have been a collective outburst after all the violence they had witnessed.
Mrs. Awino’s two children, Wycliffe and Cynthia, were victims of revenge. Mrs. Awino, 24, is a Luo, a large and historically marginalized ethnic group, and while she was at work on Jan. 27, 2008, packing roses for $2 a day, a Kikuyu mob burned the house where her children were staying.
Her losses do not seem to end. After her 3-month-old baby died in early February, Mrs. Awino’s in-laws called her cursed and told her to leave.
“I would,” she said. “But I have nowhere else to go.”
God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles....James 1:27a
I am so blessed by God's goodness in taking us to Kenya to be a vessel of His love to those that are hurting!!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
13 & Letter
13 Weeks and so counting down!!
We are anxiously getting closer to our departure to Kenya! Support letters are going out tomorrow. Please pray alongside us for all support to be raised, and for complete Trust in the Lord for all the rest of the planning. Asante~
*********************************************************************
OLIGERS 4 AFRICA
Our vision ~ As I am writing this letter, it has been nearly 18 months since I was sitting on a flight from Uganda to London then London to New York. As I approached the landing strip at JFK, tears ran down my face, and my heart was heavy and full of ache and love for the people and continent of Africa. It was a day later after landing at JFK, that I landed in my hometown, and told Bob and the boys that we all will go to Africa one day soon. From that moment 18 months ago, we have prayed, planned, gone through Missions training with Perspectives and have worked hard at saving money for our Africa Vision Trip. We have experienced God’s vision for us in going to Kenya and are excited to be in the final stages of planning for our trip this June. My trip to Uganda in 07 has changed me forever, and I am so excited to be taking my family to Africa to experience God in a way that can only be experienced there on the red soil of Africa. Noah and Jacob have been praying for the African people over the past 18 months, and have truly become Mission minded children.
Our plans ~ spend a month in Kenya working alongside my dear Kenyan friend Pamela in Nairobi, as well as working with the African Children’s Choir Kenya base. The boys and I will be leaving June 4th, along with a very special friend, Jessica Jindra, who the Lord has placed in our lives to come to Africa with us to help with the work and with the boys. We are very blessed and excited to have her with us. Bob will be coming out towards the middle of June, and then we will all head home together July 4th. We will also meet up with Missionary friends of ours, Brian and Sandy Stoltzfus who are in Nairobi for six months, and visit their ministry sites and lend a hand as needed.
The work ~ We will be doing several things. We will be running a football (soccer) Bible Camp for the children in the Kibera slum, which is the second largest slum in Africa. It has a size of New York's Central Park and an estimated one million people living it in, most all of them in 10x10 shacks. We also will be running a VBS for a church in Nairobi as well as being of help to the African Children’s Choir/Music For Life Ministry in Nairobi with work in a literacy school in the Kibera slum.
Wanted ~ people to be a part of our ministry in Kenya. Through your prayers and financial support you become a vital part of our ministry. Through our saving and working extra jobs (Bob has worked as a scoreboard operator for over seventy games at our high school, and I have started my own craft business), we have raised ourselves 6,000 dollars. However we are needing 5,000 more. This may seem a lot, but we are supporting five people, with airline tickets, visas, immunizations, accommodations and transportation within Kenya. Also, any additional funds raised will go to supplying t-shirts for the kids in our camps, providing mosquito nets for the families of our VBS children, a meal for the VBS children, supplies needed to run the VBS, extra soccer balls for the Soccer Camp and much more.
We are excited about the opportunity and experience that lies ahead. In addition to financial support, most importantly we need prayer support. Prayer is the fuel that will allow us to be successful as we follow God’s leading in ministry in Kenya. Without prayer, nothing will happen. Whether you’re a “sender” financially or prayerfully, we look forward to your partnership. Please take a moment to fill out the enclosed partner information card and mail it to Bob and Janell Oliger, 6426 Palmer Dr NW, Canton OH, 44718. Checks can be made to Janell Oliger with Kenya trip written on memo line to be deposited in our Kenya account at First Merit Bank.
May the Lord bless you for being a blessing Bob, Janell, Noah, Jacob Oliger & Jessica
Our vision ~ As I am writing this letter, it has been nearly 18 months since I was sitting on a flight from Uganda to London then London to New York. As I approached the landing strip at JFK, tears ran down my face, and my heart was heavy and full of ache and love for the people and continent of Africa. It was a day later after landing at JFK, that I landed in my hometown, and told Bob and the boys that we all will go to Africa one day soon. From that moment 18 months ago, we have prayed, planned, gone through Missions training with Perspectives and have worked hard at saving money for our Africa Vision Trip. We have experienced God’s vision for us in going to Kenya and are excited to be in the final stages of planning for our trip this June. My trip to Uganda in 07 has changed me forever, and I am so excited to be taking my family to Africa to experience God in a way that can only be experienced there on the red soil of Africa. Noah and Jacob have been praying for the African people over the past 18 months, and have truly become Mission minded children.
Our plans ~ spend a month in Kenya working alongside my dear Kenyan friend Pamela in Nairobi, as well as working with the African Children’s Choir Kenya base. The boys and I will be leaving June 4th, along with a very special friend, Jessica Jindra, who the Lord has placed in our lives to come to Africa with us to help with the work and with the boys. We are very blessed and excited to have her with us. Bob will be coming out towards the middle of June, and then we will all head home together July 4th. We will also meet up with Missionary friends of ours, Brian and Sandy Stoltzfus who are in Nairobi for six months, and visit their ministry sites and lend a hand as needed.
The work ~ We will be doing several things. We will be running a football (soccer) Bible Camp for the children in the Kibera slum, which is the second largest slum in Africa. It has a size of New York's Central Park and an estimated one million people living it in, most all of them in 10x10 shacks. We also will be running a VBS for a church in Nairobi as well as being of help to the African Children’s Choir/Music For Life Ministry in Nairobi with work in a literacy school in the Kibera slum.
Wanted ~ people to be a part of our ministry in Kenya. Through your prayers and financial support you become a vital part of our ministry. Through our saving and working extra jobs (Bob has worked as a scoreboard operator for over seventy games at our high school, and I have started my own craft business), we have raised ourselves 6,000 dollars. However we are needing 5,000 more. This may seem a lot, but we are supporting five people, with airline tickets, visas, immunizations, accommodations and transportation within Kenya. Also, any additional funds raised will go to supplying t-shirts for the kids in our camps, providing mosquito nets for the families of our VBS children, a meal for the VBS children, supplies needed to run the VBS, extra soccer balls for the Soccer Camp and much more.
We are excited about the opportunity and experience that lies ahead. In addition to financial support, most importantly we need prayer support. Prayer is the fuel that will allow us to be successful as we follow God’s leading in ministry in Kenya. Without prayer, nothing will happen. Whether you’re a “sender” financially or prayerfully, we look forward to your partnership. Please take a moment to fill out the enclosed partner information card and mail it to Bob and Janell Oliger, 6426 Palmer Dr NW, Canton OH, 44718. Checks can be made to Janell Oliger with Kenya trip written on memo line to be deposited in our Kenya account at First Merit Bank.
May the Lord bless you for being a blessing Bob, Janell, Noah, Jacob Oliger & Jessica
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