Leroy and Mary coming home

Hello to everybody.
We want to thank everyone again for your prayers and the donations to our ministry. I know it is a bit early for the newsletter, but Mary and I will be leaving Kenya Sept. 23rd (next week) for Alaska. We will try to visit as many as possible while we are home. We have been able to send another truck load of maize into the Kasei area to ease the famine a bit. It is preventing as much starvation as we can. The problem with famine is still very real. We will continue to fight starvation! Many of the children are eating dirt to fill their bellies. This opens a brand new avenue for disease and infections. Simple things we take for granted like vegetablesthat they need for protein just aren’t there. One bright spot though is that Kathy Tierney, a Nurse, has arrived to take our place while we are in the States. She has opened a Clinic on the veranda of the Mission House at Kamketo. She has a friend named Jennifer McClain who is a emergency room Nurse who will spendthe month of October assisting Kathy with the clinic. Two men who are also Christians from the church that Kathy attends in Redmond Oregon are coming to help in late October. Redmond Christian Church is helping to sponsor all of them for this project. May God Bless in every thing they do. Mary and I will be staying at the home of Anita Cork in Wasilla Alaska. Anita is going to do some traveling while we are there to watch the house. Our phone number will be 907-376-7875 if you need to contact us. Our email address will be the same. Our P.O. Box 873825,Wasilla, Alaska, 99687, would love to hear from you. We do want to visit with friends and relatives in the lower 48. Don’tknow how or when we will be able to do this, but I am sure the Lord will work it out. I think we have some air miles saved up, don’t know how far it will take us, so if you have any frequent flyer miles you are not using we could sure use the help. Most of Mary’s family live in Alaska, but she, like me, has relatives all over the U.S.A. We have Churches that have helped support us that we need to report first hand what we have done the last year. Mary and Kathy will pick out some photos to send. We ask you to share them with folks who don’t have a computer. We want all of you to know it is a real blessing for Mary and I to get to serve the Lord in this way. Your help to us is the extended hand of GOD. We praise you for that too. LOVE YOU ALL, HOPE TO SEE YOU SOON, Leroy, Mary and Kathy

Kathy Tierney - Missionary

Dear supporters. I received this letter this morning from Kathy in West Pokot , Kenya. She has sacrificed her time , money, heart and effort to come to the people there and minister healing and love from the big heart the Lord has blessed her with. Please pray for Kathy and Jim. We need more servants like these two wonderful saints to give themselves to the people God has entrusted to our care. Leroy and Mary are coming home in a few weeks to Alaska for a sabbatical. Pray for their safe journey and the open doors God will provide to share their work and need for the people of West Pokot.

Hi there dear friends of the Pokot. This morning in church service I shared with the people that I left my heart here years ago when I lived here...I came back to get it, it was still here, with them. I see many cases of malaria, lots of worms, TB, babies with dehydration, skin diseases such as scabies and ring worm are common...I am seeing some malnutrition as well...there is always something that needs to be done. The Hawns are always busy getting those things done. The people here love these folks - Leroy and Mary - and so do I. I am not certain where the Lord will lead my husband and I...we have always wanted to come back to live and work...the Lord would need to prepare and coordinate many things for that to happen but His great wisdom has done that many times in our lives. We are blessed to be close to retirement and the freedom to be used full time is something we pray about in earnest. It would be a blessing to have trained Pokot here to take care of the medical needs of their people as well as take care of the other needs. I believe that being a missionary is the only job we try to work ourselves out of...to establish strong hearts for Jesus and faith in Him and then to have the folks here take over is what we missionaries try to do. There are many things being done to that end but will be some time in the future before that is accomplished. Please pray with my husband Jim and i about this opportunity to come and serve full time. He will be 61 soon and could retire at 62. Until then I am open to coming for this two months at a time and he is ready to take his vacation time each year to come and build relationships again...continue to pray that these folks hear and receive the hope of our Lord and King Jesus! Blessings in His name..Kathy Tierney

Kathy Tierney, Nursing for the people

Kathy Tierney dresses the wound on a young Pokot Boy's foot, and provides care for a mother and her child. We thank the Lord for Kathy's dedication and love for the Pokot people and her willingness to sacrifice and come to help us. In the new mission house at Kamaketo, hundreds of people came - many from remote villages when the word went out that a Christian American nurse had arrived to minister to the people and work to allieviate their suffering. We take for granted that our chiuldren can have wounds cleaned and tended, that our children can live without parasites and worms eating up their little insides, and that our children will live to grow and someday have families of their own. In this remote area of West Pokot, Kenya, parents do not know these things. Every day is a struggle for survival, and health is often difficult to sustain.

If you can - write to Kathy and tell her how much you appreciate her work and sacrifice, and if God has blessed you and your family, please give what you can so we can supply medication, bandages and life giving care to the people of West Pokot.

Food for the Starving

Dear Friends,
We are back in Kitale for a short time and then it will be back to the Bush. We have worked very hard to bring much needed food to those hardest hit by the famine that is rocking Kenya at this time. Though we provided seed for planting in season, the ensuing drought wiped out much of it and we find ourselves again asking for help so that the people we are serving in the West Pokot area do not starve to death. Already we've lost several people and it breaks my heart to see the families that worship in our 18 HIM churches with hungry children. The pleading eyes of the parents say it all....and we cannot turn them away. Praise God we've been able with your support to provide one hundred, 90 kilo bags of maize (corn) to the people this week ! A 90 kilo bag is about 200 lbs, and costs us $42 to purchase. Then we have to spend the money to transport it to the people - about $500. So far we've been able to make a real difference and see lives saved with your generosity. The Kenya government is also trying to help -as well as many other world health organizations. They just don't get much up to the people of Pokot. The pastors are distributing the maize 5 kilos per family (about 11 lbs of corn). It is amazing that for a gift of only $42 you can feed 18 families, maybe saving them from starvation.

Kathy Tierney, the nurse who worked with us many years ago and is joining the casue here again, has arrived and is already making a wonderful impact in the lives of the Pokot people. Sunday and Mondy she set up a medical clinic at the Mission house in Kamaketo and the people lined up in droves. We did not keep count but certainly over 400 people were seen; malaria, worms, pneumonia, burns, Burselosis (from drinking bad milk), scabies, ring worm and TB were some of the many problems she saw. What a blessing Kathy is to the people as she shows the love of Christ in action though her healing hands. Kathy shows her faith in action!

Love, blessings, and peace from West Pokot. Leroy, Mary and (thank the Lord!) Kathy