2010 Annual Campaign 2

8/8/2019 2010 Annual Campaign 2

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Celebrating 10 Years of Ministry in East Africa

2010 Annual Campaign Dear Friends,

I am ecstatic about the opportunity to share this piece with you, largely because never in mywildest dreams did I imagine that I would get to be a part of celebrating this major ministry milestone.

As the year 2010 is drawing to a close, Bracken-hurst Ministries currently has a de cit in its yearlyoperating budget. Would you consider making a

year-end donation to help us nish out 2010 ona positive nancial note? We are truly excitedabout all of the work that the Lord has allowedus to be a part of here in Kenya, but we desper-ately need your help in continuing this work! Aswe evaluate the possible reasons for our nancialshortfall this year, we recognize that we have en-countered a variety of unexpected events. A few of our full-time team-members were not able to meettheir annual giving goals, and we had to movehouses, which resulted in additional unexpectedexpenses. Additionally, we had to purchase a fewmulti-year supplies for our camp program this year,which led to higher expenses for camp this year.Lastly, we are about $30,000 lower in our generalgiving this year compared to previous years, add-ing to our current de cit.

In 2000, when WinShape Wilderness approachedme about moving to Kenya for a year to help starta ropes course program, I didn’t think for a secondthat I would still be living here and serving as the

director of Brackenhurst Ministries 10 years later. Inever would have imagined that the Lord wouldcontinue to open the door to ministry opportuni-ties in the ways that He has.

When I re ect back on 2010 speci cally, Isee the Lord’s provision through a series of di cultcircumstances. I was talking with a friend earlierthis week, and I commented that this year did notplay out as I was anticipating at the beginning of 2010. We experienced a lot of transition on ourfull-time team, and we ended up moving housesbecause of 2 di erent somewhat traumatic break-in experiences at our previous house. Yet, despitethe ‘harder’ events in our lives, we were able toexperience the Lord’s faithfulness as He carried ourteam through these times. And, we saw Him notonly carry us, but also enable and equip our teamto continue to pour into the lives of the people

around us here in Kenya.Looking forward to 2011, we are already excited to see that the

Lord is putting a team in place that will allow us to grow our impact in

East Africa. We have already lled 8 new positions for the rst half of 2011; we are so excited about the ways in which these new individualswill be able to extend the reach of this ministry. The Lord is so faithful toprovide us with the right people at the right time. As I look forward totheir arrival, I am also aware that we need to increase our general giving

to cover ministry provided expenses. I con dently believe that the Lord will provide these needs be-cause He has paved the way for these new individuals to join our team.

Thank you so much for any nancial support that you are able to give towards our 2010 shortfall!We truly appreciate your commitment to Brackenhurst Ministries and to impacting these lives here inEast Africa!

Blessings,

Executive Director



In 10 Years of Camp BlueSky, over 3,800 kids from least 36 nationalities have been exposed to the Gosp

Jesus Christ!When we look back on the past 10 years of camp, nothing excites us more than real-izing how many kids have gotten to hear the Gospel. When camp began in 2001, we

had a total of 110 campers, primarily from Christian missionary backgrounds. How-ever, there were about 5 kids who came from a diplomat background that rst year,foreshadowing the direction in which the Lord was going to take camp in the future.For the past 4 years, we have averaged 500 kids each summer, about three-quartersof those kids are from non-Christian backgrounds. It is common for counselors tohave a camper from each of these faiths in the same cabin: Christian, Muslim, Hindu,Buddhist, Jewish, and Athiest. They literally have the opportunity to share Christwith kids representing all of the major world religions at the same time. How oftendoes that happen in the world? God has been so faithful to Camp BlueSky to give usthe opportunity to proclaim Christ among the nations. We have had the privilage of seeing kids from allwalks of life put their faith in Christ. We are so thankful that this is the work that the Lord has allowed usto be a part of for the past 10 years, and we pray that He would continue to give us the opportunity toreach this diverse and spiritually dry community with the transforming power of His Gospel.

Looking back, we are also so thankful that the Lord has allowed theBrackenhurst Ministries student ministry program to grow so that weare able to be involved in the lives of many of these kids year round.One week of camp de nitely changes kids’ lives, but we know thepotential for impact is so much greater than that when faithful studentministry workers are able to walk with them throughout the year.Since the student ministry program was o cially started in 2004, wehave had the amazing privilege of being involved in the lives of hun-dreds of students. Whether it is through youth group, early morningbreakfasts, sporting events, or weekend events, our team is honored tohave been a part of these amazing kids lives.

