The Sound of Music, Lesa’s 9th show at our school, and the first one featuring Sydney in a major role, finished 2 weeks ago. See photos from the show and read more about the 11 weeks of rehearsal, 85 cast, crew, and orchestra, 5 sellout performances, and 1 drama teacher to rule them all.

Tonight, Andy heads to Egypt and on Monday, Iraq. He will be serving as a videographer with International Christian Concern, an organization whose mandate is getting the world to notice Christian persecution and to fight on behalf of those who are enduring this persecution. Read more about this trip, and how you can be praying for Andy, and especially for the christians from these countries.

2 days after he returns, Andy starts casting for “A Distant Boat”(working title), the first feature-length film his team has ever taken on, and with Andy as director. Andy’s team will weed through up to 400 actors in 2 days to get down to a cast of about a dozen. Watch a short video about this film project and how you can get involved.

A little under two weeks later, and the whole family will be in Amsterdam, riding the canals and checking out the Anne Franke house, on a short 1-day layover on the way to the US for furlough this summer.

Browns in Africa, Summer 2012 world tour dates:

We don’t take it lightly that there are nearly 100 people in the US and Canada who sacrifice financially, regularly, for us to serve the church in Africa, and even the church in the middle east occasionally. We are humbled and blown away every month to see who God will use to provide the $6600 it takes every month for us to live modestly and serve effectively here.

As we’ll be starting our 3rd term as missionaries in August, we are forecasting a $27,000 shortfall in our support over the next 2 year term, due to inflation and the rapidly rising cost of living here.

• Would you please be praying about joining our support team, either financially or in praying for us? 
• If you belong to a church that values missions, would you consider letting us be a part of your church’s plan to fulfill the great commission in Africa?
• Would you please be praying for our furlough? That we would find much-needed rest in a short amount of time, especially with great distances to be traveled and quality family time that needs to be spent.

Thank you for taking the time to read our update, and to pray for our family and our ministries here in Africa.

-Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery and Sydney Brown

That said, we have a huge amount to be thankful for. We are among the wealthy. We don’t have to miss meals because we don’t have food, like the million Somalis in refugee camps here. We don’t have school fees. The dollar is trading very strongly here. We have a huge blessing of a house. We run out of money by the end of each month, but we’re still able to generously give to those who need. And we have not a few people in the US and Canada who are sacrificing financially every month because they want to be a part of God’s kingdom work through us.

We are a bit low in our monthly support, though, and having to raise our support rate now to combat inflation. If you or your church would like to participate in our ministry financially, either regularly or with a one-time gift, you can do so here. And prayers are free, so please continue praying for us!

Life is a test. Of this we can be certain. A test of our heart, our character, our works. The bible speaks many times about God testing us, testing our hearts, trying us, refining us. We should rejoice in these tests (James 1) and stand in God’s strength to endure.

Since returning to Kenya after the weddings last summer, we’ve felt tested on multiple fronts. Not the kind of testing you want to run away from, but the kind of testing where you know you have to see it through, to see what God is up to.

We’ve been tested financially, to see if we could trust God to provide in the face of an impending support shortage. God answered our prayers with what we needed, through both friends and our supporting churches. Now there’s the test on the other side of the equation, if we can be good stewards, when we have what we need.

We’ve been tested in our church leadership. Coming back from this summer with a conviction about church structure and governance, we’ve been a part of transitioning our informal church into a simple, but biblically obedient structure, with Andy being ordained as an elder late last year. We’ve seen God’s hand moving powerfully in our church, as a result, we believe, in taking a step in obedience.

We’ve been tested in our ministries, with ever expanding scope and responsibility, and we’re trying to be resourceful and creative and obedient to the opportunities that God has placed in our spheres of influence. Those of you who know us well aren’t suprised by this. We’re busy people. We have super busy periods, and then we crash and recover and do it all again. For us, the worst thing would be to do the same thing every day. We’d rather have big projects to look forward to, that don’t last forever. Maybe it’s the creative mindset. Maybe it’s ADD. But most likely, it’s just how God wired us both.

Our prayer is that our ministry would stand the test. That it would be found to be built with things that last, and not on ourselves or our skills or talents.

Each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 1 Cor 3:13

And we’re continually tested as a family. How we will spend our family time. How we raise our kids to know and fear the Lord. Constantly tweaking our tactics so that our family’s spiritual walk doesn’t become a routine, but striving for a holistic walk.

