We have been having a great time this week with our family.  David’s mom and brother arrived last Monday night to spend a couple of weeks with us.  Yesterday, we went down to a town named Mai Mahiu which is in the valley below us.  This has become a sprawling community of very poor people, many of them refugees from the recent election violence, and the city continues to grow at a rapid rate.  There are a great many children there who are not involved in any way with church, so a ministry from RVA was started a few years ago to minister to them.  Yesterday, we were able to play with at least 50 kids and participate as they were given a Bible lesson and sang some songs.  It is an amazing thing to pull out a camera in such a mass of kids… talk about being mobbed.

Dear Friends, Family, and Supporters,

Friday was a great day for two reasons. First, we celebrated our sixteenth anniversary. Second, the entire school gathered on the soccer field at 8:00 AM to observe an annular solar eclipse.

Outreach Day is always a fun event that many students look forward to. Although it is voluntary, almost the entire student body gathers to go into our surrounding villages and work on various projects. Saturday was Outreach Day, and David went with a group to a village called Mbau-Ini to repair and renovate a house. When we arrived we found a small (20 x 20 feet) two room mud house. Technically it was two rooms, but the rooms were merely separated by old flattened cardboard boxes. The roof was made of mbati (corrugated metal). There were holes in the walls and it was clear that the family of five who lives there struggles. We spent several hours making mud and patching the holes in the walls and assisting the fundi (craftsman) with construction of the new room.

Elizabeth went with a team to Mai Maihu to work on a house as well. In her words: “We were helping build houses, and I got to help mix mortar and carry blocks and sand and water. I also helped the workers fill in mortar between stones. We started out with 2 rows of blocks and ended up with about 4…”

Abby went with her sixth grade class to visit an orphanage in Naivasha. In her words: “We went to an orphanage and I got to play with the kids with some of my friends. There was this little girl named Ruth. I picked her up and she would not go to anyone else. She was terrified of the boys. Then when it was time to go, I had to put her down and she screamed. Then we left, and went to a cabin of people we know ate sandwiches, chips, and invisible Kool-Aid. Then we went swimming in a big river, and I jumped in from a swing. The river was so strong that we liked to let the river carry us downstream. It was very cold, too.”

Karissa went with a group that visited an orphanage at a church called St. Edwin’s. In her words: “We played lots and lots of games with the orphans. We played a game called the mice and the cat.”

Pray:

1. Give praise to God for a great day of outreach in our community, but pray also that this will form a pattern of giving in the lives of our students.

2. Continue to pray that rains will continue. We have had a lull.

3. Thank God for His healing hand. I mentioned last week that we had a staff member who was very sick. She is recovering rapidly.

Dear Friends, Family, and Supporters,

Friday was a great day for two reasons. First, we celebrated our sixteenth anniversary. Second, the entire school gathered on the soccer field at 8:00 AM to observe an annular solar eclipse.

Outreach Day is always a fun event that many students look forward to. Although it is voluntary, almost the entire student body gathers to go into our surrounding villages and work on various projects. Saturday was Outreach Day, and David went with a group to a village called Mbau-Ini to repair and renovate a house. When we arrived we found a small (20 x 20 feet) two room mud house. Technically it was two rooms, but the rooms were merely separated by old flattened cardboard boxes. The roof was made of mbati (corrugated metal). There were holes in the walls and it was clear that the family of five who lives there struggles. We spent several hours making mud and patching the holes in the walls and assisting the fundi (craftsman) with construction of the new room.

Elizabeth went with a team to Mai Maihu to work on a house as well. In her words: “We were helping build houses, and I got to help mix mortar and carry blocks and sand and water. I also helped the workers fill in mortar between stones. We started out with 2 rows of blocks and ended up with about 4…”

Abby went with her sixth grade class to visit an orphanage in Naivasha. In her words: “We went to an orphanage and I got to play with the kids with some of my friends. There was this little girl named Ruth. I picked her up and she would not go to anyone else. She was terrified of the boys. Then when it was time to go, I had to put her down and she screamed. Then we left, and went to a cabin of people we know ate sandwiches, chips, and invisible Kool-Aid. Then we went swimming in a big river, and I jumped in from a swing. The river was so strong that we liked to let the river carry us downstream. It was very cold, too.”

Karissa went with a group that visited an orphanage at a church called St. Edwin’s. In her words: “We played lots and lots of games with the orphans. We played a game called the mice and the cat.”

Pray:

1. Give praise to God for a great day of outreach in our community, but pray also that this will form a pattern of giving in the lives of our students.

