We Are Back

Greetings to our friends and family!
Well here we are three weeks later overwhelmed at what God has done and feeling as though words cannot express the gratitude for an amazing experience like traveling to East Africa. The churches we visited in Africa would like to pass on their greetings to each of you. The missionaries of Wycliffe and SIL also pass on greetings and would like to thank you for sending our team to their annual conference to care for their children. Many parents expressed thanks as they truly were able to relax and refocus knowing their children were cared for and enjoying learning themselves.
The last few weeks have been stretching, inspiring, tiring and eye opening. We headed to Kenya with bags full of children’s toys, curriculum, arts and crafts- not knowing more than basic information about the children we were to care for the next week, feeling a little anxiety and inadequacy. However once we met the 9 children (from the U.S., New Zealand, Kenya, and Holland) and began spending the days sharing truths about God or playing, we began to enjoy the personalities of each one. Throughout the week we were able to visit with the children’s parents over lunch or supper and learn about living in another culture long-term, raising a family overseas, homeschooling or sending kids to school, figuring out God’s call on your life in ministry, and hearing personal testimonies. The conference quickly came to a close and I believe both Kevin and I were impacted by the informal mentoring that took place through many missionary families from Uganda, Tanzania, Congo and Kenya. We were able to meet people involved in ministry we’d only ever heard about and challenged to consider filling some of the needs on the field. Kevin began to show a unique talent and interest for language learning. The scripture-in-use program has caught my eye (Melissa) as I keep a look out for ways to use teaching in the future.
The next week we had a taste of ‘real Africa’ by shopping in the market and only speaking Swahili, attending a Literacy class & Bible study in the Giryama language, and visiting a Baptist church full of vibrantly charismatic believers full of love for and faith in God. We experienced first hand the poverty and deep needs of a country with little to no income, those who had lost one or both parents, struggling to make ends meet or find food for the next meal. We were shown the homes inside a village which were made from mud and/or dung, sticks and a thatched roof of grass or palm leaves. These people were so inspiring! They reminded us that we depend on God spiritually and physically and we can be content no matter what since God is in us.
After sitting through a 3 hour literacy class and Bible study in Giryama, it is easier to understand the importance of Bible translation in a person’s mother tongue. Translating the Bible so that all people can hear and understand it more fully is an amazing privilege and gift. We invite you to join with us in supporting this effort so that many more people can understand God’s word and as a result know Him better!
Asanteni Sana/Hunamuvera (Thank you all very much!) for loving and supporting, giving and praying for us before, during and after our trip to Kenya. It has been an amazing journey that we hope will continue to impact us throughout life.

The News of Late

HuJambo! (Swahili Greeting)
Habari Yako? (What is the news?)

Our news in these last few weeks ...
- Great team meetings of prep and bonding time!
- Kevin and I are about 85% done planning and preparation
- We are all getting a small handle on the beginnings of Swahili
- People have been generous in donating towards craft supplies THANK YOU.
- I have prayer bookmarks for those of you we see, and those of you who want them.
- We are currently sitting at just over $7,000 which means we need to raise $2,000 in the next two weeks before we leave!
- The dollar store told me they'd give us 10% off for supplies and donate $10 worth of souvenirs...random but awesome.

JUNE 12th
For those of you in Calgary...
Our Kenya team is having a fundraising auction/meal/entertainment event.
Friday night at 6:00
Wycliffe Office-4316 10 St. NE

African Meal
Sudanese Music
Auctioning off various items to contribute to the teams financial needs for traveling to Kenya.
Items may include photography, pies, slave hours ( team members offering up help for a chunk of hours i.e. yard work, etc.)
Sorry Kevin and I won't be there as my sister is getting married the next day!
Feel free to come out and enjoy yourselves anyway!

bye for now...counting down the days till Kenya.
love,
Melissa & Kevin

Fundraiser

Hello One and All,

I am not actually sure how many people read this blog, but I will throw out an announcement in the hopes that someone reads this. June 12(Friday) we are having a fundraiser at Wycliffe's office. There will be food, as well as an auction(proceeds will go to the Kenya team to help get us over there and provide supplies for the work we will be doing), and hopefully some African music. It will be a great opportunity to hear some more details about the trip, and to understand the importance of this trip. If you are interested in coming, please email Melissa and I at kmderksen@gmail.com. And if my efforts come to fruition, there may be some photography of my own at the auction, so come out, donate your money, and walk away with a wondrous photograph or pie, or whatever else may be there to buy. I rhymed, how wonderful.