I know you’re being tested as well. We all are, and it’s a good thing. May you see it as something to not run from, but to embrace. To know this is how God keeps us from being set in our ways, from being complacent, and on the path to transforming our minds.

In Christ,

Andy and Lesa and kids.

Merry Christmas! We hope that you all are having a blessed time of celebrating Christ’s birth this week. We’ve been hearing of the cold and snow back in the States and suppose we shouldn’t mention the sunny 90 degree weather we’ve been having!? As we are winding up 2010, we look back and are so amazed at what God has done in our lives. The biggest piece of news we wanted to tell you is that we had an incredible response to our last update about our financial support needs. Thanks to many of you, we are able to stay on the field through the end of this term (May 2011) when we will be returning for our second “home assignment.” We look forward to hopefully seeing each of you in June or July when we visit our churches and families. As you can see in the video, we just got back from a short trip to Olepishet this week. We’ll tell you more about the cool things happening there in our next update! For now, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love in Christ,
Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery, and Sydney

Since our furlough last summer (2009), we’ve lost about $450 a month in support. We’re not surprised by this or discouraged, we feel this reflects the global economic situation that is evident in everything from our retirement accounts to the cost of corn flour in Kibera.

We know that everyone has had to live on less, and in fact, in 2009 during our furlough we prepared for this by lowering our support rate to the minimum, so that we could tighten our belts as far as they would go.

However, every month we are under-supported, money gets taken from our work funds, where our excess money is kept, usable only for ministry purposes or to supplement our monthly salary if needed. We started our ministry in Africa over 3 years ago with a healthy amount in this account, but as the time has gone by the support shortage has eaten away at this account.

Unless we are able to replenish our work funds, this month will be the last one we get our full salary, as next month there won’t be enough extra left to supplement our shortage in monthly contributions.

All this is to say, it is a miracle each and every month that we have to minister here. We serve a God who has all the resources in world! We praise God each month that so much support comes from so many people who are sacrificing financially for us.

We believe we’ve tightened our belts as much as we can. We are prepared to liquidate assets, but we’re not ready to go home yet!

We’ve never “asked” anyone to support us, and feel God has honored that tradition by providing in a way that He gets the glory. We trust that God will do the impressing if we make the needs known.

So, if you feel God is calling you to be involved financially with supporting our family and our ministry here in Africa, thank you. Please go to our support page to find out how to do this.

And if you would please pray to the Father on our behalf, asking Him to provide for us through his church. And not just our needs, but the needs of the church and its workers in the world.

God bless you all…

No, we haven’t, in case you’d wondered. Yes, we know we haven’t sent an email since March 5. No, it’s not because the rainy season knocked out the internet to all of east africa. Yes, it’s because we’re busy and sometimes lazy and forgetful, and often both at once. Consequently, since we skipped a month, we have a TON to tell you about!

During the past two months, we have moved to a transitional home on a AIM missionary compound. Also, Lesa had her wrist surgery which ended up being fairly significant and is taking a while to recover fully. Praise the Lord that it is doing better every day!

Overlooking Rift Valley

Mom & Dad

We began our journey over the past few months with the visit from Andy’s parents over Easter. We had a wonderful time with them, somehow squeezing in trips to Kibera, an overnight ride on the Lunatic Line (go rent “Ghost in the Darkness“), a few days at the beach, a move, visits to the Rift Valley and Kijabe, and a game drive. Read the full story here.

Filming in North Africa

On-Field Media

The OFM has been PDB (pretty darn busy) serving AIM throughout EA – East Africa (we are an organization that loves abbreviating).

Andy’s got a few more stamps in his passport, and some great photos and stories as well.

North African man

In March, Ted and I (Andy) went on a trip. We met some amazing national believers, some amazing Christian workers there, got spat on, rocks thrown at us, and all kinds of frontier-missionary kinds of stories to tell. Get our photos here, and read Ted’s story here.

Earlier this month, we went to northern coastal Mozambique, to work with a family there who are working among an unreached people group there. We flew about 3 hours to Pemba, drove 6 hours (way past the end of the paved roads!), and spent 2.5 days among the Mwani people there. Get photos here.

Mozambique hospital

We are very very excited that Tim Lang will be joining OFM as an intern this coming fall. The Lang family are great friends of ours, and we’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Tim quite well over the past 6 years at DCC. Tim will be spending his gap year with AIM, doing videography and traveling with OFM. Please pray for Tim as he is raising his support over the next few months.

