A Christmas Gathering Part 2

Greetings dear family and friends; We hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and are starting a great New Year. Here is the second half of our Christmas Celebration picture post and a link to a ‘not so good quality’ video of the dancing done in Part 1 of the Christmas Celebration. To watch some of the dance click this link..   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfoLEHkJqqE

A Christmas Gathering Part 2

After we finished the feast, our youth performed a wonderful play called ‘The Gift of the Magi’ Kenyan style. Here are a few of the picture highlights. First; our two dancing drama kings and our kids introduced the play with some fancy footwork.

Then the play began with a very poor young married couple struggling with having enough money to purchase each other a gift for Christmas.

After much agonizing, the wife finally comes to the painful decision that her beautiful hair is all she has of any worth. So, she walks to the salon, sells her hair obtaining the money to purchase her husband a new watchband for his prized watch.

The audience got caught up in the tearful sacrifice the wife has made for her beloved husband…

When the husband returns he is shocked to find his wife has cut off all her beautiful hair to buy him a watchband for Christmas.

But all turns out well, when he tells her he sold his prized watch to buy her … a golden dragonfly hair clip! Their Christmas was blessed with laughter and love while reminding us that love is about the intent of the heart and not the physical gift.

Next was the Sunday School Nativity play. It was sweet and ended with all of the children singing  ‘Away in a Manger’.

Then one of our missionary friends, Teresa June, got up and presented Abraham with a guitar for the church. He was very surprised because he had been praying that somehow he could learn to play a guitar.

Our Celebration concluded with another ‘mama’ from the last home group of the day getting everyone up and dancing. It was a perfect end to a perfect day.

Well, thanks for taking the time to see what’s happening with us here in Kenya. We hope your Christmas Celebration was as fun and memorable as ours. Please remember to pray for us during this coming year that we might be able to continue to expand God’s Kingdom here in Kenya, Africa through demonstrating what the family of God actually looks like. We all are looking forward to this New Year in which we believe will be our best ever.

Your Kenyan Missionaries… Dave and Cynthia with all the StoneHouse staff and family wishes you a happy and prosperous New Year. May the Lord bless you and fulfill every good desire you have to advance His Kingdom.

A Christmas Gathering Part 1

Greetings and Merry Christmas from Kenya! There was so much happening and so many pictures taken at our Christmas celebration ...we'll have to post it in two parts. Here's the first part….

Preparation and Celebration!

On the twenty-first of December a few StoneHouse Fellowship members gathered at the StoneHouse Gathering Place and began decorating for Christmas… it turned out to be a whole lot of fun and everyone helped... even the little ones.

We put our tent up in the outside courtyard of our Gathering place and to our delight it was a perfect fit.

When we finished fixing the decorations some of the young ladies began fixing their hair! We all left tired but feeling very Christmassy. 

On the morning of the twenty-second our friends, family and guests began to arrive. The first to show up were the ladies who would prepare our feast. It was great to hear them singing together while preparing our food.

Everyone who came loved all the colorful Christmas decorations including all our wazungu missionary friends. They said it made them feel like they were home.

Even with many of our church family traveling ‘up country’ visiting relatives for Christmas we still had way over a hundred people attending. There was plenty of time for talk and fellowship. Most everyone stayed over six hours!

Jesse and Janet, our missionary friends, had to leave early for Nairobi to catch a plane for the USA. We felt the need to cover them with prayer so we placed them in the middle of the room. Then as everyone there surrounded them we prayed for their safety. They told us they loved us all very much and left. Fifteen minutes later we received a call informing us a drunk driver crashed into their car. They thanked us for our prayers because no one was hurt and the damage to the car was minimal. In two hours they were on their way again to Nairobi. 

Soon after hearing they were safe, our home groups began bringing assorted skits, dramas, songs and dancing!
Here is the Paradise home group...

The next was the Jerusalem Group...

Everyone encouraged the performers.

After thirty minutes we took a break and ate some delicious birthday cake. It was so good!

Mama (the sweet older lady in red and her daughter whose house we are starting a new church in Engashura), loved the cake so much she and her daughter got up and started singing. She invited everyone to get up and dance, and they did! 
(To see dancing click here.)
We believe the church in Engashura will bring much life to that area.

Next up was the Monikie home group. These are some of the most talented folks we have in StoneHouse.

After their performance we introduced some of our honored guests.There was Glibson, the supervisor from Nakumat who expressed his gratitude for the dedication we had shown in teaching Nakumat's employees each and every Saturday.

Then there was Paula, the owner of May Harvest Restaurant and her staff expressing their gratitude for all the teaching her employees received each week…

Then we all devoured the feast. Thanks be to God who multiplied the food so there was plenty of for everyone.

Well that's the end of part one, we hoped you enjoyed it, and in a few days we will show part two, which begins with a wonderful skit our youth preformed called ‘The Gift of the Magi’. For those of you that know the story you will love the Kenyan flavor. If you can think of anyone else that would enjoy seeing our Celebration …put this link up on your Facebook page.  

Till then, may God richly bless you and all who love the first coming of Christ. 

From the hearts of your Kenyan Missionaries and the whole StoneHouse staff… Merry Christmas!                  
 Dave, Cynthia and the entire StoneHouse family.