"Quickish" Update :)

Beautiful greens and blues from the rains :) 

Praise and Worship time at the outreach last Sunday 

Discussion groups at Kijabe Girls' school 

Last update of the term!! :) We are counting down the days as all of us are very excited to see our families. 10 more days of the school term and 14 more days till I get home to Indy!! YAY!!!

Election news is pretty quiet, the Supreme Court is supposed to rule on the outcome sometime by the 20th of this month and the opposition party has demonstrations scheduled for the 16th and 17th but otherwise I don't hear much about what is going on. 
 
I wanted to share a praise and encouraging thing that happened on Sunday.
Early on in the term, 2 of my girls talked to me about an idea the Lord had put on their heart. They thought about how we are close by to Kijabe Girls high school (about 5 miles away) and maybe we could build that relationship and have an outreach to their school. Often that school plays our sports teams in “friendly” matches and our High school choir and band have had concert outreaches there. They thought, why couldn’t we do that too? I encouraged them that I thought it was a GREAT idea, and told them who they would need to talk to about their idea. I hadn’t heard anything more from them for over a month when about 2 weeks ago they came back to me and said, Guess what?! We got to meet with their chaplain and he said this is the very thing he has been praying for!!! (How cool is our God?!) :)
They asked me and 3 other adults to drive them and “supervise” but otherwise, they got a group of 18 junior and senior girls together and put together a church service based on the topics that the Kijabe Chaplain had asked them to touch on in their messages. WOW is all I can say. It was such a blessing to see and hear 4 of my girls speak on what the Lord has taught them. They talked on topics about finding your Identity in Christ alone and not in peers/boys, academics, difficult family dynamics, and difficult circumstances.  It was so neat to hear the 4 different testimonies and the way they could share the gospel with these girls.
The form 4 students (or seniors) at Kijabe –actually in all of Kenya- are currently sitting for their 4 week long exams!! Yes 4 weeks! These tests will determine if they will go to university or not. The exams cover 4 years of high school and they have many oral and practical exams over the many subjects they study. The chaplain explained to us that because of corruption and false test scores, the government has sent all the other classes home as well as all the teachers. Only the Chaplain and Principal can administer the exams. The exams are kept in locked rooms and each girl has to be searched before entering the room to sit for the exam.. WOAH!! All of our RVA girls had a new appreciation for the way their exams are given and thankful for what they are privileged to have in education. After the 4 girls spoke, they had about an hour of discussion time with the 165 students split up into groups lead by 2 of our RVA girls.
After the discussion time I had a girl named Precious come and ask to speak to me. We talked for about 20 minutes about how she feels very far away from the Lord and that she doesn’t know if she wants to keep hearing about God because she has so much guilt. Please pray for Precious to realize the truth of the Gospel and how God’s grace is a free gift that cannot be earned! After talking, she wasn’t ready to pray, but was glad for me to pray for her. 
The hope of this outreach is for it to continue at least once every term and they invited our junior girls to participate so that hopefully the vision will catch and it can continue. 

 
Thank you for praying for unity in our dorm, please keep praying for that!
We have our dorm party on Saturday. My girl that is leaving at the end of this term is getting oral surgery today and will be gone till Friday. I am so praying she can be here for dorm party so we can pray for her as a dorm and she can have these good goodbyes!
Another prayer request will be for continued financial support. Last month’s support was very short and I am continually reminding myself of God’s faithfulness and how He is the great provider. Please pray that I would not get discouraged when these things happen.
Like I said in my last letter, I will be giving the girls sweatshirts as their gift for the year.  It will cost me about 550$ including the shipping to get these. If you do feel lead to contribute, you can go AIM's giving page here. https://usgiving.aimint.org/missionary/1035510
 
I will close for now,
Thank you for standing with me!!!! If you are in Indy over December and would want to get together, please let me know as I would love to see you.
 
Serving with you,
Amy 

October Update

Dear friends,

      Will you please pray for Kenya? Tomorrow, Oct 26^th, they are to hold the re-elections after the Supreme court annulled the results from the August Elections. This whole process has been wrought with political tensions and unease. Many Kenyans just want it over, but hope for a fair and balanced election. Please be praying for peace and for justice to be done. It has been a very confusing process. Even though they are to be held tomorrow, there is uncertainty that it will even happen! They have called for a holiday today and tomorrow.
Pray for the safety of those Kenyans who want to exercise their right to vote. The opposing party is calling for protests and boycotts of the voting and in some counties have threatened violence against those voting.