MAY UPDATE!

Hello dear friends and family!
Praise God for what he has already done, is doing and will continue to do!
Preparations are going well for our trip to Kenya as; we've got all our shots, sent in our visa applications, got a start on curriculum planning andteam meetings galore are helping to finalize details and practice a bit of Swahili!

We were blessed with a whole bin of virtually unused VBS supplies for our entire team to use. It's called "Outrigger Island" and its SO IN DEPTH! Basically they've pre-planned almost any area of a VBS you could think of, to a Hawaiian theme and perfected the program for preschool interests and capabilities. Kevin and I are now both working with the 3-5 year olds.

From my limited experience in the Early Learning field- it looks amazing! We will teach the children through Bible learning center's, sensorial, homeliving, blocks, crafts, games, snacks, puzzles, book, bible lessons, music and follow up activities. I am currently modifying it to be "travelable" and to fit our time limits.

Fundraising is definitely in God's hands as we've already been given $6,746! Which means there is less than $3,000 left to raise for the two of us!WOW. Again, Praise God! Feel free to read the attachment and meet the Kenya team!Thank you for your incredible support. Less than two months to go now! Please continue to keep our team in your prayers.
Melissa & Kevin

MEET THE TEAM!
NextGen Kenya ’09 Volunteer Work Project
Team Profile

Derryl and Karen

Leading the NextGen Kenya ’09 Volunteer Work Project, Derryl and Karen have served with Wycliffe for over 20 years in Kenya, South Africa, Mozambique, and a short stint in Russia. For the past 10 years they have served Wycliffe Canada in a growing NextGen Mobilization effort. Co-leading a team of students to Sudan last summer set the stage for accepting the invitation to lead this team of 13 to Kenya to lead worship and run the children/youth programs for the 2009 spiritual renewal conference for dozens of Wycliffe missionaries serving in Uganda, Tanzania and Congo. The team will lead a VBS program for around 80 missionary kids ages 5 months to 16 years old at a conference centre on the coast of Kenya. When finished, the team will then travel to the nearby ‘Giryama’ homeland where they will help the Giryama national Bible translation team establish their new translation office. Here the Scriptures are being translated for over 600,000 Kenyan Giryama speakers.

Derryl and Karen are a little sad this will be the first time they will have ever traveled to Africa without any of their children. Shane (24) is preparing for his wedding with Christin on August 15, 2009. Carissa (22) just celebrated her first anniversary married to Kent and is working for the summer to pay for her final year of her teaching degree. Zachrie (16 and born in Kenya) is spending his last summer before he graduates from high school attending a very cool snowboarding camp on a mountain glacier and hopefully working his first summer job. Although their kids will not be with them, Derryl and Karen are excited about the amazing team God has assembled for this latest ministry adventure back to Africa. Nine of the 13 participants have somehow been involved in the past four Race to 2025 adventure races that have raised over $100,000 for Bible translation work in Sudan, SE Asia, Cameroon and Ghana. Race to 2025 bridges the adrenaline of adventure sport with the extreme adventure to which Jesus calls his Church. Most of the group is part of our Café Wycliffe community and everyone on this team is taking the ‘next step’ into the adventurous unknown!

Dan and Sandra

Not only is Dan a respected cabinetmaker/carpentry instructor at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, but he also has a seminary degree and loves to rock climb and ice climb. His most recent connection with Wycliffe was climbing frozen waterfalls with team Lembak on Race to 2025:SE Asia. Dan will serve as the team lead for seventeen 13 – 16 year olds. Sandra, an eager elementary teacher will lead the 10 – 12 year olds. Sandra first met Wycliffe missionaries while in Congo on a YWAM missions trip. Recently married, this couple is seriously considering serving long-term with Wycliffe in the future.

Krystal

Krystal is in grade 12 and a vibrant witness for Christ at her school. She is an MAF missionary kid who grew up in Papua New Guinea. Her quiet and gentle spirit makes her a wonderful friend to anyone. She is a great recruiter for Café Wycliffe and Race to 2025. She has a heart for MKs and is eager to serve the 13 – 16 year olds!

Aaron

Aaron is a firefighter and an Emergency Medical Respondent (EMR.) His first mission trip was to Nicaragua with Samaritans Purse. Together with Jessie, he participated in Race to 2025:Cameroon and together as Team Kwaja, won the top team fund- raising award. Aaron is using his $1000 prize to help pay for this trip to Kenya and will be working with the 10 – 12 year olds.