Lesa’ Ministries

My involvement in the Inbound Program, which brings/receives/trains short-term and now also full-term missionaries from around the world to AIM International Services is growing and going well. I’m so grateful to now have a team of 3 others working with me and we are in prayer for the Lord to send us someone with administrative skills/time to lend to the work. It is such a blessing to introduce people to Kenya and to missionary life.

A new development for me (Lesa) was just finalized yesterday. I’m going to be volunteering as the high school drama director at a school similar to the Robbie and Avery’s school (yet larger and older). It has an international student population made up of Americans, Kenyans, British, Koreans, etc. Their current director is returning to the States and leaving behind a well-established program. We are excited about this as a family – to be involved heavily again in the lives of teens, have an outlet for our creativity, and to be involved in teaching/promoting the arts in this community where exposure to the arts can be limited.

Rehearsals will be 2 – 3 days a week after school and we’ll produce a play in the fall and a musical in the spring!! I’m seeing this as a move back to my original vision in college of teaching the fine arts on the mission field. Isn’t God incredible?

Avery & Sydney

The Kids

Robbie and Avery have one week left of school. They have both had an amazing year at West Nairobi School. We have been so impressed with the quality of teaching and how much the boys truly like school! Robbie will be going to summer camp for a week this summer, and all three kids will be attending VBS at their school for a week. Sydney has been doing some home-school preschool with Mommy at home. She loves learning and calls Lesa, “Teacher.” It’s so cute! All three kids have loved living on the compound, as there are many other children here and they run and play all day long.

How We Are Doing… Really

The past two months haven’t been the easiest, but things have been getting better. When we lost our last “permanent” home in April, the adjustment to living in yet another house, along with Lesa’s surgery, and some other random incidents, our spirits dipped pretty low. But, He has also remained faithful through it all. We’ve been learning more and more of His great love for us – even when we doubt and especially when we struggle. He has provided for us what we see as the just the right home to settle into (of course, permanence takes on a whole new meaning here). It is located near our old neighborhood, and is the home of some of our new friends who unfortunately are leaving the field. They have done some amazing improvements to it during their time here! We will be moving there in early June.

Robbie piloting the DC3

Support

It takes a miracle each and every month to keep us here. It’s really amazing and encouraging to us to see how God provides the $5500 each month that is required to live here. Thank you to all who have continued to give sacrifically.

Truthfully, we are slightly undersupported, as the support rate was raised this year in accordance with cost-of-living inflation… including the boys’ school tuition. We trust God to continue to provide. In addition, if we raise any extra monthly support, we would like to put Sydney in a Kenyan preschool here in the fall – we think she would greatly benefit from the social interaction – especially getting to know Kenyans. Some of you supported us abundantly last spring with a one-time check when we were leaving for the field. Would you prayerfully consider renewing your gift this year to help us continue our ministries here?

Also, thank you to all who have given to our vehicle project. We have almost paid for the 1973 Land Rover we agreed to purchase from the Delorenzos. You’ve provided $4500 of the $6500 we need to finish paying it off and making some necessary repairs (radiator, fuel tank, rear shock). If you’d like to give to this project, click here and type in our name, select “project” and enter “Vehicle” as the project name. Thank you!

Prayer requests

* AIM AIR incident: This past month, our AIM IS community had a shock when one of our planes crashed on take-off in Sudan. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt. We do ask for prayers for the pilot’s family, friends of ours, who are continuing to process the incident, and also for the several passengers who were on board. Full story here.

* Kenyan people: Following the election crisis, life here has certainly returned to some level of normalcy. However, food and gas prices have sky-rocketed and the poorest people have been affected the most. Please pray for the inflation to cease and for prices to lower.

* Our upcoming move – our 4th house here. (Enough said).

* Our support needs

in closing

We close this, our 11th newsletter in 12 months, with the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 5:

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

Amen!

Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery, Sydney

Situation in Kenya

We’ve got some very uplifting news to share with you.  Last Friday Kofi Annan successfully negotiated a peace agreement between Kibaki’s PNU party and Raila’s ODM party. Kenyans have been celebrating and things seem to have cooled off tremendously since January. Kibaki will remain President, and Raila will fill a new post of Prime Minister. There’s obviously a great deal of work to do to figure out how that is going to work exactly and they are continuing to meet to work on some other issues which Annan wants to address.  Overall, it seems to be promising at this point.  There are still many displaced people throughout the country, though, which is a crisis that many churches and organizations, including AIM, are trying to address.

