God called me to Africa at the young age of 12.  My family and I were approved as missionaries in May 1974.  Our family arrived in Kenya on Mother’s Day 1976. Through the thirty-two years following, my heart has been pierced with the request of various Kenyans asking us to come to their people.  The memory of one person, this day, I can never forget.  Rose was a nurse at the hospital in Embu in 1986.  While traveling to and from work, she saw our portable church sign in front of the Kanguru Primary school.  One Sunday she attended church.  In the weeks following, she kept returning.  Finally, one weekday we visited her home.  Following her tradition, she made us African tea (chai) and then we were able to give her the plan of salvation and she accepted Christ as her Savior that same day.

Rose’s home village was on the very foothills of Mt. Kenya (altitude of 17,500 ft.)  To reach her village, we had to travel a very steep, windy, rugged road.  Before we left her, she said to me, “Baba Micah, you brought the plan of salvation to Embu.  How long must my people here on the foot hills of Mt. Kenya wait to hear that my Jesus loves them and died for them?”  Following our visit to Rose’s village, our life changed.  Michele, my first wife, had died.  Our family entered some dark valleys and we have not been able to return to Embu to live.

Embu is the provincial headquarters of Kenya’s Eastern Province.  The Eastern Province is one third the size of Texas.  Therefore, for those of you who are reading this prayer letter, I have a question for you to answer.  How long must the many villages of Eastern Kenya wait to hear that Jesus died to save them?  As I leave Nairobi and travel to Embu, there is still village after village that has not heard.  My health, as it is now, will not allow me to live in Embu.  Our three churches on the Eastern slopes of Mt. Kenya desperately need a missionary couple to live with them.

Larry Stringfield, Kenya