Teaching Young Men How to Properly Read the Bible

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The Tates have served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

September 4, 2022

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,

Beloved, Brothers and Sisters, thank you so much for your prayers over the past 16 years and especially over the last couple of months. God has been moving in our lives and Julie and I find ourselves in a much more spiritually healthy position than we have been in for a long time. And Chloe is also getting some of the help that she has been needing for years. Life is still hard, but I think Julie and I would both say we are not living day to day in absolute survival mode. We believe this is the result of many prayers on our behalf and God working powerfully behind the scenes and directing us in ways we could not have envisioned. So, dear friends, thank you for your prayers and loving support and please continue to pray that God would uplift us and fill us with His Spirit, His grace, His love, and His strength.

I am very tired as I write this, but it is a good kind of tired, knowing that the last couple of weeks have been filled with good things. The students have returned to the college, and I am teaching them wonderful things about the Bible. I am teaching them how to properly read and interpret the Bible, and, frankly, they need it. These are young men coming from various parts of the country who have not received much training yet in their young lives. My oldest student, Simon, is 35. His parents died when he was very young, and he was never able to go to school. When he became an adult, he went back to school. He started at primary school and went and sat in the primary class with primary age students until he could proceed to secondary school. This is a great shame for an adult in this culture and is almost unheard of. But Simon wanted his education, not caring about the shame, and he finally finished it a couple of years ago, got married last year, and now finds himself in my Interpretation class and wanting to be a minister of the gospel. Amazing. Anthony is 19. When he wanted to be baptized his pastor asked him, “You do realize that being a Christian is more than going to church on Sundays and having Christian parents, right?” Actually, Anthony did NOT realize that, and it got him thinking about what a Christian really is. Now, he is trusting, following, and loving Jesus as his Lord, Savior, and Master and wants to help other young people know what it really means to be a Christian. These two are just a couple of my students. The others have similar kinds of testimonies. I also have a Ugandan student who is arriving in Kenya this weekend after struggling with immigration issues. 

I also serve at the school as the finance manager. This means that every student must eventually funnel through the door of my office to receive my signature stating they have paid their fees. When they cannot pay their fees, it is me that they need to see. This past week I have sat with many impoverished students who could not pay their fees. I would cry with them, pray with them, help them put together a plan on how to raise their money, and pray with them some more. It was a hard week for me because most of these students have never had to take any responsibility whatsoever for their finances, being completely dependent on parents and/or sponsors. Being responsible for their finances is a hard lesson that many of them need to learn. The financial culture and mentality in Kenya could not be more different than the financial culture and mentality of America. Another time I will try and explain some of the vast differences between the two cultures when it comes to dealing with money. But not right now, as this newsletter is now full.

Blessings to all,
Roger, Julie, and Chloe

CONTACT INFO

Roger & Julie Tate
Moffat Bible College
P.O. Box 70
Kijabe, Kenya 00220
rojuta@gmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.


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Prepping for Class + Two Prayer Requests

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The Tates have served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

August 16, 2022

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,

I find myself in “gear-up” mode. The college is on term break and the new school year begins at the end of this month. This is good because it gives me an opportunity to prepare and to try and figure out what I’m doing. Changing directions in ministry and in life can be (translate “can be” as “IS!”) challenging as many of you know. And I have a lot to learn. Do we ever wonder whether we’re getting too old to make major or even minor changes in life? No! C’mon, those of us over fifty! We can still do the things God calls us to do and what he calls us to do he will give us the strength and power to do. Look, I’m not saying we have all strength to do anything we want. Nor does God promise us success. But He does promise us his presence and his Spirit and what he wants us to accomplish, we can accomplish.

Among other things, I am preparing for a class I’ll be teaching starting at the end of August. I’ll be teaching Principles of Biblical Interpretation to first year Bible students. Can you believe that? I get to teach incoming students (who will know practically nothing) possibly the most important topic they will learn in college – How to read and interpret the Bible properly. I’m not saying that I know much of anything either, but what a great privilege and responsibility to teach young students, who will some day be pastors and church leaders, how to properly interpret the Scriptures. I’ve heard a lot of sermons from a lot of Kenyan pastors and, believe me, they need the training this class will offer. In most Kenyan sermons, context is ignored, grammar is butchered, allegory is employed, meaning is changed, application is stretched beyond the text, and just in general…well…it’s awful. I get the awesome privilege of helping these incoming, first-year students learn how to avoid wild and fanciful interpretations and how to seek God’s true message from His Word. The churches in Kenya desperately need this. Believers in Kenyan churches need this. Unbelievers in Kenya need this. There is a weighty responsibility that accompanies this privilege for me. May God receive glory in His Kenyan churches and in his Kenyan people.