We are safe here in Kijabe, but covet your prayers for our Kenyan brothers and sisters who want to vote and have this election behind them. I have been encouraged by the response of so many of my friends when I ask them how they are doing. They often respond, “We don’t know what will happen, but God is in control. We have been praying and it will be OK.” I am so thankful for their faith and that reminder to me in the midst of so much uncertainty for them.

---

     We are praising the Lord for rain!! The last 2 weeks we have gotten heavy rain almost every day. Our local "weather man" said this recently, "Based on RVA rain data from 1986 - 2017, the yearly average is 37.4 inches. Until this month, this was the lowest record by far of any year. Currently we are at about 16 inches for the year. The only other year close to that was 2000 with 15.78 inches." So it is a much needed answer to prayer for Kenya!

   On Friday we celebrated Mashujaa Day (Heroes Day) in Kenya. This is one of my favorite days of the year here!! At RVA we call it Multicultural Day where we celebrate the diversity of our school. This year’s theme was “The Multitude at the Throne”. With 36 nations represented in our student body, it is indeed a small glimpse of what we have to look forward to in heaven! 

We see this in Revelation 7:9

"The Multitude before the Throne"
“⁹ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, ¹⁰ and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” ¹¹ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹² saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” ¹⁴ I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
¹⁵ “Therefore they are before the throne of God,
    and serve him day and night in his temple;
    and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
¹⁶ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
    the sun shall not strike them,
    nor any scorching heat.
¹⁷ For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
    and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
What a blessing to see a small picture of this and how I long for the day when we will be before the throne of God.

Great picture of my dorm (Except we are missing 3 girls :(  )

this girl loves her Texas :) (Emma)

Tanzania and Kenya girls :) (Abi and Natalie)

---

            This term has been one of the more emotionally trying times for my dorm. They are facing many deadlines in their college applications and the many essays that come with those along with their normal heavy class load. On average, I would say our kids apply to 5 colleges, some 8-9!!! Because they are not familiar with life in the States, they are often applying to many with the hopes of the best financial packages being a huge factor in their decisions. Some have family near those colleges, but others will be moving 1,000s of miles from their families in Africa or Korea. Only a few of them have actually visited these colleges so you can imagine the unknown they are facing. Please be praying for them and for me as I hope to continually encourage them to look to the Lord in this time of transition. He is going before them and will be with them. Pray for their stress and that they would not worry, but would trust that the Lord will guide them and provide for them.

            We have also been facing a lot of emotional problems with their peers in their class. They have had 1 expulsion, 5 suspensions and 2 compassionate leaves in their senior class alone in just 1 term! You can imagine the strain that has placed on relationships within our dorm and their class. Again, I am just praying that the Lord would use this in their lives to draw them to Himself and would use it to help them grow. There has been a lot of hurt with gossip and rumors. As with any small community, there is a bit of a bubble and unfortunately those “rumblings” can continually bring hurt instead of allowing healing.  Pray with me for healing in these relationships, that they would understand the discipline is done in love and that ultimately they would love their classmates and forgive them. That they would not allow Satan to have a foothold in this situation and cause disunity and further hurt. Even though I wish these things weren’t happening, I know the Lord uses these times to teach us and strengthen us. Pray for wisdom and boldness for me to speak truth whenever I need to.

---

            We have just 4 weeks left in this term! I am excited for a chance to see my family this Christmas. I will be home in Indiana from Nov 29^th-Dec. 28^th and hope to see many of you. I would appreciate continual prayers for me. This last year has been difficult in many ways as I continue to experience strong reactions of grief and almost panic when I am faced with difficult news from home. By God’s grace, I do not linger long in that state, but it has been hard. I am thankful for God’s patient reminders to me of His love and care. I have been studying a John Piper study on the “Journey to Joy” from Philippians this term with my Sunday school class. It has been so helpful to keep reminding myself of the joy I can have because of what our Savior did for you and me on the cross. In this pursuit of joy, our faith is being stretched and sharpened as we learn to treasure our Savior’s gift of salvation even amidst adversity. Learning to rest in the supremacy of God’s sovereignty. God is in control and completely trustworthy.
            There is so much that the Lord has been teaching me, but this might become a book if I keep going so I will stop with that for now. :)

            Thank you for praying for our SEW (spiritual Emphasis week). I know the Lord was working in the hearts of my girls. I was so thankful to have a time of reflection with them and hear what they were challenged by in our meeting last week. Our speaker works with Ravi Zacharias’ ministry and had an incredible testimony of growing up in a nearby town to Kijabe with a single mother and 6 siblings. They were so poor they didn’t know when they would have food again. Through a family that worked here in Kijabe, he came to Christ and went on to become a brilliant scholar and speaks all over the world. He really challenged a lot of my girls. His theme was “Love the Lord Your God with all Your Mind”.  It was so cool to hear them realize the importance of being in God’s Word and learning to be prepared to give a response to people that would question their faith.

one of my favorite spots on campus, yellow acacia trees with Mt. Longonot in the background. 