At this point, we are primarily working in 2 schools, but as we see ourteam growing, we are already beginning to pray about which school the Lord would have us add next.We have kids coming to camp from at least 15 di erent schools in the Nairobi area, which means ourstudent ministry program has lots of opportunity for growth before we are engaging all of the camp kidsyear round!

Celebrating the Lord's Faithfulness in Student Minis

Student Ministry enables our team to share Christ with

students throughout the year!

The kids that come to camp are literally thenext generation of world leaders. Their

parents are political, business, and humanitarian leaders worldwide. Imaginehow di erent our world could look if this

generation comes to Christ, then takes theGospel back to their 36 nations, and then

emerges as leaders of their respectivecountries, many of which represent nations in

the 10-40 window.

“I am a humanitarian.My Mum is Muslim &my Dad is a Hindu but

I don’t follow any of these religions”

- 10 year old girl

We have been given the privilegeand responsibility of sharing theGospel with kids with stories like

this one.



Joelle's Story of Growth Through Camp and Student Ministry

Campers are not the only oneswho have their lives changedthrough being a part of the campprogram. In the past 10 years,almost 300 sta have grown intheir walk with the Lord throughtheir experience at camp. Joelle

Mumley is one of these individu-als. Not only was she a part of our summer sta , she was also acamper and was poured into byour sta in the early days of thestudent ministry program. Joellegrew up in Kenya as a mission-ary kid and returned to Kenyafor two summers during collegeto be a part of our camp team.

When she was in high school,Joelle didn’t realize that Kim Pace

was serving in the role of a men-tor, she was just happy to haveher as a friend. Joelle says shehad lots of people who served in

the role of mentor in a more of-cial sense, but having someonewho just wanted to be her friendmade the biggest di erence inher life. That’s why it was muchlater that she realized that Kimwas very intentional in her life,that she was always asking herchallenging questions and will-ing to give advice when asked.Joelle really felt like Kim helpedher prepare for the huge chal-lenge of returning to the Statesfor college.Kim’s investment in Joelle, com-bined with her experience as acamper and love for Kenya weremajor contributors in Joelle’sdecision to return to Kenya aspart of our summer team. Whenasked in what way serving as a

part of camp sta a ected herthe most, she said, “Camp pro-

vided the unique opportunityto openly and blatantly sharethe Gospel. Because camp is sofun for their kids, non-Christianparents either supported ortolerated it, regardless of theirpersonal beliefs. The parentsknow they are signing their kidsup for a Christian camp. As sta ,we were encouraged and ex-pected to share the Gospel withkids that were intentionally keptaway from the truth of the Gos-pel in every other aspect of theirlives. Many kids had never heardthat Jesus is God and we had theopportunity to share openly withthem all week long. I grew in myown faith as I learned to boldlyshare the Gospel with campers.”

BlueSky Adventures Celebrates 10 Years of Training Land Building Stronger Teams

When our teambuilding and leadership development prorgram began in 2001, we were one of the rstto o er this type of training experientially in Kenya. Today, we remain a leader in this growing eld as wepour into the lives of current and next generation local and worldwide leaders. Over the past 10 years,the Lord has given us the opportunity to work with approximately 600 corporations, schools, community

organizations and churches on our challenge course.BlueSky Adventures focuses on equipping participants with vital skills such as leadership, communica-tion, trust, and teamwork, just to name a few. Our sta often has the opportunity to share why theseprinciples are important from a Biblical perspective. Simply by being in business, we believe that theLord opens a lot of doors to people not accessible to more traditional missionaries.Additionally we have had the opportunity to invest in our Kenyan sta and develop their leadership po-

tential. As we focus on giving them increased leadership and train-ing opportunities, we see that they become better equipped to helptheir country grow and develop. We have had the blessing of seeingtwo of our former team members move on to leadership positionswith an organization that enables Kenyan churches to care for thosesu ering from HIV/AIDS in their communities. They often talk abouthow their experience as facilitators with BlueSky Adventures helpedto equip them for the ministry the Lord has called them to today.



