The Morris family would like to take this opportunity to wish you, your families, and your churches a Merry Christmas! The past year has been a busy one, as we have endeavored to take the Gospel and multiply our efforts across Kenya. We thank you for your faithful support.
Through the year we had the blessing of a number of visitors, including our FBMI field service coordinator, Jeremy Snipes, and our pastor, John Wilkerson, among others. They were a great encouragement to our team and the Kenyan national pastors to whom they taught and ministered.
We have spent this last year focusing on introducing the concept of local-church Bible institutes and discipleship classes for church members and recent converts. We have also been working with three mature national pastors who will be able to do what we do and take these lessons to their own people while we are working elsewhere. One of the pastors in particular is responding well to the training, and we are allowing him more and more opportunities to teach in our seminars. Early in the new year, we will be focusing on bringing the other two pastors to a level where we can be confident that they are able to teach other pastors the importance of discipleship and how to implement a Bible institute, discipling on both a group and individual level.
Individual national pastors have been doing well with pastors taking their churches through all three levels of Foundations of My Faith (20 lessons). Now they are requesting additional materials, Established in the Faith, books which include over 50 lessons.
I have been personally blessed with taking a number of individuals through the discipleship lessons, including James, Oliver, and Charles. James has now returned to South Sudan, and I am hoping he will call me one day and suggest we start a church there in that war-torn country. Oliver is a very intelligent teenager who has completed all three levels of the discipleship course and has now moved on to Established in the Faith. I am hoping the Lord will call him into the ministry. Charles has also finished all three levels of Foundations of My Faith and is now working through the Established in the Faith course. He has also invited me to go to his tribal area, where he says they have never heard a clear presentation of the Gospel. His tribe is called the Teso, a tribe I had never heard of before. They are a relatively small tribe that lives in far Western Kenya between the Masai and Turkana tribes. He also volunteered to translate the Foundations of My Faith into Swahili and has now completed Lesson 7 of Level 3. He has one lesson to translate to complete the whole 20- lesson course. Praise the Lord!
The ladies in our team are discipling Kenyan ladies who have gone through all three levels of Foundations of My Faith. Please pray for the ladies in our team, as they have their own set of challenges with supporting their own families, as well as dealing with a foreign culture and all the issues associated with that. We have recently arrived in the USA and have managed to report to a few churches while we have been here. We have also made appointments for medical checkups and, to avoid penalties, had meetings at the government office to register for Medicare before I return to Kenya.
Also, I recently returned from a meeting in Ghana, West Africa, where the team leaders from around the world came together to discuss the many different aspects of the ministry. We had the opportunity to discuss and meet with Pastor Ted Speer and his staff from the church in Kumasi, as well as other missionaries. It was an encouraging and challenging time. I have a number of ideas that I plan to implement on my return to Kenya, East Africa.
The Lord has greatly blessed, and I thank Him for the team members who are still in Kenya carrying on the work while I am here in USA reorganizing our affairs in preparation for our return early next year.
Please pray for a few things specifically:
1. Finances for a 4WD vehicle to reach the very remote areas of Western Kenya—we still need about $10,000.
2. That the Lord would raise up men of integrity for us to work with in the ministry
3. That God would show us clearly what His plan is for our ministry in Kenya and give us the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom we need to accomplish his desire
4. Continued good spiritual and physical health for our team members and those with whom we are co-laborers in the ministry
5. Safety for our family and fellow team members as we travel both in East Africa and the USA
6. Fruit for our labor and credit to your account in Heaven
I thank you for your ongoing support of our family and our ministry, both financially and in prayer. I have plans, but I know that nothing will happen without prayer and God’s help. Please PRAY! We will be praying for you.
We hope you have a Merry Christmas with your families as you celebrate the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
PRAISE the LORD! Thank you and God bless you.
Your co-laborers in Christ,
Peter, Melody, and Lindsay Morris