There a couple of things I wish you all to continue praying about.

First, Julie still has not regained her strength after recovering from Covid. She came down with Covid over a month ago, struggled with the disease itself for two weeks but is now still suffering with some dramatic side effects. She still cannot eat and has no strength for any activity. She has had tests run at the hospital and was even put out under general anesthesia in the hospital theater to get a scope to her stomach. So far, nothing unusual has been found. On Monday she goes back to the hospital for a CAT scan that may or may not reveal something. Please pray that if something is wrong that the doctors would be able to discover it and if there is nothing wrong but that she just needs more time to recover her strength, that God would quickly strengthen her. Thank you, beloved.

Second, Kenya is facing major elections at all levels of government on Tuesday of next week – President and vice-president, senators, governors, and local government. These kinds of major elections have caused problems in the past. Many Kenyans don’t trust the system or the validity of the outcomes. In the past this has caused violence and tribal conflict. Tribal allegiance is still big in Kenya and certain tribes don’t always get along. Sometimes, tribal relations is like a shook up can of Coke. The outbursts can be kept under control until someone pops the lid. But when the lid is popped, the contents explode. Elections can present the opportunity for the lid to be popped. If it does, this can lead to great suffering for the Kenyan people. Please pray that the elections would be fair and honest and above all please pray for peace in Kenya. For the glory of God.

Blessings to all,
Roger, Julie, and Chloe

CONTACT INFO

Roger & Julie Tate
P.O. Box 96
Kitale, Kenya 30200
rojuta@gmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.


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A Crazy, Busy Life

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The Tates have served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

June 28, 2022

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,

The first thing I need to do in this newsletter is to apologize to all you partners in our ministry in Kenya. I have failed to write a newsletter update in a couple of months and have been very bad at communicating with you all what is going on in our lives and in our ministry. I offer only a crazy, busy life and a crazy, mixed-up mind as the only excuses for my laxity in reporting. These are not valid excuses and, again, I apologize for not writing. I will have to do better.

A crazy, busy life? For sure!

Last month Julie and I celebrated with our daughter, Amy, as she married her husband, Matthew Earl.  So, Amy is now Amy Earl, and our family continues to grow. This obviously means that Julie and I made a trip to the United States for the ceremony. We made it a quick two-week trip because Chloe could not make the trip with us, and we did not want to leave her in Kenya without us for too long. It took a lot of planning to make this trip happen and for Chloe to be cared for properly. We worried a lot about leaving Chloe in Kenya for two weeks without us because 1) she needs special care and attention and 2) she is very attached to us and experiences attachment issues. But Julie and I have not been to the United States together at the same time in over six years and Amy’s wedding was a crucial event we needed to attend. So, the planning leading up to us leaving was crazy busy, the travel was crazy busy, and our time in the United States was crazy busy. But, at the end of the trip when we were back in Kenya, we could praise God for the two big things we had prayed for: 1) Amy was married and happy and somewhere in Costa Rica with her new husband and 2) Chloe did well in Kenya with her caretakers while we were away. She also did well transitioning back to us being there again. She was definitely a trooper.

So that was last month. Has this month been any different? Not really. If you recall from a previous newsletter, Julie, Chloe and I have been temporarily living in a place called Kijabe so that Chloe could receive some necessary therapy at the Kijabe Mission Hospital, the only place we know of in Kenya where she can receive some of the various therapy she needs. Now that we have been here for a couple of months, we have decided to move our Kenyan ministry from Kitale to Kijabe. This is a major change for us. We have lived in Kitale for fifteen years, the entire length of our ministry work in Kenya. All of our lives and work was poured out in Kitale, on the people there and into the churches we have had a hand in starting. It is hard to leave a place where you have spent so much of your life ministering and used up so much energy in mission work. What is probably harder, though, is to look back and realize you are not leaving behind nearly as much as you wished you were. I couldn’t care less about leaving behind a legacy or a name or anything like that. I do wish I was leaving behind more lives changed in the name of Jesus, more churches started and organized, and more workers trained to carry on the mission. I would have liked to have seen more of the expansion of the Kingdom of Christ, not for the pat on the back or the acknowledgment of men, but for the glory of our Savior. We will leave what we have done in Kitale in the hands of God. And our last work we will also leave in the hands of Elphas Ochila, a Kitale pastor I trust to continue the work of Upper Room Baptist Chapel.

