Building Legacies, Transforming Lives: Our Vision for Kenya 🌍✨

 

Dear Prayer Supporters and Friends, February 2024

We are already blessed with the New Year and new plans for our ministries in Kenya. This letter looks forward to those plans in the years to come, broadening our focus in the work that He has called us to do in Kenya. We will be heading back to Kenya on February 13th as empty nesters and covet your prayers for our family and continuing ministry.

Here are some specific prayer requests as we begin on the next phase of our work in Kenya:

1. CHURCH PLANTING: Initiating the establishment of 3 new churches that have been in the planning stages during our time in the states.

2. EDUCATIONAL EXPANSION: Expanding our Bible College classes for young people and pastoral classes, welcoming around 20 more students into our programs.

3. INTERNSHIP PROGRAM: We desire to influence, train, and develop young people into the next generation of missionaries in Africa. Over our 25 years in Kenya, we have witnessed the population more than double, and there's a projection that most African countries will double again by 2050. Recognizing this, we feel a responsibility to play our part in preparing missionaries for the next generations of lost souls. The growing need for missionaries in the harvest fields of Africa encourages us to launch an Internship Program for Bible College Missions students. This program aims to integrate a student's internship with their home church alongside a 1-3 month internship in Kenya, to enhance their success on deputation and in their initial years on the field.

4. KENYA LEGACY FUND #501: The need to acquire land and build church buildings for our ministries in Kenya is becoming more pressing as our ministry is starting new churches at an accelerated pace. Approximately 12 projects require attention and focus over the next several years. Drawing inspiration from Joshua 22, where tribes on the eastern side of Jordan built an altar as a witness of unity between them and the other tribes so that the generations to come would know that they were one people, and due to the amount of money that is used during land purchase and building church buildings, we have been advised to establish the KENYA LEGACY FUND #501 at BMI for these endeavors. If your church wishes to contribute to these building projects, kindly use this account to help us avoid personal tax accounting issues.

Here are a few initial projects that we will address upon returning to the field, with most costs becoming clear as we assess the situation:

1. Bible College Dormitory Building (1st phase $5,000)

2. Temporary buildings or rent for the new churches.

3. Purchasing or leasing land for churches where needed.

For those interested in contributing more than $1,000 towards a project, please use the new account number (#501). Any questions about the projects can be directed to me via email, and I'll provide an updated list and address any inquiries. Thank you for your unwavering love for the Lord, our family, and for your dedication to serving Him.

For Souls in Kenya,

Luke & Tonya Shelby Missionaries in Kenya 

Celebrating Milestones and Spreading Joy: Our Missionary Adventures in Kenya 🌍✨

Dear Prayer Supporters and Friends,                                                  January 2024

Happy New Year to all of you! We pray that God will fill this year with His goodness in your lives.

We are so thankful for all the incredible experiences that God has blessed us to be part of in 2023, especially the moments spent with our family during the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year holiday. Your support and prayers have been a source of strength for us.

Exciting updates include our son-in-law, Robert Cepec, daughter, Abigail, and our first grandson moving to the field of Guyana this week to start their ministry.  Your prayers for them mean the world to us, and we appreciate you for the adding them to your missionary families for support.  

In December, I had privilege of returning to Kenya, reconnecting with our pastors, students, and church members. We celebrated the graduation of 29 studunts during the 4 graduation ceremonies, and we are excited for what the Lord has in store for 2024.  Already, 26 new students are starting classes this month, with more expected to join by the end of January.  

Several men from our ministry are moving into new areas to begin new ministries, and recent graduates are now stepping into leadership roles.  Please join us in praying for Edward, now ministering in his home area, and Samuel, who moved to the Maasai villages to help the church and the Bible Studies that have been started recently.

Heartfelt thanks for the generous Christmas gifts that we have received. God has faithfully met every need mentioned in our letters and prayers. We are grateful for additional churches commiting to support us and our ministries in Kenya.  Your contributions remind us of Paul’s words, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”  God is abundantly good, surpassing our expectations!  Thank you so much for everything that you do for Him!