---

            I would appreciate your continual prayers for financial support. God has provided enough each month even though my monthly support is 400$ short most months. I know He is in control and am resting in that. With Christmas and graduation coming up, I hope to bless my girls with dorm sweatshirts and a grad gift. These are extra costs that can be a big chunk when you think of multiplying it by 22 girls! If you feel led to give, you can go to this new AIM link that will go directly to my new profile page with AIM. https://usgiving.aimint.org/missionary/1035510

            OK ONE MORE PRAYER REQUEST: :) One of my girls, Miriam, will be leaving and graduating early at the end of this term. Her family has been serving in Kenya for the last 4 years but after a 1.5yrs of waiting for a work-permit that never came through, they have decided to move to the States. They will continue their ministry from Stateside. Miriam could have stayed for the year as a senior, but has felt a lot of peace from the Lord about returning to the States with her family. We are going to miss her so much! Please pray for her as she faces this transition a lot sooner than the rest of her class.

Beautiful sunset over Mt. Longonot

Thank you friends for standing with me in prayer and support. I am so thankful for you. Please, PLEASE let me know if I can pray for you specifically about anything.
Serving with you,
Amy

SENIORS!!!

Hello dear friends, 
 Thank you for your prayers for finishing up last term and over the break. I am so thankful the Lord allowed me to go to Japan and see my twin and her family. We had such a great time together and it was really neat to see their new home and way of life (tomato farming!).  
I will include a couple of pictures of our times together.                                              Trins! Laura and I loved getting to spend a month together!!                                                   beautiful rice fields were everywhere                      A very happy Aunt Amy to be with these 4 stinking cute stinkers ;)                                              Two tomato farmers ;) Me and Yoshiki                                          had fun taking pictures of the beautiful Noguchi Family :) 

The break seemed like it flew by, and just like that we were preparing to welcome new students and our returning students for the 2017/2018 school year. We had 102 new students this year!! You can imagine what an emotional weekend that can be for families new to RVA (and those who have been sending kids for many years). It is always a reminder to me of the incredible sacrifice many of these families have been called to give when sending their kids to boarding school. I was privileged to sit in the “Parenting from afar” sessions again this year. It really helps me remember to pray for these parents as we hear their concerns and fears.  But it is also so affirming of what we are doing when those parents who are on child #5 (or whatever number) and sending their kids to RVA share with new parents about the things they are thankful for and how RVA is here for their kids. They affirm how important this ministry is and how it has been a blessing to their family, even in the loss of that time for them being physically together while their children are here at school. I am always humbled by these sessions and so thankful for the parent’s care and love for their children and them being willing to share them with us because that is what God has asked them to do. 
                                          1st day of school picture of my girls 

Just a couple of quick stats of KUW (Kedong Upper West) for you after 3 days of school. 
22 excited, nervous, not sure what to feel Senior girls
1 Dorm mom 
1 dorm dog (Zawadi) 
1 broken wrist (basketball try outs  ) 
 (One of my friends joked that we need to write on our board, KUW has gone…..”number” of days since the last injury. Funny, but not funny. 

Last night in Dorm devos we looked at Proverb 3:5-6 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways  acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths. " 
 We looked at who we are putting our trust in when it says LORD -YHWH and how He is so great and worthy of our trust. We can remember His character and attributes when we see His NAME. We looked at how our own understanding is so finite but how HE is infinite. 
This year, my hope is to help them to continually see their identity is in Christ. Also that as they are looking towards the future, they will seek the Lord and TRUST His great plans. Sometimes things will look different than they thought, but that God is in control and they do not have to fear or have anxiety about those plans falling through. 
Our devos will also focus on things like, How to find a local church, how to "stay a Christian" in college, how do I know God's will and other topics like that. 

Please be praying for our devo times on Tuesday nights at 8:30. 