And now, we really have left Kitale, which is why I said this month has been so crazy busy. Julie stayed in Kijabe with Chloe and I spent the last nearly three weeks in Kitale packing things up and shipping them to Kijabe. We moved into our house in Kijabe just four days ago and are trying to get all unpacked, except all three of us (Julie, Chloe and me) are all currently sick from something I picked up and brought back from Kitale. It could be Covid or it could just be the flu, we don’t really know.

Crazy, busy life has led to a bit of a crazy, mixed up mind for me. But now, after we can get over this sickness we all currently have, we can settle into living and ministering for Jesus in Kijabe. I hope to write more about this next month.

Blessings to you all,
Roger, Julie & Chloe

CONTACT INFO

Roger & Julie Tate
P.O. Box 96
Kitale, Kenya 30200
rojuta@gmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.


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Our God — The Great Orchestrator

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The Tates have served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

March 30, 2022

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,

So much has happened since I wrote to you all last time. When I wrote to you last time absolutely none of what I’m about to tell you about was even a thought in our heads. I guess a lot can happen in just one or two months.

Yes, we are still in Kenya. No, we are not currently in our hometown of Kitale. We are currently living in a town called Kijabe. Let me explain how it happened and why and what has transpired since we arrived here.

As you all know by now, Julie and I have legal guardianship of Chloe and our great desire is for the Kenyan government to allow us to adopt her. Since there is a moratorium on foreign adoption right now, we have to wait for that to happen. As you also know, Chloe has been diagnosed with Autism and there are several severe challenges that come with Chloe’s particular case: Violence, melt-downs, extreme emotional dis-regulation, sensory overload, behavior challenges, learning challenges and even physical challenges. All of this has been taking a toll on Chloe, Julie and me. We were in desperate need of help. Julie had tried and tried to get help from organizations and doctors in Kitale and even in the Eldoret area. No help was forthcoming anywhere near Kitale. Every organization and doctor that we would meet with would say to Julie, “Wow, Julie. You know so much more about this than we do. You could teach us about this”. Hmmm. Not helpful. 

I’m going to try and make a long story short. We believe God heard our cries of desperation. We believe this because we could not have orchestrated ourselves getting into the position we are currently in. Julie awoke from sleep one night remembering that we had friends who had a son who was an Occupational Therapist at a mission hospital in Kijabe. What happened after that were many great turns of events with God orchestrating things very quickly to get us to Kijabe where some help might be available. From the time Julie woke up that night to the time we arrived at this temporary house we are living in was 17 days. That might not sound very quick, but, believe me, that was quick.

Now we are in Kijabe, home of a local mission hospital and about 40 miles from Nairobi, where additional help has been forthcoming. This sounds overwhelming (and it is) but Chloe is now seeing a team of people who are all attempting to help her and us: Occupational therapist, physical therapist, psychologist, developmental pediatrician, gastro doctor, ABA therapist, to name a few. Some of this team is in Kijabe and others in Nairobi and it keeps us hopping and very busy, believe me. But, it is giving us hope that we can find the help for Chloe that she needs. We don’t know exactly how long we will be here but this house we are currently living in is available only until the end of July and housing is very difficult to get here in Kijabe. I also don’t exactly know how to ask you to pray for us except to pray that Chloe and our family can get the help we desperately need.

In addition to all this, God orchestrated one other thing (among many others). While I was here, I went to an ENT doctor at the mission hospital on account of my severe snoring and sleep apnea. He is a world class doctor from the States but was only going to be here for a couple of months. Another long story made short is I ended up having surgery here in Kenya (a scary thought) on my nose and throat. The surgery I had consisted of many procedures in both my nose and throat. I was supposed to spend two nights in the hospital but after the first miserable night I begged the doctor to send me home (it seemed like anything and everything the hospital could have done to make my night more miserable was done).  My first week of recovery was pretty rough. I lost 14 pounds in 10 days as I couldn’t eat anything solid. But now I am pretty much on the mend (4 weeks later) and Julie says it has already helped with both my snoring and my sleep apnea.

