Heaven on Earth

  'Heaven on Earth' Newsletter August 2011

Greetings from Sylvia and Joshua in Kenya.

A month has passed by since Sylvia came back to Kenya to continue with the vision that God has given to Joshua and I to establish 'Heaven on Earth Ministries', building churches and communities to bring them into the wonderful salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Empowering people to be transformed by discipleship training and practical ways of developing the community, bringing them out of disease and the poverty lifestyle.

This time I traveled to Uganda with a team of 20 people from Australia led by Pastor John Macknamara of Parkway Church in Canberra. Joshua was able to meet me in Uganda and join with the team. Many souls were won into the kingdom of God at the crusades, schools and hospitals. Many people testified of miraculous healings at the crusades in the evenings. At the conferences in the daytime pastors came from all over Uganda for leadership training and we all shared in a wonderful lunch after the graduation of the bible school students.

We were able to meet with Bishop Patrick Okabe who heads up the church in Mbale called Impact Ministries.

After the Uganda mission we made our way by bus to Kisumu in Kenya where Joshua attended a Leadership training conference for a week and Pamela and I returned to Homa Bay and rested for a few days.

On Monday the 25th July we hosted a team from the USA at HOE Centre Buche village for 5 days and we were really blessed by the teams enthusiasm and passion to preach the gospel by visiting people in their houses, evening crusades and night revivals. The presence of God and anointing was awesome! Papa John, as he is fondly known will always remain in our hearts with his precious love of God and gentle spirit. The community and our team will not forget this lovely team and their passion for God's kingdom!

I am delighted to say that we have planted and have started to establish 6 more churches across the greater Southern Nyanza of Western Kenya, some as far away as Suna which is near to Migori on the border of Tanzania. These has been a great blessing to us in our evangelism work as we unite together for the glory of God.

I have seen such transformation in the lives of so many of the people in the village of Buche and it was a joy for me to see how much they have matured. Out of isolation, paganism, cults and witchcraft have risen a people given over to Jesus, and today we are thrilled!

Even their countenance has changed they are living more peacefully with each other and willing to share what they have, so wonderful and encouraging.

Our HOE Christian school at Buche Village we have started with Nursery school and believing God for primary school by next year is being established now and has 86 children who have improved in health and general looking. We are providing nutritional porridge every day to the 86 children while in school and look forward to provide other meals during the day times. We are providing learning materials to the children like pencils, books etc. We have also been able to provide half of the 86 children with school uniforms. We are believing God for a medical mission team this year.

We have managed to purchase a 1 2/3 acres of land where HOE centre and Church in Buche village is being established. We now have a church structure which holds around 300 people. Our ministry is now one year and a half old and we are grateful on what God has done so far within such a short period of time here. The number of people attending is increasing as we encourage them to preach the gospel and bring friends and relatives to join us in this community of believers (God's family). Many have been baptised in water and the Holy Spirit and we will continue teaching, discipling and guiding them on their new life in salvation and as part of a Church and the body of Christ Jesus.

Over 150 trees have been planted for fruit, building materials and fuel for our children feeding in future. Our aim is to plant thousands of trees at HOE and within the community area and supply others with tree seeds and seedlings for more community tree planting which will help to encourage rain catchment and provide healthier environment for the community.

Our latrines at HOE in Buche are now built and already in use which has been a great blessing for the children and the people who are at the church. We appreciate God for those who supported its achievement, God bless and reward you.

The foundations of the classrooms are made with few brick courses to the roofing. This will provide two classrooms which will provide the children with a good improved learning atmosphere and help us with primary class one by next year 2012.

Our next step is to purchase 2 more acres of land adjacent to our land, this will provide space for building accommodation for our voluntary workers, other houses to accommodate more children as the number of orphans and very vulnerable children in these communities is overwhelming in number who are parentless (complete orphans). It will also provide for houses for Sylvia and our guests/visitors on missions.

Having more land will also help us with our agriculture projects so that we can be self sustaining in terms of producing food for the children feeding and support to impoverished widows and old age people within this community.

This land can be purchased at a very small cost of $2,000 Aust .... yes, the land in the village is certainly not expensive compared to the land in the towns.

We are in need of a motor bike for the villages ministry work which would be of great benefit for us in the villages. This is because villages here are in a very remote and hard to reach areas especially during the wet seasons, many motorbikes here carry three or four people at a time, locally known as African Taxies or Boda Bodas. This will improve our coordination as well especially now that God is enabling us to plant more churches in different far villages and areas.

Malaria is one of the biggest killer disease here and we are providing mosquito nets within the communities to help control malaria infections. We are open and believing God for more ways of reducing the malaria and other disease problems like typhoid etc and controlling them.