Last week I wrote a post on Facebook after I was reflecting on it being 6 years since I had moved to RVA and I wanted to share it with those of you who are not on facebook as well. 


reflecting on the last 6 years* 
“A few days ago marked 6 years ago when I moved back to Kenya to work at RVA as a dorm mom. I couldn't even begin to know the ways that the Lord would challenge me and grow me. There has been a lot of laughter and tears, highs and lows, but He is so faithful through it all though. 4 dorms and 72 "daughters" over 6 (will be 7 years) has made me a blessed dorm Momma. Each year the Lord has placed a love in my heart for these special young ladies right from the start. The only way I can even do this job is by His grace and Strength. I can't tell you how thankful I am that the Lord allows me the privilege of being their mom away from home and being able to be apart of the extended work of the gospel being taken all over Africa. I'm thankful for the opportunity to be able to use the gifts God has given me to serve Him and the Body of Christ in this way. It can be a challenge to be in "support" missions because many do not see this as the front lines and therefore it is hard to raise the financial side of support to be able to do this job. It has truly stretched me and I am continually learning to completely trust our Great Provider. I would be lying if I said it was always easy and I never worry. At one point, I had to leave the field because of not having enough support. (Side note, even in this I see how God allowed me more time with my brother, Tom before he passed away. Even when we can't see what His plan is, rest in it and trust Him!! ) However, it has also been a joy to see the ways God has always provided and many times that has been through so many of you. THANK YOU for being part of the Great Commission to GO and Make Disciples of all Nations. The Lord has worked in my heart a love and joy in what I am allowed to take part in. I love that as a body of Christ, we are reaching the unreached. Sometimes it's the actual going to the front, sometimes it's crying with a dorm daughter when she is hurting. I have learned that no matter where the Lord calls you, we still have one goal. Glorify Him and reach the broken, lost, and hurting right where you are. It might not look pretty, glamorous, or exciting (in fact it is usually the opposite) but God determined your steps to be there and your job is to live for Him in those moments. 

All this reflection because I will start my 7th year with my 22 precious dorm girls in 5 days. I get to walk through their senior year of high school with them and I am so excited- and scared-. PLEASE, PLEASE be praying for me and for them as we will be stretched in so many ways over the next 11 months. I am excited to see how the Lord teaches us and how He will guide and direct each of them to what He has for them next. Pray for my new dorm daughter... starting boarding school as a senior can be a difficult transition!! 
Pray for wisdom for me as I continue to pour into their lives and that I will seek the Lord daily for His strength. He offers it freely! 
Thanks for sticking with me. "

Truly, I am thankful for you sticking with me over the years and for your prayer and financial support that allows me the privilege of being a dorm mom here at RVA. We desire to raise up the next generation of missionaries and gospel-bearers. With God’s strength and wisdom, that is our goal. 

I can’t remember if I have shared the RVA website link before, but if not you should check it out! It has lots of pictures so you can see what a beautiful place I get to live in. ☺  http://rva.org/ 

Serving with you, 
Amy Jarrett 

If you feel led to give or become apart of my team with one-time gifts or monthly support, here is some practical information for you. You can send checks (made to AIM) and include a letter that says it is for Amy Jarrett to: 
Africa Inland Mission
C/0 Receipting
P.O. Box 3611
Peachtree City, GA 30269-7611
You can also call their headquarters directly and set up credit card deposits or automatic monthly check deposits. That number is (1. 800.254.0010 ). 

June Update from Kenya

View of Lake Naivasha from the cottage we stayed in over Midterm 

June 7^th, 2017
How is it already June?? In some ways, this term seems to have lasted for so long, but then in other ways I cannot believe it is June.
 
Thank you so much for standing with us in prayer. We seem to be moving on from the sickness scare though we have a new flu bug going around the last week. Again, Praise the Lord for his protection. One situation that needs prayer is for our water pipes on campus. They have been doing a renovation of all the pipes for a while but with those being “offline” the old ones have been breaking so we have been on a water shortage for about 2 weeks now. Please pray for our maintenance team to be able to figure out what is going wrong and that they can fix it.

Beautiful Sunset over Mt. Longonot (left) and Kijabe Hill (right) 

I feel like this is a familiar prayer request, but please pray for my work permit to come through. Mine expired on Friday (the 2^nd). We have turned in my renewal application, paid for it, but are now stuck waiting for it to come through. Our guys that work on immigration are calling and trying to figure out what is going on with mine that it hasn’t come through with the others that were submitted at the same time.  Thank you for praying, God knows!

