Orphan Feed

This is Renee.  Mom (Nancy Rowe) called Dad (Dan Rowe) this afternoon about 2pm our time,
10pm Kenya time.   Had a great orphan feed...tomorrow they have gifts for the His Arm's students (party time).   All is well with the travelers/missionaries.   They even had a little critter in their quarters at bedtime.   It was a gecco, who seemed to know nothing about Geico car insurance!  

Church's helping Kenya Orphans

We have several churches who continue to faithfully help our His Arms Orphan Project.  Of course, Peace Lutheran in Baldwin, Wisconsin lets us work through their offices and with their blessings. They have supported us with financial gifts, donated items for our children that mission teams have carried, and of course, spiritually encouraged us,  by holding us up in prayer.  We also must thank St. James Lutheran Church, in Montague, Michigan who has also been a huge supporter now for several years.  They have even held special mission events just to help our ministry.  And now we welcome St. Paul Lutheran, San Diego, CA who have joined in the support of our ministry as well. Pastor Joe Atwater, from St Paul's will also be traveling with this October team leaving shortly for Maseno.

Also, we must take time to thank two schools who have made great efforts in donating to our ministry. Thomas Reed Elementary School in Shelby, MI has been a great supporter of our ministry and our children. As has Amery Elementary School in Amery, WI.  It is so exciting to see the children getting behind this program and wanting other children to be able to learn just like they are doing.  Great teachers have inspired these kids, and we say ASANTE SANA/THANK YOU!

Keep the team in your prayers.  They leave shortly.  They will make every attempt to blog while in Kenya, but one must understand that communication is not a "given" in the remote areas we travel into.  We will do our best.  Perhaps we will be able to at the least, convey a message via one of our family members and a brief telephone call.  We will let you know when we leave.

Thanks for your continued prayers and support of His Arms Orphan Program!

Kenya Orphans Donations made easy!

Hi All of the His Arms Kenya Orphan Project supporters!  We are so excited to report that we now have an even simpler way to donate to our projects. When you visit our website, www.hisarmskenya.org you will see a "donate now" button.  Here you can donate amounts to purchase any of our Ebenezer projects, support your His Arms orphan, make a special donation or any number of ways to help the projects.  It is simple. Secure. And hopefully will facilitate donations to become even easier to share.  If you have a Paypal account yourself, you may use your account to donate toward His Arms projects. Or if you prefer, you can simply use your credit card to make a secure donation. As you can see, it is done to be secure, but simple.  You will see your donation listed as "Peace Lutheran".  That is the organization we work thru in Baldwin, WI so we can legally be a 501c.  They in turn keep this account separate from their general funds, and merely transfer these funds to our His Arms Mission Project and monitor all so we are keeping everything legal, credible, and that your donation may be tax deductible. We appreciate their help in doing so.

So share our website, www.hisarmskenya.org with your friends. Rest assure, we are credible and ethical in our decision making. ZERO percent of these funds are kept in the USA for any administrative fees except for the small percentage Paypal requires of us, to keep this account open. 

May you be blessed for being such a blessing to our precious children in the great Maseno area of Western Kenya!  Mungu Awabarikie.  GOD BLESS YOU ALL!

Kenya Orphans helped because of generous people

Today I keep thinking of the Bible verse from II Corinth. 1:3-4 "The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."  You see I recently received gifts from people here in various spots in the USA who wanted to reach out in their pain to help our orphans alleviate some of theirs. One is from a Dad who lost his teen-age daughter in a car accident. He now sponsors one of our little girls.  Another check came from an adult daughter who lost her father, but is reaching out in his name to help the kids in His Arms.  Then one check came today from a husband who recently lost his young wife to cancer leaving behind children still in the home.  He wanted the orphans to feel love, too, even in the midst of his sadness.