During our time in the USA, God has continued to work in Kenya with 1,843 souls accepting Christ and 207 baptized, according to reports from our pastors and their ministries.

Please lift up prayers for the planning and setup of the new Internship Program, aiming to guide USA Bible college students and those called to preach the Gospel in Africa.  Our desire and vision is to influence the next generation of laborers for the harvest fields in Africa.

Thank you sincerely for the love you have shown to our family during this furlough, and for your Christmas offerings.

For Souls in Kenya,

Luke & Tonya Shelby

Missionaries in Kenya

 

Fruitful Furlough Update and Prayer Needs - October to November 2023 🙏

 October - November 2023

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Dear Prayer Supporters and Friends,

We want to thank you for your prayers as we have been doing a lot of traveling, reporting to churches, and getting into new churches this furlough. Several more churches have voted to take us on for support, and we are praying that they will be able to start before the end of the year. Our daughter, Breanne, and her husband, Jeremy Martin, have arrived in the States for their first furlough after spending their first term in Mongolia. They need to raise more support for the ministries that they are getting started there. They are only here for a 7-month furlough, so please pray that they can visit churches and gain their needed support.

Many of the needs that we mentioned earlier have been met by the churches that we have been in the last couple of months. We thank the Lord for the generosity of the churches and individuals that is making all of this possible for our ministry in Kenya in the coming years.

Praise the Lord, these needs have been met: Oxygen Concentrator, Bibles for graduates, English Bibles, Songbooks, Shipping, Graduation expenses for December, Camping equipment for going into the villages, Ties, and Scarves for our Bible College Students.

Please pray for my two-week trip to Kenya in December, filled with visiting churches, holding 4 separate graduations, supplying training materials to start classes for 2024, and planning some of the new church plants that will take place next year.

Our ministry requires additional financial support to keep growing. We intend to establish a new area of training in our Bible College, focusing on young people who have recently graduated high school. Up until now, our main focus has been on working with families to establish churches in their home villages. As we move forward, we hope to expand our reach by training young people to spread the word of God to areas we have yet to reach. We pray that these young people will be instruments of God's work in new villages and towns.

One of our ministry goals has been to create an internship program that will provide training to the next generation of missionaries. During this furlough, we have had the opportunity to meet with young people in several churches and Bible Colleges who are interested in this type of internship. We are praying that this will help them serve the Lord and prepare themselves for a future in missionary work. If you're interested in learning more about this program, please let me know.

Please pray for these needs in Kenya:

• Return Airfare in February - $2,500

• Chairs for church in Narok 25@$4 each = $100

• Flooring resurface for BBC in Oltepesi - $100

• Solar power backup for our house - $800

• Swahili, Luo, and Maasai Bibles 100@$6 each = $600

Thank you very much for your love for the Lord and our family and your desire to serve the Lord.

For Souls in Kenya,

Luke & Tonya Shelby

Missionaries in Kenya

✨ 🌍 Exciting Updates from Our Furlough - August-September 2023 🌍✨

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Dear Friends and Supporters,           

Thank you for your support for our family. In the last few months, we have had meetings in the states of Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Arkansas and have traveled more than 10,000 miles.  Our meetings are fully booked through November with a mixture of new churches as well as reporting to supporting churches.  We have met 13 new pastors in churches that were already supporting us.  We thank the Lord for the young men in the next generation who have taken the mantle to carry on the work of the Lord.

We were able to be in 8 new churches in the last few months, and six of them voted to take us on for support. And the others will see if they can support us soon. We have one church that took us on through correspondence with them and two others reinstated our support after making personal contact with them since we have been back.  Including the one new church in June that took us on for support, nine churches have partnered with us through their support since we began furlough.  We thank the Lord for your prayers and for these new partnering churches in their willingness to give to the work of God in Kenya.