Praise God for all he is orchestrating in our lives right now. None of it has been easy, but we praise Him because we truly believe it is coming from Him.

Blessings to you all,
Roger, Julie & Chloe

CONTACT INFO

Roger & Julie Tate
P.O. Box 96
Kitale, Kenya 30200
rojuta@gmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.


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Waiting…waiting…waiting…

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The Tates have served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

January 8, 2022

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,

Here is a shout out to all of our supporting churches out there. Bless you all for partnering with us in our missionary ministry here in Kenya. May all Kenyans know and follow the Lord Jesus Christ!

To all of our supporting churches out there we apologize that we have not seen you face-to-face in so long. Julie and I have not been able to take a furlough to the United States since 2013. That means it has been over 8 years since you all have seen us. That is too long. Paul left us a good example in the book of Acts when he returned to his sending church and reported on his work. We wish we could do this too but right now we cannot. When God brought Chloe into our lives, we really thought that the adoption process would work out in a couple of years. Now, after 7 years there has been no change or progress in the process because of the restrictions placed upon ex-patriot adoption. With no changes projected in the near future, we have been trying to get a passport for her so that she can at least travel outside the country. The right to a passport has been granted her by the courts. However, we still have not been able to even apply for it. Let me do my best to describe what I’ve gone through to try and APPLY (just apply) for her passport.

18 months ago to 9 months ago: Drive to Eldoret. Visit Immigration department. Show documents. Told by Immigration that they will review documents. Wait. Call Immigration. No response. Call again. Call many times. Finally reach someone. Told by Immigration to wait. I wait. And wait. And wait. Call Immigration. Call many times. Finally reach someone. Told by Immigration that the documents look OK and to be patient. I wait. And wait. Call Immigration. Call many times. No response. Can’t reach anyone. Drive to Eldoret. Visit Immigration department. No one there. Drive back home. I wait. Drive back to Eldoret. Visit Immigration department. Told by immigration that the person reviewing my documents is on sick leave. I ask Immigration if someone else can work on my case. Told by Immigration that this person is the only one who can work on my case. I ask Immigration what happens if this person dies. Silence. Drive back home. I wait. And wait. Call Immigration. Call many times. Finally reach someone. Told by Immigration that the documents have been reviewed and to come see them. Drive to Eldoret. Visit Immigration department. Told by Immigration that 1 date on 1 of my documents is wrong and that I can’t apply for Chloe’s passport. Told by Immigration that I need the Kitale courts to correct the document and then I can begin the document review process again. I groan.

9 months ago to the present: I go to my lawyer in Kitale and show him the document. Lawyer tells me to give him two weeks to get the document corrected. I wait 2 weeks. I wait another 2 weeks. I call the Lawyer. No response. I call many times. I text the lawyer. I text many times. Finally reach lawyer. Told by lawyer that there is no problem, but I just need to wait. I wait. And wait. I repeat this process MANY times: call-text-call-text-wait-wait-told to wait-call-text and so on and so on. I get frustrated. Visit the lawyer’s office to speak to Bwana Mkubwa (the Big Dog, who happens to be the lawyer’s father). The Big Dog tells me he will take care of it, give him one week. I wait a week. And another week. And another. Call Big Dog. No response. Call many times. Finally reach Big Dog. Told by Big Dog to wait. I wait. Call Big Dog. Told by Big Dog that the courts can’t find my original document. Told by Big Dog to wait. I wait…wait…wait…wait…wait.
(In an attempt at brevity, I have not included everything in my preceding account. I have actually left many things out.)
What is my current status? I have a call in to Big Dog. He hasn’t responded. I’m waiting.

I’ve been waiting a year and a half just to APPLY for Chloe’s passport.

For those of you who have endured to this point in my newsletter, bless you. I went through this exasperating description to try and give you some idea of what we are facing and why you haven’t seen our bright and shining faces for so long. We want to see you. We want to report on our work in person. Until then, enjoy the newsletters!