I only wish all of these donors could see the face of the precious children they are helping. They may even be saving these kids lives because now they can get nutritious food, safe water to drink and have HOPE!.  I wish they were the ones that will get the hugs from these appreciative kids when the team arrives in October!  These kids will be so excited.  So my prayer is that somehow I can convey to these donors what their generous gifts mean to these precious children, how much comfort and hope it brings to them, even as God is comforting these Americans going through sad times themselves.

Lord may you bless all of our compassionate donors who make His Arms Orphan Project in Maseno, Kenya a reality!! Thank them for helping to comfort so many others!

Kenya Orphan Dream Project

Well I am happy to report that we now have enough money donated to purchase our property in Kenya!!! Is that awesome or what??   A generous donor stepped  up to add to what we had collected from many of you and we now have enough to go ahead with the land purchase.  PLUS we have enough extra to start looking at possibilities of putting up a basic structure!!!  Our dreams and vision to  put up a building where our children and volunteers can meet regularly is becoming a reality.  We ask for prayers of wisdom in working out the legal work in purchasing this.  May God be our guide every step of the way!  Asante Sana to all who have given to make this a reality!

Poverty In Maseno Kenya

I had a discussion yesterday with a local lady that works with a summer food program. She commented "and isn't it sad to think we have 29 kids in this program that are hungry".  I said I was glad that people like her work with  programs like that.  As I drove home, I thought to myself about the book I read by Jeffrey Sachs "Ending Extreme Poverty" which is a great book to educate oneself on the different levels of poverty.  He mentions the first level, which is like this lady mentions. Poeple struggling to make ends meet, not always able to buy adequate food.  Sachs wrote how we can see that level of poverty now in the USA probably in every state. Then he mentions the second level, he said there is even some of that in our poorest areas in USA.  People lacking food for their children and very few resources availabale in their area.  Then he mentions the third level, which is what we work with in our program in Maseno Kenya.  He called it Extreme Poverty.  No food, no resources, nothing for the family to eat, and lasting for days or weeks. 

Imagine a shell of a hut, no beds, only corn stalks for blankets and "mattresses".  No money at all. No furniture or items to sell to get some money. No transportation to go somewhere to get help. No resources in community to help you with. No medical care at all. One cup of water to drink a day from the contaminated river you can walk to per person in your family.  No energy to do any of the work as you need protein for energy.  No protein meals at all. No money to buy seeds to try to raise some food.  No money for fertilizer to try to increase the yeild in the over worked garden areas. And on it goes. 

Yes, we have people in need in the USA, and thankfully we have programs to help them. But we must not forget those in Extreme Poverty who have NO RESOURCES and few fighting for them in many cases.  Become educated on these needs.  Check out programs to make sure they are credible. Consider working with us at www.hisarmskenya.org to help the world alleviate such suffering.  We cannot do it all, but we each can do SOMETHING!

Solar Lights for Kenya

The closer it gets to our mission trip 2012, the more excited we all get.  We have placed our order for more of the solar lights that we took in last year to some of our children that had sponsors that gifted them with the lights. THEY LOVED THEM!!! They said, "we have never had a torch" before!  Not even a flashlight had ever lit up their little homes before. Since that delivery last July, 2011 the grades of the children that received them have all greatly improved. THEY CAN DO THEIR HOMEWORK!  So exciting.

So we are taking more in this year for the rest of our 56 children we sponsor.  So if you care to donate towards those lights, even if you are not a sponsor, we accept all donations, any amounts. You can mail your tax deductible check to Peace Lutheran, 2084 Couty Rd N, Baldwin WI 54002, attn: His Arms Ministry.  We operate our 501c thru Peace Lutheran. 

We also may be able to offer visitors to our website a chance to donate in the near future thru Pay Pal donation button. You would not even need your own account to do so, but could donate with a credit card. Details need to be worked out, but it is looking hopeful.  We will let you know as that progresses.

One more HOPEFUL thing!! We now have gathered over $1500 toward our property purchase toward the $3000 needed to get our match from a generous donor.  Then that $6000 would be enough to purchase that piece of land for the ministry.  We are excited!  God is moving, people are listening and we are thankful!

Asante Sana/thank you to our faithful followers!