Kenya Update 3 - Building a Foundation

This week I had the privilege of taking our team out in small groups to hear about what they’ve been learning this summer and how they’ve seen God moving.

One of the biggest things we focus on in Royal Servants is growing a student’s understanding of and ability to share the gospel. Both are rare among teenagers in North America and we make it our mission to train them to do so during their summer trip, and afterwards when they go back home.

I took a small group of our female students to get pastries and hear about their experience so far and one of them, Ellen, mentioned how in memorizing our gospel booklet, Join the Story, she’s been able to more deeply comprehend the goodness of salvation. Not only that, but in having it memorized and understood, she’s been able to share it with Kenyan students we’ve ministered to here.

Memorization is also a major focus for us. Most of the memorization we ask our students to apply themselves to is memorizing verses of scripture to learn the importance of hiding God’s truth in their hearts. One of our guys, Arax, shared that his memorization work has been very beneficial to his time here in the way he interacts with his team and with the people here in Kenya who need hope and encouragement. He has been able to pull upon the scriptures he has memorized and use them to lift others up.

We also want our students to go home with a renewed habit of prayer. Josiah, our only alumni student this year, expressed how his prayer life had never felt very natural. That he would pray the same basic prayers he heard others pray and thought that that’s just how you do it. However, in his quiet times this summer, he’s been able to learn how to more genuinely pray to God from his heart and to sit in prayer for longer than he has been used to.

These small testimonies remind me that the work we do really does impact these students’ lives. Many may see themselves fall back into some old habits after going home, but the new foundation they build here will prove beneficial as they grow and head off to college and beyond. As God brings them to seasons in life where they need to own their faith and live like Him without the help of a program and schedule, the habits they practiced here will still hold a place in their minds and hearts.

That’s what drives us to challenge these students to more. That’s what motivates us to show a teenager how capable they truly are in this short window of their development. Because even if their life doesn’t immediately change from night to day, these experiences will live on with them forever. And God can do miracles with far less.

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