Evelyn

Simply put, Evelyn loves kids. She is an accomplished elementary school teacher and works with the youth group at her church. Evelyn has been part of the Café Wycliffe community since it’s inception in 2005. When not at work or serving at her church Evelyn can often be found volunteering with Wycliffe Canada’s NextGen Ministries. Previous missions experiences have taken her to Tanzania with Campus for Christ and teaching MKs in Mali, West Africa. She also raced with Team Osatu in Race to 2025:Cameroon.

Jessica

Jessie is an outdoor girl. She loves soccer, basketball, horses, Café Wycliffe foosball and any sport she can beat a boy at! She is currently studying psychology so will be doing psychiatric analysis of the rest of the team. J Jessie has served on a number of mission trips, the latest being in Guatemala. As part of Team Kwaja, Race to 2025:Cameroon, her team not only won first place team fund-raising, but also top individual fundraising as well. She is using her prize to travel to Africa for the first time ever to serve the 7 – 9 year olds.

Kevin and Melissa

Kevin and Melissa are about to celebrate their first anniversary. Melissa is a ‘veteran’ short-term missionary having served with Venture Teams International in Costa Rica, Quebec, India and the UK. Kevin is an avid outdoor adventurer and has participated in Race to 2025 Sudan and Race to 2025 SE Asia. Last year Kevin and Melissa initiated a Café Wycliffe ‘Youth’ outreach and are currently in application to serve with Wycliffe NextGen Ministries. They will be serving fifteen 3 – 6 year old missionary kids in Kenya.

Kate

Kate is a graduate of Providence College with a degree in Intercultural Studies and a TESOL certificate. She greatly appreciates the work Wycliffe is doing worldwide and loves a good challenge. She loves babies and small children and will serve as the team lead to care for seventeen 1 – 2 year olds.

Dana

Dana raced with three guys in Race to 2025:Ghana and held her own! Not only did she love the adventure, but loved the introduction to linguistics in the Ghanaian ‘village.’ She wrote later, “I want to know more about linguistics and language survey. She will get here share of meeting many ‘linguists’ as she cares for their 1 – 2 year olds in Africa! Her race team, Team Mampruli, won the linguistics challenge award and with that money, plans to attend the Canada Institute of Linguistics in summer 2010 to explore her place in the global Bible translation movement.

Maryann

Maryann recently graduated from Peace River Bible Institute. One of her highlights was a school led missions trip to Japan. Since then, she has also been part of the PRBI ‘Africa group,’ a group of a dozen students feeling a strong call on their lives to serve the Lord in Africa. She will be one of the first of her group to get there, serving our Wycliffe missionaries by lovingly caring for their smallest babies and toddlers.

Group Prayer Requests

To honour and glorify Christ in all we do
To have flexible, humble servants' hearts
For great relationships (marital, team and cross-cultural)
God's favour in crossing language and cultural barriers
Health and safety in air and land travel
For eyes to see what God is showing each team member
For team unity in meetings, planning and serving
For generous financial supporters and prayer partners for each team member
For effective ministry to the 80 missionary children, their parents and the Giryama national Bible translation project we will serve
A passion for God and His Word to grow amongst this team and this ‘Next Generation’

Prophecy, Does It Happen Today?

Yesterday Calgary got hit by the standard springtime blizzard. Mixed with the slightly warm weather, this snow soon turned into a skating rink. This morning, on my walk to work, the sidewalks can only be described in my mind as curling rinks, nicely pebbled and perfect for sliding. Now, to give a little history, every morning at work we read a passage out of the Bible then have a prayer request time. We have a prayer calendar which is set up about a month in advance, and we have one request on that calendar per day. And what was today's request? "Pray for all the guests who have slipped on the sidewalk, that they would have a speedy recovery." So, you tell me, does prophecy still happen?

Kenya Update

Only 3 months left!
Praise God for supplying us with $3,000 at the end of March!
We didn't quite reach our goal of $4,000 for that month but still waiting on God to provide.
Over the month of April our goal is $3,000 and May's financial goal will be $2,000.
I'm so grateful that God is in control of all of this and grateful that we have friends and family joining our team to invest in missionary kids lives this summer.

