Exciting Vision MOVE UPDATE!

We had Vision MOVE lunch at the Church on Sunday the 12th to thank the Congregation for their contribution to the vision to move the Church to Ukunda! We are happy to announce that we have already reached the halfway mark towards the 2 Million Shillings to buy the 2 acre land at Kona Ya Musa.  The Word of Life Congregation have raised 1 million Kenya shillings and we PRAISE the ALMIGHTY God for this great thing He has done for the Church through His people. 

The Congregation was also asked to recommit and pledge again this year so we can raise the money we need to finish paying the remaining 1Million. We pray that God will provide for His people so that His people can give to His Work so that the Gospel presence can be felt more strongly in this place that it is so desperately needed! 

Thank you for everyone who has participated and continues to participate in this Vision to Move the Church to Ukunda! May the Lord richly bless you as you responded to this really amazing and exciting Vision!

Letter From the Pastor!

Dear Word of Life Fellowship Church Members, 

Praise God! I pray that this note finds you well and blessed. Last year we introduced Vision MOVE to you – the Vision of Moving the church to Ukunda where the Church can strategically be situated to minister to the Community in more tangible ways.

After much prayer and searching for land we found one in Kona ya Musa. The 2 acre piece of land was valued at a reasonable price of 1 million per acre. I am proud to announce to the glory of God that we have raised One Million shilling to secure the first acre. This was possible because of your faithful, generous, consistent and sacrificial giving to this course.

I would like to personally thank you so much for your obedience to this call that I believe to be God’s will for our church. You have responded well and I pray that the Lord will bless you and your family as we continue to wait on Him to see the great and mighty things He will do for our church as you continue to give generously to this vision.

Thank you again very much for giving!

Sincerely Grateful, Your Pastor

Rev. Dennis Omondi

Senior Pastor, Word of Life Fellowship Church 

VISION MOVE UPDATES

The Church wrote a Ksh.250,000.00 check to the land owners last Sunday. This brings the total of the sum paid to Ksh.850,000.00 and the balance to Ksh.1,150,000.00 to the glory of God! 

Praise God with us, Pray for us and GIVE generously to God's work with us. 

Email  us  for more information on other updates and how you can support the Vision Move project! Thank you to all who have prayed and given generously to this cause!

Vision MOVE Dinner

What a beautiful night it was - let the pictures speak for themselves!

Mingling and Ice breaking

Chairman Vision MOVE Committee addressing those who attended

The ladies looked good 

Allison and Daniel Muthee

Melissa and baby Charis

Marcy and Chris 

Kids playing by the Beach on the Sand

Key Note Speaker - Peter Odanga 

The Setting at Coral Beach Cottages

Victor and Kitosh

Musili (LEFT) the Chairman of the Dinner organisation Committee

Eric and Mrs!

The welcoming Committee

VISION MOVE UPDATES

Dinner:

Exciting things are happening on the Vision MOVE front! The leadership of Vision MOVE in conjunction with some Word of Life Fellowship Church members put together a dinner at the Coral Cottages on the night of April 16th 2011 to fund raise for the Vision MOVE project. 

The dinner cost per person is Ksh.600 ($7.50) and the proceeds will go towards buying the land where the future Word of Life Fellowship Church will be. 

Please pray with us as we look forward to that day that it will well attended and that people will well informed and updated on the reasons why we feel strongly that the Church should reside within the community. 

There will also be a Keynote speaker to speak on the topic of various relationships including marriage, singleness etc

MAJOR FUNDRAISER:

Vision MOVE committee is also planning a major fundraiser in July to offset the debt (currently at 1.4 Million or $17,500) that we owe on the land. Pray that the day will be successful and that our church members will not be tired of toiling for Jesus in faithful giving. 