We are planting herbs and trees that will repel mosquitoes and flies in the area and cleaning away contaminated water and rubbish by introducing rubbish pits, encouraging of building of latrines (pit toilets) as an important part of diseases outbreak solution. We are also providing free basic medical services support which includes referrals support to hospitals to the sick and children in the community and this has really helped by reducing the number of infant deaths and other deaths which can easily be controlled.

Our challenges has been gaps in some areas to effectively achieve some of our timeline goals but through your prayers together with ours we are approaching our objective goals to the glory of God.

We will be holding crusades from 12th to 16th of August, 2011 in another village called Magina which is some 15 kilometres from Buche village to plant a church to which will support new converts who have been traveling this long distance every Sunday to attend fellowships at Buche church. Our team will be outreaching Suna villages near Tanzania border to disciple our new two churches there and for more village soul winning outreaches between 15th to 18th September, 2012

We are grateful to God and to those who faithfully pray for us and support us in this ministry and we pray that God will continue to bless you abundantly and give you the desires of your heart as you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all that you need shall be added unto you in unlimited measure by our faithful and lovely God.

Thank you so much for all your support, prayers and encouragement to us.

Sylvia, Joshua and the team here at Heaven on Earth in Kenya.       

We now have 64 children attending the nursery school.

Our new church building which will hold 200 people and also be used for temporary classrooms for the school children.

July Update

Back from the village today for a couple of days to get supplies and do the internet.

Lots of things happening in the village.

The roof is on the church building now and we will be spending the day on Sunday dedicating the building to the Lord and fasting and praying from Saturday evening.

I am amazed how far we have come in just 3 months.

We went to a funeral yesterday, a young couple buried a 2 year old girl named Sharon.

This is the first death from Malaria since I started going there in December last year.

We had the opportunity to preach the gospel to the relatives and the father of the baby prayed for salvation.

We have been providing free medication for Malaria and many other diseases in the village for some time now. If you or any of your friends would be interested in supporting this ministry we would greatly appreciate any help especially to buy medical supplies and school needs like pencils, exercise books and material for school uniforms.

We are also looking to find drug companies who would be willing to send medical supplies here to treat some of the simple diseases.

We will have the uniforms ready by the beginning of next term and hope to increase the number of children in the nursery school from 64 to 80 as we move our classrooms temporarily to the new church building.

All of the teachers have faithfully worked with the children this term and are working voluntarily and we have ladies who make a nutritional porridge for the children to have there after school. Sometimes this is the only meal they will have that day.

Big Felix is 25 and married with 2 little children, he is just amazing as he works together with me keeping house and taking me visiting and I know I couldn't do this without him. We are hoping to build a house at Heaven on Earth for Felix and his family very soon.

Felix has been ploughing some land to grow vegetables for us to use here and as a source of income for Heaven on Earth.

We now have 5 children staying with us at the house, Little Felix is a total orphan and he is HIV positive, he is such a joy to have around. Dianna is 12 and has been through a lot of abuse and is now settling in and learning to share with the other children.

Linda is 14 and a very capable girl, she can wash and cook just like an adult and is a real blessing in the house and speaks good English. Elizabeth or BJ as they call her is also 14 and very capable and  also speaks English.

Rosalyn is 15 and a sister to Joshua my co worker, she is a joy to be around and great with the kids and also speaks English..

We are hearing of many other children who need to come and live with us and soon we will need a much bigger house to accommodate them all.

I really love living in the village and I am finding it hard to leave there even for a few days. It truly is Heaven on Earth.

Heaven on Earth February update. HOE Ministries

Greetings from all of us here in Kenya

We are making a difference here as we preach the gospel and minister to the people at the villages in Buche in Ndhiwa District and in Homa Bay District as well.

Multitudes here in this area have never had the opportunity to hear the gospel message and respond.

This is an un-reached people group and they are so open to the gospel message of Good News.

Our building program at HOE is going ahead. The church now only needs some final touches and the floor cemented.

The Latrines (toilets) have been built and just need painting.

We have now measured out the foundations for the 3 new permanent classrooms to be built. We have purchase bricks, sand and cement and will start this week to build one big building which will have 2 partitions for the 3 classrooms.

All the 80 children in the school are doing well and our two teachers are doing an excellent job of educating these children in the ways of God and academically.

We praise God how far we have come at the Heaven on Earth land.

Many people have been employed in the area for the work we are overseeing and this has also been a great blessing to them and many families have benefited.

We have now finished the 3 new houses for visitors and staff and plan to have visitors within the next week or so.

We have finished fencing Joshua’s home for protection and privacy and the gates will go on this week. This helps to keep our animals in and other unwelcome animals out.

