The BigDent website is a one-stop spot where you can learn about CMF’s microfinance and development efforts in Nairobi, Kenya, read the stories of the entrepreneurs and make online donations to assist them in starting their new businesses. The blog will be yet another facet of the total experience that features photos, stories, videos and information to help you connect with this unique project.

“The new blog is designed to inspire and further inform you about our microfinance and holistic development efforts in Nairobi,” said Kent Fillinger, CMF’s Associate Director of Projects + Partnerships, and one of the blog writers. “We anticipate that it will be interesting, thought-provoking and enjoyable to read. Regular post contributors will include CMF team members plus occasional guest bloggers. We hope you will connect with our blog each week and share the message of BigDent with your network of friends and family.”

Topics included how God uses a woman in ministry, weaving missions into women’s ministry, the power of small group giving, and being used as a missions volunteer. Conversations provided practical ways that these leaders could in turn challenge the women of their churches with positive results. Participants also purchased jewelry from the Hope Partnership Skills Workshop, Nairobi, which helps women from the Mathare slum.

Although CMF does not have any missionaries working in Haiti, two of our partner organizations, FAME and IDES, have extensive ties in this poorest nation in the western hemisphere. FAME (Fellowship of Associates of Medical Evangelism) reports on its website that it has “received updates from most of our partners and they are safe, but report much destruction of their facilities.” FAME will be involved in both relief efforts in Haiti and long-term reconstruction.

The IDES (International Disaster Emergency Services) website shares that “Lifeline Christian Mission, Christianville, and Christian Mission South Haiti have all suffered some structural damage. By God’s grace, no one was seriously injured on their premises. However, we have heard reports of injuries and lives lost within the Christian Church/Church of Christ community in and around Port-au-Prince. One of our partner missions in Gonaives is preparing to send Haitian volunteers into the affected area to render assistance.” IDES anticipates that it will be working with multiple partners in Haiti.

Your donations for relief work through both of these agencies will be greatly appreciated. To donate, go to www.fameworld.org or www.ides.org.

“I’m writing this on the way home from this month’s LifeSpring mission trip to the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. It’s hard to describe the Mathare slum. Eight hundred thousand people live in shacks made of corrugated steel with dirt floors. Lacking city services, there are no sewers, so the dirt paths between the shanties double as sewers. If I had enough space here I could describe the scene. I could never describe the smell.

“It doesn’t take long to be attacked by the darkness of Mathare. At the entrance to the part where our partner church is located is one of the thousand informal bars that sprinkle the slums. Men shovel grain into a large pot over an outdoor fire where they brew the moonshine they drink all day. Eyes glazed over, brains fried, they are the picture of despair and a symbol of Mathare.

“ ‘Daily bread’ means something different here. We talk with Suzanne, a beautiful young African woman. She supports her two children, her sister and her infant daughter, and their mother — a smaller household than in many of Mathare’s minuscule huts. She was trained as a secretary, but can’t find a job. She used to live in a flat with her husband, but he died a couple of years ago. She didn’t say it was AIDS, but she didn’t have to. As the sole support for the household, Suzanne sells bananas in the morning and sells herself in the evening. It’s not that she wants to be a prostitute — she despises it — but she has mouths to feed.

“There are no words to describe how bad the living conditions are in Mathare; neither are there words to describe how good the ministry is that our partners are doing. On Sunday morning we enjoyed a church service of more than three hours. They brought together the eighth-graders from the Missions of Hope schools to pray for them in preparation for the three‑day national exam to determine high school admissions — a big deal in Kenya.

“The Missions of Hope schools began nine years ago with a group of three-year-olds, so this was the first graduating class from the schools. The students appeared sharp and ready. Some will likely qualify for the best high schools in Kenya. Knowing where they came from, we sat and watched in tears.

“The LifeSpring team worked hard. Four nurses, a doctor, a counselor, two homemakers, two artists, a couple of college students, a seventh-grader, and a software guy presented a VBS for 465 kids, held a medical clinic for 862 patients, and painted a four-story mural on the school building.

