We are in the initial stages of partnership development– connecting with prayer and financial supporters– to further our ministry in Kenya.  We plan to be on the field by October of 2014, and we must be fully funded in order to go.  Like many mission agencies, CMF requires its missionaries to raise all of their own support.  Our monthly sustaining budget on the field is $8,633.  This amount includes ministry and outreach funds, housing, transportation, health insurance, and our salary to enable us to serve.  Our one-time sending budget is $45,293, which covers our field preparation training, airline tickets and other expenses to actually move us to Nairobi (e.g., necessary household items), and the purchase of a vehicle.  Our immediate goal is to raise approximately one-third of our sustaining budget, or about $3,000, by the end of the calendar year, which is quickly approaching!  

That’s our financial need in a snapshot.  If God is prompting you to partner with us in ministry, you may give online through our CMF missionary page, www.cmfi.org/gaemery.  The fillable forms online will guide you through the process of remitting a monthly or one-time amount and provide you with options for future contributions (e.g., setting up automatic monthly withdrawals on a specific date each month).

The practical reality is that we must raise our entire sustaining and sending budgets so that we can serve in the slums of Nairobi.  However, the spiritual reality is that because God is sending us, He will provide the exact amount we need in His perfect timing.  We are learning to trust in this truth a little more each day.  God has already amazed and overwhelmed us with His provision, and we know that this is only the beginning! 

It is humbling to invite others to join us in ministry and to experience with them God’s call upon their lives in this regard.  After all, we ourselves are broken vessels being restored by the Master, piece by piece.  Yet even in our brokenness, He invites us to join Him in the redemptive, restorative work that He is doing among those He is wooing to Himself.  Such a humbling but beautiful aspect of the kingdom!  The exciting part is that in connecting with the ministry partners that God is providing, we get to share with so many different people this work that God is doing, as well as our own personal experiences of grace, redemption, and hope in following Christ.  We love that aspect of our current ministry here!

Our story is God’s story.  We were created to glorify and worship Him.  We were also created to live in community, as modeled by the Trinity.  As we go forth in obedience to God’s calling, our community is ever expanding and deepening.  As God continues to redefine our notion of community, our prayer is that articulated by Henri Nouwen in “With Open Hands”:

Dear God, As you draw me ever deeper into your heart,
I discover that my companions on the journey are women and men
loved by you as fully and intimately as I am.
In your compassionate heart, there is a place for all of them.
No one is excluded.
Give me a share in your compassion, dear God,
so that your unlimited love may become visible
in the way I love my brothers and sisters.
Amen.