Our Bible College in Kenya has finished the second term exams with our 72 students; we are entering their grades and preparing for the final classes that will be taught during the third term leading up to our graduation, which is scheduled for the first part of December. The pastors and students are busy serving in their local churches, seeing souls saved, and the churches are growing.

Another Bible Study opened in the village of Ilkerin, out of our second Maasai church that was started in 2021, and there are more than 10 adults that are meeting under a tree in the village of Ilkerin every Sunday. Please pray for them to be grounded well in the Word of God during this time of Bible Study so that a new church can be started early next year.  A plot has already been designated by the leaders of the village to build the church when we are ready!

Our youngest daughter, Kay-Leigh, has moved into the single teachers’ dorms for our home church’s Christian school in Arkansas. She is teaching one of the K3 classes this year, plus taking a full load of Bible College via online studies. Please pray for her during all the adjustments of living on her own while managing her work and class schedules. She is also involved in our home church's bus ministry, children’s programs, and choir. We appreciate your prayers for her, our family, and our ministries in Kenya!

For Souls in Kenya,

Luke & Tonya Shelby

📣 Shelby Family in Kenya - June-July 2023 Prayer Letter & New Bible Study Started 📣

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Thank you for your prayers for our family, and thank you for your offerings for Caleb and Kay-Leigh for their graduations and Caleb’s internship. We have been able to have our annual medical check-ups with mostly good results, Tonya has been able to complete her first round of infusions and will get another round this Fall, and we will have a few more follow-up appointments to take care of later in the year. Please pray that all these visits continue to go well. 

We have started traveling, reporting to supporting churches, and visiting some new churches to raise some needed support. We already have 13 new churches scheduled, but we would like to be in 20 new churches as the Lord allows. We have two churches that have taken us on already, and we are thankful for that. Our goal is to raise an additional $500 - $1,000 in new support. This support will be used in new church plants, travel, and our Bible College.  

Since returning to the USA for furlough, our home church has gone through a transition, with Dr. Mike Files retiring as pastor; and with Dr. Jason Watford being voted in as our new pastor. We have stayed close to the church during this transition in case we needed to help in any way. The transition has gone very well, and we are excited to work with our new Pastor. There is a renewed excitement in the church; and we thank the Lord for His leadership through this transition.

Caleb received good training during his Spring internship in Israel, and he has started his missionary internship at our home church, Bible Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Arkansas. He will have another opportunity for a second internship in Israel and live with a family there for a couple months this Fall. Please pray that the Lord would continue to give him direction in this next phase of his life.

We are excited about how the Lord is continuing to work in the Maasai communities.  From the second Maasai church the Lord allowed us to start in 2021 near the Tanzanian border in the village of Oltepesi, people have been visiting from surrounding villages, and more have been saved from the village of Ilkerin.  In June, a new Bible Study was started and is being led by David, who just recently got saved.  Please pray as David is discipled and is passing on what he is taught to the others in his village.  “And I sought for a man among them...” Ezekiel 22:30. Praise the Lord for what He is doing!

We have a burden for the next generation of missionaries, and specifically the need for missionaries in Africa. We are praying that the Lord will open the doors in Bible Colleges, Youth Groups, and Youth Camps to be able to present this burden. Please contact us if there is an opportunity near you, and we will make arrangements to come if it is near where we will be traveling for meetings throughout this year.

Please pray  that we can raise funds for these needs during our furlough:
Stationary Oxygen Concentrator unit for Tonya -$1,500
Bibles & books for our Bible College Graduates - $3,000
Shipping expenses for donated items - $2,000
Gathering donations to take to Kenya: 
Used English hymnbooks
Ties for our Pastors and Bible College students

Thank you very much for your prayers and support for our family and ministry.

Luke & Tonya Shelby
Missionaries in Kenya

Caleb's Internship Information

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“Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.”—Romans 10:1

I am thrilled at the opportunity to participate in the fulfilling of the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:6-7: “For

there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God. For thus saith the LORD; Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O LORD, save thy people, the remnant of Israel.” As a follower of Jesus Christ, I desire to be a watchman for the remnant of Israel both here at home and abroad.