We will be taking teams out, starting this week, to many unreached villages where the gospel has never been preached and we expect to see hundreds, even thousands of souls coming to Jesus. These are the last of the last days and we are bringing in the end time harvest before Jesus returns for His bride.

 Our livestock is increasing at the house, we now have 5 sheep, 8 rabbits, 2 geese, a male and female for breeding, 2 ducks, 4 chickens with many baby chicks, I also have my cat with 3 baby kittens.

Our God is a God of multiplication!

We will be building poultry sheds so we can have lots of eggs and chickens to help with the food supply at the house.

We have added children at the house and really need more beds and bedding so that we can take more children. There are still many children who have lost both parents and need to come and live with us at the house where they will be loved and nurtured in the ways of God.

A loving home environment, good food and schooling can completely transform a child in a very short period of time.

I will be returning to Australia on the 17^th of March and we believe that Joshua will come with me for 2 weeks. This will give us opportunity to minister and also promote what God is doing here in Kenya. I will stay there for a few more weeks after Joshua has left to catch up with family and friends there.

Please would you join us in prayer for Joshua’s air ticket!

 HOE Ministries

January Newsletter

In this month’s Newsletter which is our first newsletter of this year 2011. HOE Ministries is now one year old and we would like to share with you how God has taught us as a ministry on how to touch and save lives in Kenyan poor rural villages. These are some areas God has mandated us as a ministry to address poor village communities health, social and economic problems and bring them into the Kingdom of God.

We are mandated by God as a ministry to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to the unreached villages and slums in Western Kenya and currently we are working in six villages namely; Buche, Kopudo, Kokoko, Kombogo, Kahero and Okok in Ndhiwa District. We are also working in three sub locations in Homa Bay town of Homa Bay Disrtict where we have the biggest work of the ministry currently. God has taught us regarding the two hands ministry of preaching the gospel and mercy to the needy. We have seen many lives saved and transformed in the one year period which today we will share with you to thank God for His goodness.

We are going to share them as per an area of activity of work we are doing and would like to share the results achieved so far last year.

Practical and mercy ministry (Ministry of service)

In the practical and mercy ministry, we are working to address basic medical health problems and challenges in the villages mentioned above. We are visiting families and educating them on how to start and improve their own income generating activities and health issues by doing farming and other income generating activities. We have distributed seeds to some poor families and taught them on bag gardening. We pray with them as families during the visits and carry out routine follow ups on them. We are also providing educational and nutrition support to seventy seven (77) orphans and other vulnerable children from these five villages at our HOE Christian children school (ECDE) in Buche village. We are also providing alternative homes to the homeless and abused children at our HOE children family centre where up to now HOE family is providing alternative homes to twelve (12) children who were homeless and abused. These are seven (7) boys and five (5) girls aged between one year and seventeen (1-17 yrs). We have two volunteer teachers and another volunteer widow who is preparing the children’s nutritional porridge.

Community basic medical services and support

It is amazing that this initiative by HOE Ministries which was started in April 2010 has seen many lives saved from deaths which were rampant here! We realized as a ministry that many people were dieing every week in these villages and infant deaths were rampant as a result to some simple treatable and controllable diseases like malaria, water borne diseases, worms and other sickness as a result of poor nutrition. To address this problem, we as a ministry started to buy and distribute mosquito nets in the villages, and initiate basic community medical services and support. Currently our budget for drug purchases is about $30 dollars per month and mosquito nets distribution at a current budget about $65 dollars. It is amazing that since this was initiated and started with such a small budget no death has been reported in the six villages except one boy who was epileptic and died in water about six months ago. We also helped to repair Mama Julieta’s house which was very badly off. Julieta is an old grandmother with no child and she is currently attending our Buche church. She is a lovely lady and a great inspiration to our work here.

We believe God to scale up this area of our work where we can provide water guard to families for treating their drinking water to curb water borne diseases. One bottle of water guard costs Kenya shillings 20 and can last a family of five (5) people a month, it therefore means that $1 dollar can help three (3) families of 5 persons each x 3 which is fifteen people from waterborne diseases for a whole one month. It is awesome that with $40 dollars it is enough to provide 40 families with treated mosquito nets.

It is our prayer and compassion that God will allow us and support us to continue to save and touch many lives as we preach His gospel to these communities in Kenya.