We had our first official team meeting last monday with 4 people from across the country in attendance over speaker phone. We officially have 13 people on our team! The details have almost been solidified now as we were given an itinerary of our week at the missionary conference. It will be about six six hour days of ministry to children, babies to teens. Our team will be split up to work with various age groups.

I (Melissa) am going to work with the baby to 2 year old age group and be the team lead.
Kevin is likely going to work with the elementary age group.
So the next few months include programming and organizing age appropriate activities. PLEASE feel free to send suggestions our way or resources we could use to work with the kids. We will also be doing some research on the countries these missionary's are coming from and suggested reading about bible translation...maybe learning some swahili as well!

During our second week there will likely be work projects like painting and such. Again, if you'd like to offer any resources like paintbrushes or rollers we will be in need of these. As well as visiting and assisting a translation project as we are able.

We're very honored to be able to go serve in this way in July and we hope that you'll join us.
Please keep us in your prayers as they are needed before the trip in details- visas, shots, travel, health , during- the work itself, team unity, safety, God to change lives! and after as we process what was experienced and share that with others.

what am I up to now?(Melissa)

Since moving on from Alberta Bible College in the iddle of February I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off making new plans!
I was job hunting for a good month and on the last weekday on February I was offered a job at Montessori Childrens House Academy. Talk about trusting in Gods ability to give me what we need and when we need it!

I work Tuesday's and Thursday's now and am enjoying the new environment of sweet little children who multiple times a day tell me they love me...it melts your insides. On the other hand there are plenty of noisy, bad mannered children with whom I slowly but surely work to change their conduct and make preschool a better experience for all. I'm learning ALOT trying to figure out the in's and out's of Montessori materials and the classroom methods and expectations.

After a long and wierd process I have been accepted to Bow Valley College's online Early Learning and Child Care Certificate. On my days off I plan to work on becoming even more certified in order to work with children here in Calgary and eventually overseas.

Its been very neat to see God's hand over all of this. He's showing me over the years how much I love kids and yet can learn so much more. As well as how it is the type of job that is meaningful and rewarding yet its not something I can do in my own strength. I need God more than ever to make the most of these opportunities and serve these children and their families especially when it gets hard.

Kenya Fundraising

So, a little update here on how our Kenya plans are coming. Yesterday we went in to get our passports renewed. From what we had heard, even though my(Kevin) passport wasn't expired it would need to be replaced because my address had changed. As we found out last night, this was not the case, so we saved ourselves $87, and Melissa got her application in with little difficulty. Not too shaby. As for fundraising. We are currently on a deadline to raise a total of $4000 between Melissa and myself by the end of March. That is it for now. God bless!

A Lesson In Weakness

I was riding on the bus the other day as I headed home from work, and began thinking about some things people had said about me in a staff meeting. Nothing bad, but things like "he is patient," "he is calm when dealing with guests," and other stuff like that. Most people reading this will probably already know that I work at a ministry that seeks to help the homeless, and for those of you who have ever had the privilege of working with the homeless, you will know that it can be extremely taxing at times. In light of this, the passage 2 Corinthians 12:9(But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.") came to mind. This passage has caused me untold grief in the past as I have struggled to understand what "My power is made perfect in weakness" means. A bit of a revelation came to me as I rode home that day.

I have been asked many times how I get through the day, or how I can deal with the people that come through these doors that seem intent only on pushing other people's buttons, and everytime I get asked that, the only honest answer I can come up with is that it is God who gets me through the day. This, I think, is exactly what 2 Corinthians 12:9 is talking about. If we could do everything on our own, we would not, in our selfishness, give any of the credit to God. However, in actuality, we fall quite short, and because of this we cannot do anything without God. His power is made perfect in our weakness, because in our weakness we have no choice but to let His power work in us.

God Bless!

EMAIL ADDRESS

This is just a note to clear up any resulting confusion. The email address at the top of this page is not our actual email address. I had to make a new one because I could not make an account with our actual address. So, please continue to use kmderksen@gmail.com. Thank you!

Kenya

So, Melissa and I are headed off to Kenya this summer from July 6-25th. Many of you have probably already heard this. So, to keep everyone on board with what is going on in the processes leading up to this, I have started this blog, and hopefully it will also serve to keep people updated as to what is going on in our lives in general. Currently we are working on raising the $9600 for the trip($4800 each), as well as figuring out passport issues and getting shots and visas. We could use your prayers that the money needed would come in and that we would be able to get our passports, shots and visas without too much trouble.