Pastor Willis, United Hope International—KENYA

About
United Hope International is a Jesus Christ centered church, orphanage, school, and outreach for poor children, widows, and orphans in Western Part Kenya a few Kilometers from Lake Victoria.  As you may know, this is one of the most beautiful lands in Kenya, with a great people who are proud of our heritage and our history- but it is also one of the poorest, and it has been ravaged by AIDS leaving many orphans and widows within our community.  We grew up here—Pastor Willis, along with my wife Maureen and our two children (and one on the way – Praise God!).  We were called to help these people and to be Jesus’ hands and feet.

God started this adventure to support His children in this area with us back in 2012. The pictures tell some of the story…and seeing them growing to teens and adults and Nurturing their Spiritual talents is our biggest blessings.  
God also provided the vision and resources for us to start a primary school, which has been running for the last 10 years.  Today we provide shelter, support (water, food, and medicine), and Christian schooling for 45 orphans (Yes- we LOVE kids!). We also focus on the widows in our community who have been left alone due to deaths from the long running AIDS epidemic. We reach out to many more children and widows weekly who are under home based care. 
Having had to struggle for my own education (Pastor Willis), we also felt the need to seek sponsorships for continuing education of our primary school students. You may be interested to know that like many Kenyans, I had to leave school several times due to lack of money. My parents were primary school teachers and their combined salaries of US$105 monthly would not cover our family meals. I was blessed to meet a Good Samaritan (a widow – Greta Lindasay) who provided the money for me to finish a degree at Africa International University (AIU). 
(AIU is a chartered Christian university. It was started as Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (NEGST) in 1983 by the Association of Evangelicals in Africa.)
By the way, this school building is also the setting for our Church weekly services that draw believers and worshippers from our surrounding community. 
Like all Christians, our lives have never been the same since the Holy Spirit thru Jesus Christ came into our hearts and led us into this amazing adventure. You know how amazing that is—thrilling!   
 
Thank you for reading this. If we can pray for you, please let us know. We are very attentive to our incoming email as we converse almost daily with our sister church in America: Londonderry, New Hampshire (OCF). Having visited and stayed with friends at OCF in the Northeast US, we have witnessed the amazing prosperity that lies in America, and we appreciate the giving hearts there. Yes, we deal with many challenges here in Kenya, and we see God everywhere here in our homeland! It is truly amazing how He takes care of His children.  If we can pray for you—again, let us know.  

And if you feel drawn to share with us, we both will be blessed. I do believe it was an American who coined the phrase, “You can’t outgive God.”