Blessings to you all,
Roger, Julie & Chloe

CONTACT INFO

Roger & Julie Tate
P.O. Box 96
Kitale, Kenya 30200
rojuta@gmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.


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The Season of Hope

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The Tates have served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

December 1, 2021

Merry Christmas from the Tates, everyone!

This Christmas of 2021 marks the second Christmas marred by a general feeling of world-wide fear and trepidation. For some people, the words “Corona Virus” bring feelings of imminent threat. For others, it is more a feeling of caution but also uncertainty because of the way world governments are dealing with the situation. For some there is fear; for others there is angst. For some there is fear of disease, suffering, and even death; for others there is fear of corruption, oppression, and tyranny. Either way, there is more shared world-wide distress than I have ever seen in my adult lifetime.

I love how the Psalmist in Chapter 4 of the Book of Psalms says to God, “Hear me when I call…You HAVE relieved me in my distress.” David prayed because he was in need of relief, but he talked as if God had ALREADY given it. David assumed it; it was a foregone conclusion to him. He prayed with an expectation of hope. Not a “hope so,” but a “hope KNOW.”

Sometimes I’m not sure what specifically I need – I just know there is this anxiety, this longing…this emptiness that needs filling. This…dis-satisfaction with this world. It’s a longing for Hope – for the end of futility…the end of sin and its effects both around me and in me…the end to brokenness, disease, and death…the end to evil, poverty, and oppression…the end to division, hate, and violence…the end to suffering of all kinds.

But God teaches me through His Word that He has ALREADY relieved me in my distress. He has ALREADY sent His answer – in the greatest, most complete, and most comprehensive manner possible.

IMMANUEL.
GOD WITH US.
JESUS.

God IS the God of all Hope, and this is the Season of Hope because Jesus is our “Hope Know.”
This season especially (right now in 2021) is given to us as a reminder – a refocus.

“Take heart,” Jesus said, “for I have ALREADY overcome the world.” It’s done. It’s finished. Now we are simply waiting for it to work its way through – but it’s done – it’s a foregone conclusion.

All the suffering, the hate, the disease, the oppression, the death – it has ALREADY been dealt the death blow and lies writhing on the ground fighting for its last gasp of oxygen. The answer has ALREADY been given – the healing medicine ALREADY applied. It’s been done in the birth, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus. We long for peace, and the Prince of Peace has come.

So, God, hear us when we call. Have mercy on us. You HAVE relieved us in our distress. Now, fill us with the Peace You have ALREADY provided so we can love others with the love with which You have loved us. Help us be satisfied in our dis-satisfaction, knowing we hope (KNOW), along with all of creation, for the full coming of Your PERFECTED Kingdom.

The King is Coming!

Love,
Julie

CONTACT INFO

Roger & Julie Tate
P.O. Box 96
Kitale, Kenya 30200
rojuta@gmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.


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Ministering to Children at URBC

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The Tates have served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

November 10, 2021

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,

I am super excited about what I will report to you this month. That is because it is all about the ministry at the Chapel and because unlike most of my monthly newsletters it will be entirely positive in nature.

Last month I reported that after a hiatus from worshiping at the Upper Room Baptist Chapel because of Covid restrictions, and because of a short visit I made to the US, we would resume our worshiping and serving at the Chapel. Rebooting, or re-kickstarting might be a better word to describe it though, considering the drop-off we had with the hiatus. But, reboot we have. And things are going well. We obviously still have many challenges facing us as I mentioned in last month’s newsletter. Those challenges will probably never go away. For example, I am still throwing around the idea of implementing an “offering” box so that people can make offerings if the Spirit so leads them. These offerings would entirely be used for charity and goodwill for the impoverished and needy in our community. Offerings are something the people at the Chapel have suggested they need to be doing, but offerings in this culture are so fraught with problems and difficulties that I am really, really torn over implementing it at all. But this is not a newsletter about problems. 

