Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Do you have a cow in your back yard?

We are sleeping on mattresses on the floor. We use a 50 amp deep cell battery to charge our computer and phones and give a little light.  We don't have a fridge, a stove, a dining table or a couch to sit on. We do have two canvas camp chairs. We wash our clothes by hand and store them in foot lockers because we don't have a chest of drawers or a closet. We don't have running water, so we use an outdoor toilet and carry water into our house for clothes washing, dish washing and bathing. We heat our bath water in the sun and do most of our cooking on a one burner camp stove.

Our resources are low and we are struggling to have our day to day needs met, and having enough money coming in to fund our ministry seems to be a dream at the moment. We say all that to say, we are not in Kenya living the high life.  We are trying to be good stewards of the resources that God gives us.  But it is difficult to stretch what we have been receiving to cover the needs of our family and have enough left over to do the ministry that God has brought us here to do.

There is a fine line between living above the people that we work with and having enough modern conveniences to make sure that we are not just spending all of our time and energy "living".

We kicked off the project at Lowangilla this week by teaching how to build a Garden in a Bag.  We hope to go next week and build more and teach more people.  We want to be able to pay for half of the cost of the bag and let them pay the other half. We also want to give them the option of paying their half in installments. The bags cost about $3, so their half is around $1.50, but that is still a LOT of money to them. After we get that project going we want to move on to solar cooking. But again we don't have the funds to buy the materials to build the final design, much less build many so that we can have them to give/sell.

Please take a moment to pray about joining our Financial Support Team.  No amount is too small or too large.  We have people who give as little as $15 per month. The right amount is the amount that God is leading you to give.  Our Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills, are one of those cows in your back yard and God is saying "Give that to the Flemings" ? Obviously we don't mean, literally do you have a cow in your back yard. But we think that you understand the comparison. Pray about it and let's see what God wants to do.