Travels and Medical Updates

We had a joyful reunion 2 weeks ago when an exhausted Lesa & Sydney arrived back in Nairobi after 3 weeks in the US for Sydney’s surgery. They had an amazing time of visiting with friends and family, visiting our church in Virginia, and doing lots of shopping for supplies to bring back here.  Lesa didn’t waste a single moment, trying to see, hug, and talk with everyone within a three hundred-mile radius, though she knows there are many whom she did not get to see as there simply wasn’t enough time to do it all.  So, when we come back for a 4 month visit to the States in the summer of 2009, we will be able to visit everyone without being rushed.

Sydney’s surgery was successful.  The dr. was pleased with the outcome.  We have to have her wear an eye patch on one of her eyes everyday, to strengthen it and hopefully get them both centered all the time.  There is a small chance that she will have to have another surgery some day, but it will be a while till we know if that will be necessary.  Avery has gotten his cast off of his arm and we’re hoping he doesn’t break it again (like he did last time).  Also, Lesa will be having surgery on her wrist in April.  She has a badly inflamed tendon that extends from her thumb up the side of her wrist – she had surgery for the same thing on the other hand back in high school.  Unfortunately, she isn’t hardly able to use the hand for many everyday tasks now, depending on how the hand must turn to perform the tasks (like turning a key in a lock).  The praise is that there is a visiting hand surgeon in the area right now, who looked at it and offered to do the surgery.  Isn’t God amazing?!

On-Field Media news

My (Andy’s) team has been busying capturing the stories across Kenya of the body of Christ at work during the crisis in the past few months, while more international projects for the team have been coming in. Next week, Ted and I will be heading to a creative-access nation, working with a TIMO team, some medical missions, and doing some videos about local people groups there.

Also on the horizon in the next few months are trips to Mozambique, Rwanda, and another creative-access nation.  Please be in prayer for a very significant upcoming multi-organization project OFM has been asked to do.  We can’t tell you any details, but let’s just say it’s very exciting that our team has been chosen to do this and we all need to be praying that the effects will be far reaching, as it is a country with great spiritual and physical need.  Check our website every once in a while for more details, and for post-trip stories and media.

We are sad to see one of our OFM team members leaving the field this week.  Mike DeLorenzo and his family will be returning to the States to be with his parents, as his dad has been recently diagnosed with advanced leukemia.  Mike and Ted were the ones who first proposed the existance of the OFM Team, and Mike and his wife, Renee, were the ones we met (back in April ’06) and who told us about the possibility of Andy joining the team.  Our family will truly miss their friendship.

Short-Term Missions Program

My (Lesa’s) responsibilities are increasing as my new role in the Short-Term program already expanded to also include Orientation for new Full-Term missionaries in our division (International Services).  This means that after anyone who is new to I.S. (pilots, mechanics, counselors, computer people, media people, etc. and their families) attends the more general orientation school (ABO) they then will come to Nairobi to be taken through a more location-specific orientation process by me (and hopefully other people I can get to help me)!  My first short-term folks came in January, and I have been having a great time getting to know them and helping them get settled in.  We’ve started a “Short-Termers’ Fellowship” group that meets every other week at our house for worship, prayer, Bible study, and fun.  It’s been a great way for the ministry to involve Andy – and of course he keeps things fun!  Right now I’m enjoying working on updating and revising the Short-Term and Full-Term orientation programs.  I feel so blessed to be able to have the chance to come alongside new missionaries in their struggles of starting a new life and to help them not only learn to survive here, but to thrive and to grow to love Kenya and the Kenyan people.

Vehicle project

Our Land Rover... soon!

An update on the Land Rover.. we have committed to buy a 1970′s era Land Rover from friends, the DeLorenzo’s, whom we mentioned are leaving the field this week. We had been praying for a vehicle to be available that would allow us to transport more people than just our family for when we have visitors and for Lesa to drive around short-termers, (who typically don’t have cars).  It will also enable us to drive out of the city (the roads are REALLY bad) instead of trashing our little station wagon.  At this point, we have raised $2750 – thank you so much to all who have given towards this!  We have $4250 more to go and our goal is to raise the rest quickly so we can pay them for their Land Rover and they can buy a car when they get to the States!  If you are interested in giving to our vehicle fund, you can donate on-line.  Just click here and type in our name, select “project” and enter “Vehicle” as the project name.   Thank you!

