July Update: Birthdays and Elephants and Houses, oh my!

Another month, another update! We’re still here in Nairobi Kenya for language study, patiently waiting to head down to TZ. Read below for more detail, but first…
PRUF
-Konongo: The Konongo are an unreached people group in TZ near Kigoma(our eventual landing spot). There are approx 138,000 Konongo in TZ. They practice traditional tribal religion(lots of animism, spirit worship, witch doctors, etc), but very little else is known about them. Please pray with us that missions researchers would be able to learn more about this isolated group so they can be reached with the gospel!
-Language study: it continues! We need motivation to learn well and be good stewards of the time here in Nairobi. This is difficult at times because proper Swahili is not commonly spoken here. Please pray that God would help us develop ears to hear and understand Swahili!
-Homeschooling: As I explain further below, we started the 21/22 academic year, for a variety of reasons. Managing this time with language learning and other responsibilities is a challenge. Please pray for patience and wisdom for Bek and I, and for grace and willingness from the boys. Please also pray for Elijah as he has to be much more independent in his studies this year.
-Housing: Looks like we might have a house! Pics below, but we are praying that this place will work out, that the repairs are cheap and we can get into the house sometime soon!

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Ok, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty*.

July has been busy. We living in Nairobi, enjoying our little community here and learning Swahili pole pole(slowly). One of the challenges is the lack of proper Swahili in the city, and the fact that all the Kenyans want to practice their English when we interact, so our trips to the store are often us speaking only Swahili, and the Kenyans we interact with speaking only English!

Blue sky view while unwinding from a day of language school

Unwinding in a different way- wresting is a favorite past-time.

Ezekiel is a compound favorite. Here one of the gardeners is giving him a mower-ride across the parking lot under Phoebe’s watchful eye…

The boys started swim lessons as we anticipate living close to the lake in Kigoma. Zeke has rare moments of enjoyment…

See-through hearse-trailer, anyone?

Birthday dinner date at a restaurant in walking distance- it was probably 60 degrees out and the Kenyans thought we were crazy for wanting to eat outside!

Some Fridays we cook for language study. We don’t learn as much language, but the outcome is awesome!

Traditional Kenyan meal of chapati(fried flatbread), mukimo(mashed potatoes with pumpkin leaf puree and boiled maize), kabichi(cabbage sautéed with veggies), and beef stew

We celebrated 3 birthdays in the last month, Me(Josh), Elijah, and Joel. My birthday was a reminder that my life is good! Real good! Elijah and Joel turned 14 and 10, and we had a MarioKart tournament with all the kids on the compound. They got a bit loud, so I had to tell them to take it easy a time or two, but it was a blast! Bek made an epic Among Us themed cake.

We got the chance to visit the Seldrick Elephant Orphanageon the outskirts of Nairobi, where they rehabilitate and reintroduce orphaned elephants and rhinos. What a treat! We were able to spend some quality time with the babies, and learn about the project.

I guess even feeding 2 and 3 year old elephants can become mundane.

Nairobi National Park is awesome- surreal! There’s giraffe behind us if you squint.

I just love Zeke’s face in this one!

Baby elephant parade as they head back out into the park.

I also got a chance to help with a couple of medical clinics this month. They were organized by local pastors, and a team from the states came in with medications and glasses to give out. It was a blessing to be a part of, and a reminder of how much I love medicine, and how it can be such a bridge to the sharing the gospel! After the clinic we had a baptism service with a local church, so no one in the church can say they never got around to it. Video of the service is on the Facebook Group.

Another great ministry opportunity has been to meet with “O”, a young Somali that I met who has a lot of questions about Christ. He is an atheist/philosophical materialist(basically, he only believes in science), but is open to conversations about God and is intrigued by my testimony, and how someone who has a scientific/medical background could believe in spiritual things. Please pray for O as he and I try to get together to study the Bible together.

We are really close to having a house in TZ! Below are some picture of the outside. It is right next door to our partner family, the McDonalds, and has a great yard! These houses are a providential provision, as there is really NOTHING else in the town that would fit families our size. Praise God with us for this blessing! Our team leaders have been working incredibly hard to get these houses ready for us, in addition to their regular ministry duties! We’re grateful to work from an organization(IMB) that helps us to get houses up to code in a remote place like this. We hope to have more pictures to share soon!

We started the 21-22 school year last week, anticipating a lot of breaks this fall while we move and get settled in. When Rebekah first suggested it, I thought “I’m not listening to her, she’s crazy!" Elijah is starting high-school curriculum(HOW DID WE GET OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE A HIGH-SCHOOLER?!?!?), and the younger boys are doing the same MFW curriculum we’ve used in the past. Our curriculum is literature-heavy, so if we’re getting tired of teaching, we can just tell the boys to go away and read some books.

A scene familiar to homeschool parents the world over!

We picked up some Kiswahili workbooks for the boys to help them get introduced to the language.

Sweet shelving unit to help us separate the unruly students that characterize our school.

Bek has been using watercolor painting as an outlet- where she would usually sew, leatherwork, woodwork, etc, it’s been fun to see her develop this skill set as she unwinds from the stress of homeschooling, learning Swahili, and being married to me. I’m going to brag on her a bit and share some of her awesome work below. Ain’t she great?

How to support us:

Prayer

We are grateful that so many of you have expressed a desire to support our family in this adventure! The most important way you can support us is through your prayers. James 5 tells us that the prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective- we need you to regularly pray for our family, our team, our people groups, and the accomplishment of the Great Commission!

Some helpful resources we’ve found:

-The Joshua Project gives prayer prompts for the Unreached People Group of the day.

-The IMB Pray app gives you a variety of prompts for regular prayer for missions

-The PrayerMate app is designed to help you keep and schedule customized prayer cards

Giving

We are 100% supported by the International Mission Board, the missions agency of the Southern Baptist Convention. Thank you to the millions of Baptists worldwide who give generously to support the Great Commission!

If you would like to give to support our work, and the work of the 3000+ IMB cross cultural missionaries around the world, you can do so here: www.imb.org/give. 100% of gifts to the Lottie Moon Fund go to missionaries and the people they serve.

If you would like to directly support our work in Tanzania, you can:

-help us create an endowment to enable a self-sustaining hospital in Kigoma

-give directly to the effort to reach 55 UPGs(Unreached People Group) in SubSaharan Africa in the next 5 years: 55 in 5

Partner

If your church doesn’t have a connection to missions and would like to partner with our team(through regular prayer, communication, and more), send us an email at m28StoreyFam@gmail.com discuss further

Visit

Short term missions trips, when properly planned and executed, can do much to enhance the work of a team on the field. If you are interested in coming to Kigoma to work alongside us, send us an email at m28StoreyFam@gmail.com to discuss further.

That’s the monthly update! Thanks for reading with us this far! Didn’t make it this far? I forgive you…

*find all the Nacho Libre quotes in this newsletter for a fabulous prize of 200 pesos!