Planning Ahead for the 10 Year Mark in Western KeIn addition to sharing God’s love, we have also have the privilege of showing God’s love as we pour intoa variety of peoples’ lives, and as we helped to provide access to basic needs at our project in WesternKenya. By God’s grace and with your help, in 2010, we were able to drill another deep-water well, whichprovided access to clean drinking water for a whole community. And, we provided much needed food,shoes, basic necessities, and access to education to 200+ orphaned children. Also, we provided 40 more

milking cows to needy families.With only 3 years left before we reach the 10 year mark of our involvement in the Western Project, we arefocusing on helping Mission Link Ministries move towards a higher level of sustainability. We have put inplace several goals that we believe will decrease dependency and increase sustainability.

You can make a di erenceby sponsoring a child for $40

each month.

The rst round of second gen-eration cows will be producingmilk in 2013, which will movethe Cows for Christ program

towards sustainability.

Goal 4: Provide cows for all of the Mission Link Ministries sta (pastors, teachers, and ECD teachers)until the program is able to provide cows from within. We currently have su cient funds topurchase cows for the remaining sta and several needy membersof the community in early 2011. At the end of next year, we plan

to evaluate if we need to raise money for more cows in 2012. Theprogram was designed so that the rst calf born to a cow is put back in the program. The rst of the calves will be mature enough to givebirth and become milk cows in 2013, meaning the project will reacha point where it is able to sustain itself in 3 years.

Goal 1: Provide Rehema Children’s Home and Academy with a sus-tainable food source. Each year we are spending about $36,000 justto feed the children at Rehema, we would love to see them in a posi-tion where they are not requiring outside funding to feed the kids.We are currently researching a land project that would allow Mis-sion Link to grow enough food to feed all of the children at Rehema.

The project will require that we purchase land, drill a borehole, andput an irrigation system in place. We are aiming to simultaneouslyresearch land management and raise funds in early 2011 so that wecan purchase land and begin management training in late 2011. Weanticipate that we will need to raise at least $40,000 to complete thisproject and believe it will be a long range investment towards sus-tainability at Rehema.

Goal 2: Have a sponsor in place for all of the 200+ children at Rehema by the end of 2013. Once the land project is completed,there should be no need to spend sponsorship money on food. Thismeans that all of the sponsorship funds will be able to be used to im-prove the quality of education and life at Rehema. Currently we havesponsors for 41 children; to accomplish this goal, we will need spon-sors for at least 170 more children.

Goal 3: Ensure that there is a well at all 7 of the Mission Link Assemblies. To date, wells have been drilled at 4 of the 7 “Assemblies” in the Mission Link church planting network. The 37 churches are broken up into 7 Assembliesthat are created based on their proximity to one another.

We currently have the funding in place to drill our 5th well in early 2011. Weare planning to focus our e orts on raising money for the land project in2011 and plan to begin raising fund for wells for the 2 remaining assembliesin early 2012.

Food is Rehema’s greatest monthly expense and they arerelying entirely on outside aid.

We want to provide them asustainable food source.



Looking Forward to a Growing Team in 2011 More sta on the ground means more lives can be impacted, so we areexcited to have 8 new people that are planning to join our team nextyear. It has been amazing to see the Lord’s provision of the right peopleat the right time. David Preston will be joining our team in May as thedirector of operations in Kenya. He will be helping to implement ourstrategic plan and overseeing sta development. David and his wife Tammy both have years of experience at WinShape at Berry College. Their kids Wesley and Hannah are tons of fun and will make a great ad-dition to the team as well.We are also excited that the Lord continues to provide sta to leadBlueSky Adventures. Greg Hatcher will be joining our team in May torun the day to day operations of this business. Emily Baird will bewith us beginning in January for a 6 month programming internship.BlueSky Adventures is more than a teambuilding company; it providesus with a valuable tool to access the lives of both the international

and business communities of Nairobi. Not only will Greg and Emily have the opportunity to help growand develop the business, they will also have the opportunity to build relationships that will lead to op-portunities to share Christ with the individuals they come into contact with.