Moving… again!

As if life was in any danger of getting dull here, we received yet another shocking bit of news last week. Our landlord wants his house back and we have to be out in April. Honestly, we have really felt a bit under attack here in the past couple of months with health issues and financial issues (hospital bills, waiting on reimbursements) and the political tensions. So, getting kicked out of the house we just moved into at Christmas has been the icing on the cake.

According to a well known and respected missionary psychiatrist (who also happens to be a beloved uncle here in Nairobi), many 1st term missionaries have horror stories like this, as if all the cards stack up against new missionaries to make them not want to come back for a 2nd term. We are trying to recognize the spiritual battle going on here, and not be discouraged. We know that He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. And we will not be blown off-course.

We’re currently assessing other housing options and timing issues with when to move. Please pray for all these details to be worked out without causing more stress.

In Closing

One of the things that completely overwhelmed me (Lesa) when I was back in the States was how many people I saw whom I knew had been faithfully supporting us financially and/or through prayer.  I got to speak briefly with one family who told me that their daughter prays for us faithfully every single night.  I wanted to express to her, (but didn’t come near to being able to say it well) and to everyone how humbled we are by this kind of love and support.  I so desperately wanted to spend hours with each person, showing you at least some of that love in return.  Getting to see so many of the faces of our supporters just made it that more real to me, that you are the ones who are sacrificing continually for a ministry you may never get to see first-hand.  That takes great faith, and we truly admire your faith and we rely on it – this is the Body of Christ in action!  You are doing a work that will go unseen (except for by us) and that deeply pleases the heart of God.  We know that the Lord, who knows your heart, will reward you for this great encouragement to us.  Thank you, each one of you.  We love you!

-the brown family

First of all, thank you for all of you who have been praying for us and for the country of Kenya during this time. Since our last email we have been so encouraged and blessed by your emails to us. It’s good to know when we click “Send” it doesn’t just go out into the vacuum of space, but that people are actively following what is going on and praying along with us. Thank you! Secondly, sorry for the long email, we’ve been trying to keep these things short but we have had so many things happen in the past 30 days we needed to tell you about.

Things were pretty tense at the beginning of January, and have fluctuated wildly since then. Threats of riots, sounds of gunfire, and constant visitors to our door from Kibera remind us that this situation is far from over. A lot of forgiveness will need to happen first, and that is a supernatural act that can only come from Christ and his power to transform minds and humble hearts. AIM is continuing to monitor the situation for the safety of all of its’ missionaries in Kenya and we still feel confident in their experience, judgment, and guidance for us during this time.

Lining up for food in Kibera

The Body of Christ in Action

Despite being in this difficult situation, we have been blessed and encouraged to see the body of Christ at work around us and through us. Many churches here have stepped up to the challenge to take care of the displaced and hungry and wounded.We had a unique opportunity to partner our sending church, Dulles Community, with a church in Kibera that was housing 300 refugees but had no way to feed them. At the time Kibera was (and still is, depending on the day and the violence) a very desperate place, because food vendors had been looted and chased out of town (or killed) and it became very expensive and dangerous even to possess food. Dulles Community was ready to give, willing to share (1 Tim 6:18) and provided 3 meals a day for those 300 people for 2 weeks during the most desperate time. We were just blessed to have been a part of connecting the body of Christ to each other.

We have also realized that the greatest way we can make an impact here is to help those whom God puts us in contact with. We have people at our door everyday who are hungry and in need. It has been our goal to give out food to anyone who needs it – as there have been people across the country without consistent food for the past month. Also, just today we were able to help out some Kenyan friends – he was in western Kenya and unable to get home to Nairobi, as there are no buses running right now. We were able to connect him with an AIM AIR plane that was landing nearby and he is home now safe and sound with his family. It’s things like that which help us to know we are here for a reason.

Ministry

AIM AIR Cessna Caravan

The On Field Media team has been busy as well, trying to cover the stories of God at work during this time. From the secular news media, people are left to wonder how a country with such a rich, lengthy Christian heritage could do this to itself. Our current mandate is to declare God’s glory, and get out the stories of how lives transformed by Christ cause people to go against the status quo and embrace fellow Kenyans across tribal lines. Recently we have been in Kibera and in Western Kenya with AIM AIR relief efforts. Click here for more photos from these trips.

