Blessed is my word today! Love, love, love….my sweet new home here in Kenya. Beautiful countryside,

and lots of different activities made by all of my new yard friends, all of who visited on my porch today.

I have laughed all day! The goats tried to eat my straw chair on the porch and the monkey’s just kept distracting me! They are so fun to watch. One was very brave…he jumped on the window sill at my kitchen window, stuck his arm inside and tried to get my pineapple!

The house is an old house,

but in fairly good shape. More primitive on the inside than out, but the environment on the outside is so worth the lack of conveniences on the inside. I have electricity and today they are completing the renovations so I will have running water and a toilet. No hot water, but so thankful I’ll have running water.

When I awake in the morning, I see the sunrise coming in my window, just like when I was still in the states living by my daughter. I have missed those first moments of the day when the sun is rising. In Uganda where I lived before, all I could see from my windows was a block wall. Now God has graciously once again given me such pleasurable moments each morning. Also, as you can see from the view from my windows, I can see mountains. Also another great gift of God as I miss our North Georgia mountains that I could always see going and coming from home each day. Now, although I am 8000 miles from our beautiful North Georgia mountains, I have beautiful Kenya mountains to remind me of our Creator.

Along with the view of the mountains, and the environment is another blessing. For the first time in more than 2 years I don’t live with an armed guard, and I have freedom to leave my home and walk. God has brought me to a place that is best described as a “sanctuary”. In the stillness and peace of this place I am expecting God to teach me more and more of Himself. I anticipate wonderful God moments here as He has brought me to a place where I can genuinely be still and in the quietness of this place, hear His voice clearly.

So thankful to my sweet friends, Craig and Christin Haynie who sent a special offering. I now have a propane stove, a microwave (that works great if the power is on 🙂 ) and a table and chairs. Its rare for someone to write me and tell me they are sending money for personal use, not ministry use, so I was so blessed when I received their message saying they wanted to help with things I might need in my new home.

Speaking of Craig and Christin, I’d like to ask all of you to be praying for them. For a long time they have been hoping for a child and found out recently they were finally expecting. Yet, God in His sovereignty took the the wee one home to heaven a few days ago. Just this morning I was reading about Hannah and her experience before God sent Samuel into her life. You know the thing about Hannah that remains in my mind, is that Hannah was not a woman of faith simply because she eventually bore a child, she was a woman of faith because she sought God in her deepest distress.

Couldn’t help but think of what Christin posted a few days ago when God took their baby home…she wrote…”Craig and I are very sadden by the fact that we have had to say goodbye to our precious little baby. “Baby H” won’t get to live here on earth with us, but we find comfort in knowing our child will be living with Jesus – for eternity. Along with our sadness is also a thankfulness for God’s sovereignty. We did not have to make the decision of where our baby needed to live, and we trust fully that God’s wisdom is (and always will be) far greater than ours”.

Just like Hannah, Christin and Craig are people of faith because they sought God in their deepest distress. Please be praying for these sweet friends that I love dearly.

Home for all of this week, then headed out to the eastern coast of Kenya on Sunday for my last Secret Church conference for this year. Excited about this trip because Pastor Tom and Sezi have never flown before and we are flying to our conference! I will take some pictures to share….I sure love this two young men…two of my greatest blessings here in Africa. Can’t what to experience their first flight!

Love to all,

Joy Breedlove

Missionary-East Africa

Today is the day! As I wrote a few weeks back, God is relocating me into the country of Kenya. Today, I officially move to my new home there. I know in the weeks and months ahead I will have much to write home about this new journey, but for now I have much to share about the past three weeks and ALL God has been doing.

First, I would like to thank you for all the prayers and messages after my last post about spiritual warfare. For many days afterwards and even yesterday there were messages with wisdom and encouragement for me from you back home. I was very encouraged and felt loved with each and every message.

I’ve traveled back to back weeks within Kenya completing Secret Church conferences, so I’ve not had much internet access. At these particular conferences, almost all of the participants were new friends for us. Various pastors from different denominations, which was a great joy to experience.

Holding a conference in the slum area of Nairobi was an eye opening experience. When I first arrived into the city, I thought it much like any western metropolitan city, which is a rare sight here in East Africa. However, it didn’t take but a few minutes to be on streets like I normally travel on throughout the East African community, streets engulfed with poverty.

The next two conferences gave us some challenges with mud as the rainy season is in full force.

It has been a tremendous blessing for Pastor Tom (my translator) Sezi (my driver)

and myself to be given the opportunity by the Radical team to carry the Secret Church teachings throughout Kenya and Uganda this year. We have completed all but one week of travel for this year. There is one conference left on the coast of Kenya, which we will complete week after next.

When we finish this last conference, we will have provided Dr. David Platts teachings of: Old Testament Survey, New Testament Survey and How To Study the Bible. These week long conferences are scheduled with groups of no more than 30 pastors at a time. During this week we not only provide Dr. Platts teachings and materials, we also spend time encouraging the pastors as they learn for the first time the reality of persecution in our world today.

These pastors have not experienced coming together for this many days where they are feed well, provided blankets and mats for sleeping and are given the evening hours for fellowship among themselves. As I have written many times in the past, it is amazing to watch the transformation on their faces that is so visible when you compare their first day there to their last day there.

Had the opportunity to visit with Eric, the young man who through your support of me being here has put him through 2 years at the Kenya School for the Deaf.

He brought me his report card and as always, he is doing excellent. It is wonderful to see him be able to write and to communicate as he is now proficient in sign language. Thank you to everyone who supports me here, part of the funds you send for my support are paying for Eric’s school.

Some of Gods creatures along our pathways these past few weeks:

Yesterday was a day I will never forget. In the early morning hours Sezi and I began picking up pastors along the route headed toward the unreached people group God has opened the door for us to reach.

Just 4 weeks ago when our first initial contact was made, we rejoiced as 2 new women surrendered their lives to Jesus. When we arrived yesterday to spend the day teaching the 2 new believers, we were thrilled to find an additional 20 new believers; all of whom came to faith in Christ through the witness of the first two women.

I arrived back late yesterday and learned about the violence going on all over our world the past few days. The news saddened me as I had just spent the day with 22 new believers who were devout Muslims just 4 weeks ago. What a contrast to go from a great spiritual experience seeing visibly Gods eternal kingdom being multiplied, to learning of the violence and killings.

This morning I read the following about how we should pray on the Secret Church Blog and wanted to ask all of you to join us in praying:

http://www.radical.net/secretchurch/blog/

In Light Of All This, How Do We Pray?

– Let us pray that our Christian brothers and sisters will experience peace!

1. In their surroundings. We want them to be safe as they continue to advance the Kingdom where they are.
2. In their hearts. We want them to receive comfort and experience calm as they experience the joy of Christ and fear God above man.
3. In their relationships. We want them to continue to display love within the Body as well as to those outside. Blessed are the peacemakers.Matthew 5:9).

– Let us pray that the violence does not spread.

– Let us pray for our enemies and the enemies of our brothers and sisters, remembering that we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. (Romans 5:10).

– Pray for all those injured in the violence and for the families of those whom we know to have been killed, including those of 4 US diplomats in Libya. Pray that all are comforted by the one true God as He mercifully and graciously leads them to depend on Him for everything.

– Above all, let us pray that God receives the worship He is due from His creation.

Love to all,

Joy Breedlove

Missionary -East Africa