My name is Caleb Shelby, and I was born and raised in Kenya, East Africa with my three sisters for eighteen years by the two most wonderful, godly parents Luke and Tonya Shelby, missionaries to Kenya. At the age of seven, I had the opportunity to accept Christ as my personal Savior. I went to my mother and told her that I needed to be saved, and she showed me from a soul-winning booklet that I was a sinner, that I deserved to die because of my sin, but that Jesus came to the earth to die on the cross to pay for my sin, and that all I needed to do was to ask God to forgive me of my sin and take me to Heaven when I die. I prayed to God for salvation there in our family room on Sunday, June 29, 2008. Several years later, God put the burden on my heart to do what He wanted me to do; therefore, I began to pray for His will for my life. On Wednesday, July 12, 2017, God called me to preach and be a missionary to the Jews (of whom the most densely populated region is Israel). It was through the book of Romans that God showed me and confirmed His will for my life with a focus on Romans 10:1.

After finishing high school and graduating from Jacksonville Christian Academy, I entered Bethel Baptist College to continue my Biblical studies. Both institutions are ministries of my home church Bible Baptist Church under the leadership of Pastor Mike Files where I am happily involved in serving the Lord as a weekly bus captain, Sunday School and Children’s Church teacher, usher, and choir member. Now having finished four years of Bible college with a Bachelor’s Degree in Pastoral Theology and Missions and awaiting my graduation this May, I have the opportunity to take a couple internship trips to Israel this year.

I am trusting God to raise $7,000 for both of these internships combined. The funds will include two domestic flights, two round-trip tickets to Israel, living expenses while there, and aid for the hosting missionaries and mission projects. I pray that you would consider partnering with me in prayer and financial support as I continue to seek for the avenue in which God would have me to fulfill His will for my life. Should you choose to partner with me financially, any support can be sent to my home church’s address: Bible Baptist Church, c/o Caleb Shelby, 3301 North First Street, Jacksonville, AR 72076. If you have any questions, feel free to call me at (501) 457-1776 or email me at caleb@shelbysinkenya.org. Thank you tremendously for undergirding me in your prayers this year. I look forward to reporting what the Lord does in my heart and in the hearts of those to whom we minister.

In Christ the Messiah, 

Caleb Shelby

Micah 6:8

May 2023 📣 Shelby Family in Kenya - May Graduations & other Happenings 📣

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Hello from the Shelby Family. Thank you for your prayers for our travel back to the States for furlough.  We have been able to see most of our family and catch up with friends in our home church in Jacksonville, Arkansas. We are also getting our presentation, display board, and prayer cards updated. We will be able to send these out to you and have them available on our website as soon as we get them finished. We are also getting our medical check-ups and appointments started with Luke’s physiotherapy and Tonya’s B-12 and Iron infusions. We are thankful that getting appointments are much easier than it was shortly after Covid.  Please pray that Tonya will be able to get all of the treatments that she needs because her levels were really low upon our arrival, since it has been several years since her last full course of treatments due to the problems with travel and restrictions during the Covid years.  

This month we will be having two graduations, first, Caleb will be graduating from Bethel Baptist College with a Bachelor degree on May 7th, and he will then take part in a couple of internships with Jewish Awareness Missions and IBJM.  He will be very busy and will use these opportunities to start moving in the next steps of following the will of God for his life. Please pray that God will open doors and give guidance and wisdom through these opportunities. We have attached a letter from him explaining these opportunities.

Also, Kay-Leigh, our last one at home will be graduating from Jacksonville Christian Academy on may 12th, here at our home church and will be able to travel with us for the summer. She is praying about the direction on College and other steps in her life. Please remember her in prayer. Her graduation announcement is also attached.

We plan to return to Kenya in February 2024. If you would like us to schedule a meeting while in your area, please send us a message by e-mail (mail@shelbysinkenya.org) as soon as possible, and we will work out the dates.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support for our family and ministry.

For Souls in Kenya,

Luke & Tonya Shelby