Last weekend Lesa spent 3 days at the annual AIM Ladies’ retreat with 70 other women. Since we shipped a portable sound system with us to Africa, she volunteered to run sound for the event, as well as taught 2 workshops on “breathing new life into your daily quiet time.”

Lesa has been serving in a new role at AIM this month, also. She has been helping out with Short-Term missionaries (here for less than one year) who are here to serve within International Services (our division of AIM). Many of these are pilots, mechanics, counselors and their families. She had a group of four new people come two weeks ago and enjoyed organizing their orientation and getting them settled into life here. We have started a Short-Termers’ Fellowship at our house every other week for worship, training, and fun for all short-term missionaries in Interational Services.

Avery’s arm

Last Tuesday night we were having supper at a friend’s house, and joking about how Robbie had broken his arm once, Avery twice, and Andy three times. The very next day Avery tied his dad, and is well on his way to breaking the record at this pace! He and Robbie were jumping off the swings at the playground at Tumaini, and apparently Avery must have won the contest.

In Kenya, getting treated for a broken arm is very different than in the US. We had to pay for everything in cash ahead of time, and it involved Avery having to go by himself to the “operating theatre”, and spending the night in the hospital with Lesa by his side. All told it was about an 18 hour stay in the hospital, and I think it might have slowed Avery down for a day.

Sydney

Sydney’s surgery and trip to US

For those of you who have kept up with our blog, it may not come as a surprise to hear Lesa and Sydney will be back in the US by this Friday night. And for the rest of you… surprise!

We knew before we came here that Sydney would need eye surgery at some point to correct her eye condition, strabismus. We had seen several doctors in the US before coming here, and had some recommendations. We were able to follow up here in Nairobi with another highly recommended expert in ophthamology who concurred that waiting till our next furlough (summer 2009) could cause permanent vision problems. We decided that Lesa would take Sydney, leaving Andy and the boys at home, so they could continue to work and to attend school.

They will be in the Dulles (VA) area the weekends of the 3rd and the 17th, and will be in Kansas with Lesa’s family in between for the surgery and recovery. They are looking forward to connecting with many of you in these places, visiting Dulles Community Church, and having some special time with Lesa’s family.

Vehicle fund

Our Land Rover?

We have been praying for the right opportunity to purchase a vehicle that is a better fit for our family’s personal and ministry needs. Our current vehicle is a station wagon that seats 5 and we need to drive more people around than just our family when we have visitors and when Lesa is driving around new Short-Term missionaries. We also needed a vehicle to drive outside of Nairobi, where the roads are REALLY bad – an SUV that is made for the type of roads you find in Africa. A vehicle has become available for us to purchase – our friends are willing to sell us their old Land Rover (you can see us with it on our little safari in pictures on our website). It can seat almost double what our current car can seat! We would like to purchase it as a second vehicle, to only use when needed, as our station wagon gets great gas mileage and is much better suited for city driving. In order to get it, we need to raise $7,000 for the purchase and necessary repairs by the end of February. If you would like to give to our vehicle fund, click here. Type in our name, select “project” and enter “Vehicle” as the project name.

Prayer requests

• Please pray for the still volatile situation here across Kenya, for our new Kenyan friends who are all affected by this, for the Kenyan church that it would be a light in this darkness, and for the leaders who need to come to a solution quickly. Thousands of Kenyans have lost possessions, homes, and loved ones in this senseless violence.
• Please pray for safe travel for Lesa and Sydney, for a successful surgery and recovery for Sydney, and for the guys and they stay in Nairobi for 20 days without Mom.
• Please pray for our family and other missionaries as this past month has been extremely stressful. All of the missionaries are feeling the strain of grieving the loss of this once peaceful country, concern for the Kenyan friends, and concern for their own family’s safety.
• Please pray for our ministries here – OFM, Short-Term missionaries, and our efforts to help our Kenyan friends and neighbors – that they would be able to continue, to bless others, and to bring glory to God.

In closing

Wow… sorry again for the long email. We just had so many things in the past month we had to talk about, and many more that didn’t fit on the page. We just wanted to close with saying despite the situation here, we are confident God has us (and other missionaries) here because we are needed. Maybe the things we are needed for are not part of our official assignment with the organization, but we feel confident that when times are tough, that is exactly when we are needed here the most. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here and serve this country.