2. Continue to pray that rains will continue. We have had a lull.

3. Thank God for His healing hand. I mentioned last week that we had a staff member who was very sick. She is recovering rapidly.

Dear Friends, Family, and Supporters,

Friday was a great day for two reasons. First, we celebrated our sixteenth anniversary. Second, the entire school gathered on the soccer field at 8:00 AM to observe an annular solar eclipse.

Outreach Day is always a fun event that many students look forward to. Although it is voluntary, almost the entire student body gathers to go into our surrounding villages and work on various projects. Saturday was Outreach Day, and David went with a group to a village called Mbau-Ini to repair and renovate a house. When we arrived we found a small (20 x 20 feet) two room mud house. Technically it was two rooms, but the rooms were merely separated by old flattened cardboard boxes. The roof was made of mbati (corrugated metal). There were holes in the walls and it was clear that the family of five who lives there struggles. We spent several hours making mud and patching the holes in the walls and assisting the fundi (craftsman) with construction of the new room.

Elizabeth went with a team to Mai Maihu to work on a house as well. In her words: “We were helping build houses, and I got to help mix mortar and carry blocks and sand and water. I also helped the workers fill in mortar between stones. We started out with 2 rows of blocks and ended up with about 4…”

Abby went with her sixth grade class to visit an orphanage in Naivasha. In her words: “We went to an orphanage and I got to play with the kids with some of my friends. There was this little girl named Ruth. I picked her up and she would not go to anyone else. She was terrified of the boys. Then when it was time to go, I had to put her down and she screamed. Then we left, and went to a cabin of people we know ate sandwiches, chips, and invisible Kool-Aid. Then we went swimming in a big river, and I jumped in from a swing. The river was so strong that we liked to let the river carry us downstream. It was very cold, too.”

Karissa went with a group that visited an orphanage at a church called St. Edwin’s. In her words: “We played lots and lots of games with the orphans. We played a game called the mice and the cat.”

Pray:

1. Give praise to God for a great day of outreach in our community, but pray also that this will form a pattern of giving in the lives of our students.

2. Continue to pray that rains will continue. We have had a lull.

3. Thank God for His healing hand. I mentioned last week that we had a staff member who was very sick. She is recovering rapidly.

Dear Friends, Family, and Supporters,

Each year during the first term of school, the titchies (elementary age students) collect money during Sunday School for the purpose of helping the needy in our community. Just at the end of term, items such as flour, soap, beans, and other non-perishables are purchased, and all the titchies get together to separate the goods into hampers (sacks) which are then saved for distribution on Christmas Eve. This event requires the cooperation of our local churches who supply us with a list of the neediest in our community, and guides to get us to their homes (you can’t just look up an address on google maps here).

Thus, on Thursday morning, numerous RVA staff, students, and Kenyan guides met, loaded goods, and crammed into vehicles for the distribution. The Tilly family went to old Kijabe town, a settlement started by the British as a re-watering location on the railroad, but today a fairly poor community of maybe 1000 people, some 3 miles from RVA. We visited six families, mostly elderly widows. After lengthy greetings and many thank-yous, we sang a Christmas carol, prayed and went to the next house. Below are a few pictures of our visit.

Prayer:
1. The rains have returned with a vengeance. Some have told us that their crops have already failed, but many are still growing. Pray for continued rain, and thank God for this blessing.
2. January 4 marks the day that students return, and classes begin on the 5th. Pray for safety in travels, and pray for a good school term.
3. Pray for the needy Kenyans around us. In many ways we feel helpless, but we do what we can. Pray for the local churches as they try to deal with the many problems in the community. See below for specifics.

Your missionaries,
David and Meredith Tilly
Elizabeth, Abby, Karissa

Rift Valley Academy
PO Box 80
Kijabe, 00220 Kenya

We have just received word from AIM to set our return date to early August. We still have somewhere between 10-20% support (we will inform you more specifically about this in the near future) to raise before we leave, but it seems that God is opening the doors.

Praise: 

1. Support has been on the increase, even though the economy is on the decline.
2. God has encouraged us by using his people. We have had wonderful Godly people and churches standing with us as we have been here in the states. Sometimes we have gotten discouraged, but then out of the blue God has sent someone to encourage us.

Pray:

1. That God would raise up the remaining people and churches that we need in order for us to return to Kenya on time.
2. For wisdom and strength in all the details and decisions involved in moving back to Kenya.

That’s where we are…77% of our support target.  At this point our return to RVA depends on raising $6000 per month in pledges.