Welcome to Vision MOVE

Why MOVE:

Most people when they hear about the Vision MOVE always ask the question why move from such a beautiful location right on the shores of the Indian Ocean? Well, if comfort and prestige was our motivation for ministry in the Ukunda area we would have stayed at our current location and never move at all, but praise God it is not.

• The motivation to move first and fore most is to fulfill our vision of Edifying People to Glorify God. We long to see the people who attend the WOLFC equipped to reach our community of Ukunda with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe that for this to happen more effectively the church need to be visible in community of Ukunda. At the moment that is not the case.

• Secondly majority of the people who attend our church live not at the beach but in the Ukunda area. Most people in our church commute for up to an hour to get to the church mostly because they have to wait a long  time for the public commuter vans plying the Beach Roads.

• Most importantly we believe that if Jesus left the comforts of heaven to reach us where we were then it's not uncharacteristic of us His followers to leave the comforts of the Beach Front atmosphere and all the prestige it carries to go to the people of Ukunda where they are at.

Pastor's Message

In a church like ours there might be a tendency to look at giving with a negative eye and communicate it to the congregation with a pinch of fear and guilt.

Here are some of  the things that have stood out as I have studied....

First, giving is a spiritual discipline that is not optional for believers. We are all called to participate in giving as the Lord has blessed us and to give with a cheerful spirit, not out of obligation but out of our love for God.

In OT, one of the ways God ensured that His people were consistent in communion and fellowship with Him was through giving, which involved sacrifice of animals, birds, flour, oils, drinks, wine, money etc

For those of you who have time (and I hope it is all of us) please read Numbers 28 and 29. In these chapters the people of God were to go to Him with their sacrifice daily (28:3-8), weekly (28:9-10), monthly (28:11-15), and yearly (28:16—29:38).

Let me do the math for us to see what they gave every year: the priests sacrificed 113 bulls, 32 rams, and 1086 lambs and offered more than a ton of flour and a thousand bottles of oil and wine. The question is, are we willing to give this much, or are these just numbers in a Holy Book?

As I was reading, this helped me to think more about how God is not only concerned with preserving His work through our giving (which is what we heavily bend towards in fund-raising) but also and maybe more importantly, in preserving our RELATIONSHIP with Him. When the Israelites made the journey to the temple daily, weekly, monthly and yearly they were acknowledging that their lives and possessions did not belong to them but to God.

There are two phrases that caught my attention and were very convicting as I looked at the way I give to the Lord: “An aroma pleasing to the Lord “and “without defect”. These were the two things that were to characterize their sacrifices.  

In summary I/we have to ask the question- Am I giving God the best or am I giving Him a sacrifice without the pleasing aroma and full of defects?

Application:

One: I am guilty of focusing my giving to the advancing of the kingdom of God without cultivating my relationship with Him.  What I need to do is to learn not to do one at the expense of the other. To understand that my effectiveness in building and advancing the kingdom of God will depend heavily on my relationship with Him for apart from Him I can do nothing.

The kingdom of God cannot be advanced by giving only and it cannot be advanced by relating to God without engaging the world – both have to be done for us to be successful – giving for advancing the Kingdom and giving as a way to move towards God with all that we have.

Two: I/we need to focus on my/our relationship with God and my/our passion to see His kingdom advanced in Ukunda by looking at giving as an act of worship and a movement towards Him.

My giving should be a reflection of my relationship with God and not my relationship with my wallet – which usually is the case. It MUST be without defect and an Aroma pleasing to the Lord!

My giving should not be informed by what others are giving but by what the Lord has given me. I should not compare myself with others and I do not need a pace-setter in my giving because God has blessed us differently. Some are blessed to give bulls, others goats, others oil and flour etc.

We are to give out of the abundance of what God has given US not what He has given someone else.

So I pray as we give towards Vision Move/the church it will be a giving that is characterized by two things: “An Aroma Pleasing to the Lord” and “Without Defect”.

May the Lord bless us and help us to keep this vision that He has put in our hearts ALIVE and about HIM.