In Christ’s love,

Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery, Sydney

Our backyard

Greetings once again from the city of cold water (that’s what Nairobi means in Kikuyu)! At least 4 days of the week that is true, the other 3 days it is the city of “hakuna maji”, or no water. Which is why we have 2 giant tanks in our back yard to store up water to get us through the dry days. Which means no laundry and few showers during half the week, making up for it on the other end.

Not that things are dry here, quite the opposite in fact. The short rains (one of two rainy seasons here) have started this week and everything is muddy and wet. It’s even cold, which helps us remember that back home people are getting their turkeys and raking leaves and thinking about Christmas. It’s going to be a weird Christmas for us here, the start of summer and probably the 1st time we’ll have been hot since we left the US at the end of June.

On Field Media

Andy in the northern Kenya desert

The last time we wrote an update I (Andy) was just starting my job with the new On Field Media team. Mike and Ted and I have had a great time the past couple months pulling together our first video project and building our website to host all our content.

Andy and Ted in front of a Rendille hut

Our 1st video, Psalm 40, is a worship video. Ted and I shot all the footage, in Kibera slums at a literacy class, in another slum at a health clinic, in Machakos at Scott Theological College, and in Korr, Kenya, in the remote desert northern frontier. After weeks of planning, 2 weeks of shooting, and 1 week of editing, we finished and are now presenting it for you, our friends and family, as an opportunity to get a glimpse of life throughout Kenya, as well as worship God in a greater understanding of the work he is doing here.

You can watch the video and check out the OFM website (also by me!) here: http://aim-ofm.org.

Kibera child

I also had the amazing opportunity in each of those places to take some incredible photos. Not that the photos are incredible as a result of my skills, but really the result of a great camera (thanks again Andy Peterson!) and a country full of beautiful people and children just waiting for a camera to tell their story. You can see the best photos on our website.

Teaching ministry

As you know, I (Lesa) have been waiting on God’s direction for ministry here. He has opened up a few doors that have, honestly, surprised me, including a chance to speak to some women at our friends’ church about the Discipling ministry I have been involved with since college. In preparing for my talk, God pulled together many pieces of my experiences to see how this ministry truly transforms lives (including my own!) and could transform a church, and clarified more how this ministry is optimally organized – based on my own experiences and on a great book “Transforming Discipleship” by Greg Ogden.

Now, I have another opportunity to get together with some of these women, a mixture of Kenyans and missionaries, again to go into more detail about it. Along the same lines, I also have a chance to do a workshop at our January AIM ladies’ retreat on “Breathing New Life into Your Daily Time with God.” I would love to see this all grow into a broader ministry here – but know I must wait on God to orchestrate it. Please pray for me that I will follow God’s direction and be patient with the results.

Worship ministry

We will also be leading a workshop at next week’s regional conference called “Guitar and Piano for Worship.” We hope to equip people who find themselves leading worship for Bible studies, meetings, or church, but who don’t feel confident in their abilities. Andy will also teach a workshop at the conference called, “Using the Internet as a Tool to Communicate with Supporters.” As you know, Andy is so amazing and creative at this, and many people are already asking us how he does it.

We are excited, also, that many doors are opening for us to be “worship leaders to missionaries” as we had originally envisioned. We have been leading weekly at a youth group, Lesa has been leading for her ladies’ Bible study, we are leading at the conference next week for two of the main sessions, and a few more upcoming opportunities.

Church

24 Sundays ago we worshiped with our home church who loved us and knew us well. The past 24 weeks we have worshiped at 18 different churches, and while that has been wonderful for some reasons, it has been hard for others. It has been hard to sit on the sidelines after being in the game for 10 years, every Sunday. And we long to fellowship with a church that knows community like our home church and where we can experience that community with Kenyans, and are still waiting on the Lord to find out how we might be involved in serving in a local church. Please continue to pray for us as we are searching for a church home and how involved we should be at the local church level.

Family

The kids at the Maasai Ostrich Ranch

Robbie and Avery have been enjoying West Nairobi School – making new friends and doing well at their studies. African life is becoming more and more “familiar” to the kids, which is a relief to us parents. Robbie had his 9th birthday in September, Sydney turned 3 in November, and Lesa turned ?? in October, so we’ve had a good time celebrating for first birthdays here (though baking cakes in our somewhat sketchy oven has been an experience)! We have been enjoying our house, but have struggled since we moved in to find a place for our office/studio equipment. God is so faithful and has provided us an opportunity to move into a different house at the end of this year that has a room for an office AND an extra bedroom for guests! Now you all have no excuse not to visit us!! It also has an extra big yard for the kids to play with our new German Shepherd puppy who has been providing us all with hours of entertainment.