One of the things we have implemented with the rebooting of the Chapel is the beginning of a children’s worship / Bible hour. I use the term “we” loosely because although it has been something I have been thinking about and planning for, it has really been started, implemented, and gotten working almost entirely through Julie’s efforts. This was obviously something I could not accomplish on my own as the class meets at the same time as my preaching/teaching time with the adults. So, seeing the great need for a children’s worship hour and seeing the benefits of such a ministry, Julie has made the herculean efforts to get it going. She found a great curriculum that focuses on the truth of the Bible and how that truth points us to God and His Son, to loving God and His Son, and following that truth. After we sing together as a congregation, Julie takes the children to our spare room at the Chapel and teaches them the Bible, teaches them Bible songs, reinforces the lessons with activities, and basically tries to bring these beloved Kenyan children to the feet of our beloved Jesus. And it is working. The children are responding well, and from what I can see love their time in the children’s worship / Bible hour. 

You already know the benefits of this ministry, but I would still like to point out just two:

1. Our beloved Kenyan children need to know Jesus, to love Jesus, and to follow Jesus as their Savior and King. This teaching is hard for them to get during the regular worship time / preaching time.  Their own worship / Bible time is much more suited to helping them know how the Bible points them to Jesus.

2. Having this children’s ministry will tremendously help the overall ministry of the Chapel. It gives the possibility to families with small children to attend and will help everybody to be active listeners and to actively participate in our worship services. I say this because the culture here is such that children can wander freely and unsupervised during the services (I still remember so vividly one of the first church services I ever attended in Kenya when one little guy was wandering around unattended, walked in circles around the pastor while he was preaching and finally ended up in a corner at the front of the church auditorium where he dropped his trousers and relieved himself on the floor. Nobody did a thing or moved a muscle the whole time to stop him or to clean up after him.)

Want to know how you can pray for this new part of our ministry? You can pray for the beloved children who have been attending: Faith, Esther, Isaiah, Chloe, Una and Emma.

Blessings to you all,
Roger, Julie, and Chloe

CONTACT INFO

Roger & Julie Tate
P.O. Box 96
Kitale, Kenya 30200
rojuta@gmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.


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Opportunity to Reset

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The Tates have served the Lord in Kitale, Kenya since January 2008. Their main ministry is church planting.

October 8, 2021

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ,

Cause and effect.

Cause 1:  Over the past year and a half we have had a number of what I’ll call Governmental Covid Restrictions placed on religious institutions, including churches. The way this works is this: The government gets concerned about Covid cases, or the rise of Covid cases and as a result it shuts down cross county travel, institutes a curfew, and places serious restrictions on churches. Sometimes they say churches cannot meet, other times they say children under 12 and people over 59 cannot attend, or they say that less than 50% of a building’s seating capacity can be used.  During these times of restrictions people oftentimes fear going to church.  These restrictions often last a month or two before the government lifts them at which time people start trickling back to church.  Then, after a month or two the government gets concerned again and the cycle repeats all over again.

Cause 2: I visited the States for a month.

Effect 1: Because of the above reasons our attendance at the Chapel has dwindled considerably.  I suppose this is to be expected.  It is difficult for a small church group of people to survive such circumstances.

Effect 2: We have an opportunity to press the RESET button on the ministry, to do some things differently and to implement some changes that need to be made. Of course, I’m not going to change the basic things I started the Chapel for in the first place. I still plan on making the teaching and preaching Biblical and simple, directing the people to love and follow Jesus. I also still plan on keeping the worship simple and heartfelt. These are things seldom found in churches here in Kitale. Thus, the great need for an institution like the Upper Room Baptist Chapel. But, pushing the RESET button means we can implement a children’s ministry to make attending easier for families of children. We can also implement more first-century like fellowship – eating together, sharing together, and helping each other.  Also, we can implement what is oftentimes called “Outreach”.  I don’t want to call it that or even to think of it like that because “Outreach” usually focuses on “bringing people to the church”. I want the people of the Chapel to simply be the hands and feet of Jesus in our community, serving others in our community and showing them the love of Jesus. And, I don’t want them to do it to “bring people to the church” but simply because we love Jesus, love others, and want to show them the love and heart of Jesus.

So, we get to press the RESET button.  Opportunity or challenge?  Probably both.

Blessings to you all,
Roger, Julie, and Chloe

CONTACT INFO

Roger & Julie Tate
P.O. Box 96
Kitale, Kenya 30200
rojuta@gmail.com

For ministry donations:
Pastor George Sledd, Treasurer of BFM
P.O. Box 471280 | Lake Monroe, FL 32747-1280
or click here to donate to BFM online.


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