“At the end of the week the kids presented a two-hour program of songs, skits and poems for us, and it was absolutely amazing! Even more amazing was that 100 feet from where they sang about the goodness of God were their homes — the Mathare shanties. After a while you quit wiping the tears; you just let them run.

“On our last day there we attended a baptismal service for 160 people at a swimming pool. Those on this side of the New Birth really are different. They speak of a God who is good, and they smile a lot.  There is hope in Mathare.”

The first work group came from the Tomoka Christian Church of Ormond Beach, Florida. Before they arrived, only a few partial walls and the main auditorium floor had been completed. The team went to work on the bathrooms, with the goal of pouring the floor. Due to the sheer amount of preparatory work that was needed, however, the floor-pouring had to be delayed. The team did get almost all of the prep work done for the bathroom floor, poured several columns and put in a retaining wall in the parking area. They also took down a tree that was in the way of the building’s new second floor.

The second work team came from Whitewater Christian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio. They arrived just in time to finish the preparation for the bathroom floor and pour it. The team members also served in the homework and English clubs at the Eagles Church and laid sod at team members’ Casey and Terri Hancock’s home.

The third team, from Willamette Christian Church of West Linn, Oregon, cut and built supports for the wooden forms that would be used to pour the second floor. Some of these supports were 10 feet high. This complicated and time-consuming process also involved tying rebar to reinforce certain areas of the floor. The team also cut down 11 trees, cut and put up many plywood forms and painted the large metal columns.

A Mexican crew completed the actual pouring after the teams had to leave. It will be dry in about two weeks, and then the supports can be taken down. In the meantime, the crew is beginning lay the brick for the second-floor walls.

None of this would have been possible without the work of the tireless volunteers, according to CMF missionary Steve Carpenter. “None of our teams complained about anything,” he wrote. “And in fact, they kept asking me for more work to do when the job they were doing was done. But that’s the spirit of a team that’s here to serve.”

Northside Christian Church met in a home for many years before buying property for a building a couple years ago. They have been building it in phases with the help of short-term teams ever since. To see photos of the work progress please go to http://picasaweb.google.com/sknbcarp

Preventable diseases such as pneumonia, dysentery, malaria, measles, HIV, pertusis and tetanus kill 29,000 children under the age of 5 every day, according to a UNICEF report. Globally, 10.6 million children are still dying from preventable causes every year. FAME is engaged in the battle to decrease the incidence of the seven most preventable illnesses through community health initiatives in developing countries and by mobilizing short-term teams of American workers to provide health care and teaching.

For more information about FAME and the “Run for Their Lives,” go to FAME’s website. To register for the run, click here.

IDES recently donated $20,000 to CMF’s East African Famine Relief Fund for drought relief projects in Kenya and Tanzania. For more about that project, see the July 1, 2009, post to this column below, “IDES assists Tanzania Relief Work.”

IDES has partnered with CMF several times recently to meet emergencies in Africa, including funds for a water project in Turkana and Maasai famine relief.

All of northern Tanzania is experiencing the effects of the drought, Scott says. Neighbors near the CMF mission center just outside of Arusha have planted three or four times this year with no crops to harvest due to the lack of rain. “Things are looking bleak,” Scott writes.

The government is helping by giving each family 22 pounds (10 kg.) of maize, but that is just a drop in the bucket. The CMF team members – Scott and Annelle Price, Ron and Jane Ann Richmond, and Gary and Judy Woods — are trying to help their neighbors near the mission station by offering daily rations of 1/4 kg. maize, 1/4 kg. beans, and a small amount of cooking oil to 71 families for three months. The team has used the funds received through CMF’s East African Famine Relief Fund to feed the 705 children who attend six schools in Matale, a site in northern Tanzania where the team has planted several churches. These funds are coming to an end, reports Scott, and the team has been asked to not only help these kids for an additional three months but also others who no doubt will die because of the lack of food.

IDES is stepping up to help the team respond to these critical needs with a generous donation of $20,000. This is not the first time IDES has assisted with emergencies in Africa; in the recent past they have donated funds for a water project in Turkana, Maasai famine relief and several other projects. Their help is greatly appreciated especially by those whose lives are helped, perhaps even saved, by the resources given.