HOE children family centre

In this ending month of January God added to HOE family three children. The amazing thing is that one of the children is the mother of the other two. Joshua was called to Homa Bay police station on a rescue mission to a total orphan who had been abused. The result of the abuses is her two children Victor aged 5 years and Brilliant aged 2 years. The young girl is herself aged 17 years which means she gave birth to her first son Victor at the age of 13 years. The girl’s name is Beatrice. They are all now happily part of HOE family and the two little children will start their education at HOE Christian School after some medication and nutrition support to make them recover in health. This year BJ one of the girls in HOE family was enrolled at Okok primary school to join other HOE family children Linda, Victor (not the new Victor), Vivian nicknamed Mercy and Bruce. We did this so that all our HOE children attending primary schools could go to one primary school around here. BJ was last year attending Kamolo primary School which is also in this area.

School Christian Clubs

HOE Ministries has started to work with primary schools in Ndhiwa District to start school Christian clubs which will help the pupils and their teachers grow in their spiritual lives. The Christian school clubs will initiate other social and economic activities in the community through the schools like environmental conservation where we intend to teach the clubs on tree planting. Every school club will have a tree nursery for community distribution of seedlings and for the schools own tree planting. They will also teach the community on the need of building pit latrines to control waterborne diseases as currently these communities are using bushes for latrines. This initiative is at piloting stage with the first school club initiated in this January at Kamolo primary school. When we visited the school last week all the children there put up their hands to pray and receive salvation. We are focusing to work with five (5) schools around here as the schools are very far apart from each other. We do believe God for Bibles and Christian teaching literature materials to help with this area of work and other gospel work as in these villages it is very difficult to find a Bible.

HOE Christian School in Buche

Our HOE school children were provided with new school uniforms with a small gap on some children which we believe God to provide soon to help us curb stigma from them of seeing others in beautiful uniforms and they having none. School materials, books and pencils were also distributed this month to the children. Agnes who is a trained early childhood teacher and who is now part of our church joined our HOE school staff of volunteer teachers this month. This is very important for us as she brings with her to the team a good trained capacity which will help the children.

Homa Bay town ministry work

School clubs

In Homa Bay we are working with twelve primary schools through school health clubs. The schools are namely; Arunda, Asego, Kogelo, Got Rabuor, Makongeni, Rangwena, Shauriyalo (in Shauriyako slum), Pedo, Got Kochungo, Lake, Rabuor Masawa and Homa Bay primary schools. In each primary school we now have a school health club of 20 pupils and two patrons who are teachers. In all the 12 primary schools we have 264 members consisting of the patrons and the club pupil members. This initiative work is targeting orphans and other vulnerable children in primary schools for childrens rights protection, health care, spiritual support and counseling. We have been able to build the capacity of the school clubs through training all the 24 patrons @ two per school club and 3 peer counselors of pupils from each club making 36 peer counselors in all the 12 school clubs. The trainings were provided through networking with Government Ministry of Health in Homa Bay District who provided us with facilitators.

School dropout orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) Apprenticeship skills training support

We are supporting one hundred (100) OVC school dropouts in this area from three sub locations in Homa Bay namely; Asego, Arujo and Homa Bay town sub locations in child headed families and impoverished grandmothers headed families. The OVC are provided with career awareness training for two days through networking with government ministry of youth affairs department before being placed with local Artisans for skills training support for eight months. It costs Kshs 1,000 to support one orphan/child in this area and Kshs. 8,000 for the whole training per child which means about $17 per month and $130 to support one child for the whole course/ skills that in return will support the whole family of an average of six people which will improve household meals and other basic needs.

Grandmothers and widow caregivers support

We are starting a program in Homa Bay which will help improve income in 100 households headed by grandmothers and sickling widows through initiative of a seed fund which will be a revolving fund for the targeted caregivers to start or improve their income through sustained personal small income generating activities. This initiative concept needs a budget of about $2,000 to start off and will benefit 100 households per year with an average of 6 people per household which brings total direct beneficiaries of 600 people per year.

Foster parent community care

In this specific area of our work, we are targeting 20 households which are child headed after all the adults have died as a result of HIV/AIDS. We identify them through networking with other community leaders and well-wishing persons in the community living near the children families who provides foster parental care to the family. The duty of the foster parent care is to mobilize the community to support the children by farming for at least a garden for them as they go to school and provide other basic human needs. He/she reports to us and other government structures on any child right abuse to the children. The foster parent is not allowed to bring the children to his/her family but provides foster parent care to them in their family where the dead parents left them. Currently in this activity we are only providing capacity building training to the 20 foster parents.

It is the aim of our ministry to transform lives and restore shattered dreams in villages and slums. We move in every step by faith in God that strengthens us.

John 7:38

He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

We bless God,

Joshua and Sylvia

Nursery School started this week with 55 children.

The classes are divided into 2 with a large baby class and a pre unit class.

The children will have a cup of nutritional porridge each day to help sustain them.

We are making uniforms for the children in pale blue ( for heaven) with a pink insert for the girls and a pink collar for the boys.