Plans for a New ClimbingGym in 2011

When we moved our programsto Lukenya Getaway 2 years ago,the one aspect of our programthat we weren’t able to take with

us was our rock climbing gym.We’ve always wanted to open upa gym in Nairobi. A rock climb-ing gym would provide a basefor us and provide a great way toengage the international com-munity.Andrew Conway, Jason Booneand Stephen Powell are planningto join our team in January to getthis project started. They have ahuge task ahead of them, start-ing with nding the right loca-tion for the gym.All three of them have experi-ence with Young Life, and theyare planning to work alongsideour student ministry team as wellas serve at Camp BlueSky. Theywill also continue to work ondeveloping our Adventure Tripsprogram, particularly training theKenyan sta to run these pro-grams well.

Andrew, Jason, and Stephenwill be starting the climbinggym and working with stu-

dents. Emily will be workingwith challenge course

programming.

Exciting Growth for the Student Ministry Team Lexi Wayman and Michelle Peteet will be joining our student ministryteam in February. Both ladies have experience working with studentsin the States. Lexi has been an administrator for a tutoring companyin Los Angeles, and Michelle has been the assistant youth pastor at achurch in Rome, GA. When they are not busy with students, they willbe serving Camp BlueSky. Lexi will be the camp administrator, andMichelle will be the head counselorat camp this summer.

Lexi and Michelle will be workingto expand our work in both Ross-lyn Academy and the InternationalSchool of Kenya (ISK). Earlier thisyear an administrator at ISK asked if we would be willing to run a YoungLife style program for his students.Up until this point, we have not had enough sta to pursue this, butwith our new sta this is de nitely something we intend to pursue.With a growing student ministry team, we are able to begin to seri-ously considering adding another school as part of our student min-istry program. Please join us in praying about where the next moveshould be. We’ve got a couple of schools in mind, and we have greatrelationships with some of the senior sta at those schools. It’s just amatter of waiting on the Lord’s timing before we can get going.

The Preston Family, (from left)Tammy, Wesley, Hannah and Da-vid, is planning to join our team

in May 2011.



Brackenhurst Ministries Needs YOUR Help!We hope that you will prayerfully consider participating in this year’s Annual Campaign. As we look back and celebrate the past ten years, we are also aware of our current urgent need for funding to help coverthe $50, 000 budget shortfall we are experiencing this year. We are so excited about the opportunityfor growth that our team will experience in 2011. With your contributions to the annual campaign, theground work will be laid for the following things to happen in 2011:

• Campers, who represent the next generation of worldleaders, will be exposed to the life-transforming powerof the Gospel at camp this summer.

• More students will be involved in Gospel sharing pro-gramming and intentional relationships with our grow-ing student ministry team.

• A new climbing gym will become a hub in the interna-tional community in Nairobi, creating more opportuni-ties for intentional relationship.

• The Adventure program will continue to develop agrowing number of current and next generation leadersin Kenya.

• The lives of the children at Rehema Childrens Home andAcademy will be transformed through the provision of asustainable food source and additional sponsors.

To participate in this year’s annual campaign, please ll out the included card and send it with your check in the envelope inserted in the middle of this mailout. If you would prefer to donate online, please visitour website, www.brackenhurstministries.org, where you can donate via Paypal. Please designate yourgift as “Annual Campaign” in the memo portion of the online form. Thank you in advance for your partici-pation in this year’s Annual Campaign. Your support is such a vital part of this ministry.

For those of you who are planning to do all or some of your Christmasshopping online, there are a couple of easy ways for you to help Bracken-hurst Ministries as you shop. Amazon gives the largest donation and it’sthe easiest to use, not to mention you can buy pretty much everythingon Amazon. Before going to Amazon, just come to the BrackenhurstMinistries blog (www.brackenhurstministries.blogspot.com) and click onthe Amazon link on the sidebar. Just click at the bottom where it saysamazon.com, that will take you to Amazon and you just shop like nor-mal. They give between 3-15% of your purchase back, depending on theitem.If you can’t nd what you need at Amazon, try www.goodshop.com. Youwill need to select Brackenhurst Ministries as your charity. Then you justsearch for the store you need, click on the link to it, and then shop atyour store like normal. I have yet to nd a store that I wanted to buy fromthat wasn’t on Goodshop. They usually give back between 2-5% of yourpurchase price. These are 2 easy ways to help give back to BrackenhurstMinistries at no cost to yourself.

You Can Help Brackenhurst Ministries as You Shop TChristmas Season!

Documents

2010 Annual Campaign 2