Finances

Financially, we are blown away each month by the gifts that have come in. Blown away at the size of this task, each and every month, and that God is faithful to answer it, through you!

We’ve found out, during the past month or so, that we are slightly undersupported, and that the support rates for missionaries in East Africa are going up, across the board, at the end of the year. This is mainly a cost-of-living increase, and we are thankful to see the support rates going up as we have realized how hard it is to feed the ever growing appetite of our children (Robbie now eats more than Andy!). We also try to have enough “excess” funds to be able to help our Kenyan friends when needs arise.

Anyhow, we need around $500/month more in support by the beginning of next year. Clicking the green AIM banner on our website is probably the easiest way to do it. Like we said, we have been blown away each month at what God has provided, and know that he’s not going to send us home over such a small thing as money. We trust completely that he will provide, and ask you to continue praying with us for our trust and his provision.

Closing

Our street

As we say each time, we are so thankful to God, and to each of you who support us in your prayers and in your sacrifical giving. So thankful for the opportunity to be here.

Trying to be obedient, one step at a time,

Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery, Sydney

WE MADE IT!! We got our financial clearance from AIM yesterday and we are on our way to Kenya at the end of June! God has been in the middle of this whole thing – we basically just sat back and watched. The other highlight of this past month was our Commissioning Service at Dulles Community Church, where we have been on staff for the past almost 5 years. It was such a beautiful time where we really got to see the body of Christ in action as the local church sent out its own to serve.

As we write this, we are about 3 hours outside of Virginia, driving to Ohio – the first stop on our June tour of the country! Here’s our travel schedule, in case anyone wants to pop in to see us when we are out your way:

May 31 – June 2: Cedarville, OH at Grandma Stormont’s

June 2 – 9: Aledo, IL at Andy’s parents (we will be getting away to Chicago from the 5th – 8th for our 10th anniversary)

June 10 (am): Pine Ridge Presbyterian Church, Kansas City, MO. We will be speaking specifically at the 9:15 service about our upcoming ministry in Africa

June 10-20: Hutchinson, KS at Lesa’s parents’

June 20 – 22: Kansas City (Robbie wil be attending camp at Heartland while we spend time seeing friends in KC)

June 22-27: Aledo, Illinois

June 27 – 29: Pearl River, NY at AIM headquarters to meet up with the other new missionaries who will travel with us to Africa

Once we get to Kenya, we have a very exciting schedule, too. We will be staying at a guest house for a week to rest and acclimate to the time change. Then we will be at Africa-Based Orientation school for 3 weeks in Machakos, Kenya. There the whole family will be trained and prepared for our new life and ministry. Then we will go to stay with a Kenyan family in their home for a few weeks (not sure how long exactly). This is where we will really get to know how Africans live and experience the culture first-hand. FINALLY, after all of this, we will get to settle into our new home in Nairobi. Hopefully, our shipment of stuff will have arrived and we can finally have a place to call “home” again.

At this point, we are actually OVER our monthly pledge target (106%). This is perfect for many reasons. The extra monthly money goes into our “work funds” account, which will serve as a safety net should we dip low on any given month in our monthly support. We can also pull money from this account for ministry expenses, so we’re not spending our salary on video tapes and camera lenses! Also, our hope is that we could use this money for possible travel to lead worship at missionary conferences and such. We thank you all for how much you helped to make this happen. It is so crazy that God has so clearly made this happen – it makes us really wonder what He has in store for us over there!

We have also raised money for some vital equipment necessary for Andy to function on the media team and for us to lead worship at events. We are still hoping to take a few more items with us for the media team, such as more camera equipment, recording equipment, and software. If you are interested in making a donation towards this equipment, the easiest way is to go to the AIM website at www.aimint.org. This donation should be towards the project named, “Andy and Lesa Brown Media Equipment.” You can also make other donations there and/or join our monthly support team.

If you sent in a pledge card and/or a check to us and you have not yet received something in the mail from AIM, could you please send us an e-mail and let us know? We are trying to iron out a few details with AIM this month and want to make sure everyone is set up with AIM for receipts and monthly pledges.

We’ll keep the website up to date throughout the next 2 months and probably send out another e-mail sometime later in the summer when we are in Kenya. We love you all and thank you for all of your help and support! LOOK OUT AFRICA, HERE WE COME!