Full Rainbow that was such a beautiful reminder of God's promises

My girls are working through a very busy last term of their junior year. They have ACTs this Saturday and next week is their Junior store again. I have several girls who have lost a grandparent in the last couple weeks and others who have parents traveling away from home for health tests or surgeries. Please pray that they would have peace from the Lord, as it is so hard to be away from their families during this time. Pray also that they would continue drawing closer to the Lord in these difficult times. It has been encouraging to have coffee dates with some of the girls and hear how they are leaning on the Lord in their struggles.

Love these girls and a chance to spontaneously spoil them. :) 

One of the things the Lord really encouraged me with recently was about how God’s grace is for each day. (I know this, but it seems I forget sometimes!) Instead of looking at situations with eyes of despair, or 
wondering how anything will ever get done, or anyone will ever get through; I need to remember that God gives me grace EACH day. It is not a one-time supply that will be used up in a difficult situation but will be
renewed each day. We need to keep our eyes on Him who is our Strength and our faithful Savior. Of course I am reminded of Lamentations 3:21-24

“But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:
²² The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.”
²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

I love that verse!
I have some exciting news to share. I am thankful for the Lord’s provision of an affordable ticket to Japan for a month this summer during the break. Some of my family also chipped in to make it possible for me to go. What a blessing this will be to Laura and I!  Last summer I was supposed to be there for 3 weeks but then our time was cut short when we received news about my brother. I am so thankful we will get some more time this summer and thankful I can be with Laura and the family on the anniversary of Tom’s death. God is so loving and I am so thankful for this gift.

This last week I was glad to have my new friends, Enrico and Tina, come stay with me here at RVA so Enrico could see Kijabe hosptial. They are doing a 4-month internship at Tenwek for Enrico’s medical school. I met them in April when Nathan was here and we served at the WGM retreat doing childcare with them. They were such an encouragement to me and we really enjoyed the time together.  We got away for a weekend to Lake Naivasha during our school’s Mid-term break.

We climbed through Hell's gate Gorge 

Our school board has been in the process of searching for a new superintendent for the last year. After much prayer, they decided to name Mark Kinzer (our current assistant to superintendent and an elementary dorm parent –among many other job responsibilities) for a 4 year term as the superintendent. Mark and Carolyn are my good friends here, like honorary parents :),  and I have no doubt he will do a wonderful job leading our school. Please pray for Tim and LeAnn Hall who will be stepping down and moving back to the States after 29 years of ministry at RVA and for the Kinzers stepping in to be our Superintendent. So much transition for both families!
 
I pray that each of you will continue to be encouraged in the Lord and will look to Him as your daily source of strength.  If any of you are going through something difficult, I pray that you will draw close to the Lord and remember the hope and victory we have in Him. I am going to borrow something my sister-in-love, Christine, heard at church and shared with us recently. 

“Our Pastor gave 6 truths to remember on suffering from these verses. Each one the Lord has taught us on this difficult journey and each one is filled with inexpressible hope and joy for the restoration that is to come through Christ for the believer! ….1 Peter 5:10-11 ‘And after you have suffered (It's expected) a little while (It's limited), the God of all grace (Grace is available), who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ (There's a plan), will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you (Live on promise). To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.’ (Ends in worship)”

 
Thank you for your love and support of me dear friends. Thank you for your care and prayers for my girls that the Lord has blessed me with the privilege of being here and caring for them at RVA. I am very thankful for the ability and gift to partake in what the Lord is doing here and in Africa through the many families serving across this continent. I hope that you also know what a big part you are playing in that. It is the Lord’s doing, but He lets us participate and it is so sweet.
 
Serving with you,
Amy

If you wish to become apart of my support team through one-time gifts or monthly giving, here is a link to information about how to do that through African Inland Mission.

https://aimint.org/us/give/

OR:

3 WAYS TO GIVE

1. Online Giving

Link to our online giving portal. https://www.egsnetwork.com/gift2/?giftid=BA2CB0A93B314EC

Search for your missionary or project and set up your donation. (Note that all online contributions are handled as tax-deductible contributions. If you would like to make a non-tax deductible personal gift to a missionary, please send a check by mail made payable to the missionary).

2. By Mail

Make your check payable to AIM and include a separate note indicating the missionary name or project name. Our mailing address for contributions is:

Africa Inland Mission
Attn.: Receipting Department
P.O. Box 3611
Peachtree City, GA 30269-7611

You will get a receipt by mail, and attached to that is a form you can use for future contributions.

3. Scheduled Automatic Contributions

Africa Inland Mission is pleased to offer an automatic contribution transfer option which can electronically transfer money from your checking or savings account on the 15th of each month.

https://aimint.org/us/give/automatic-contributions/