Christmas is coming!

Christmas greetings from the Kennys from Aaron & Erica Kenny on Vimeo.

Women helping women

Members of the CBM Pamoja team meeting with 

SHG members in Kariobangi, Nairobi.

As the Kenyan proverb says, "Talking with one another is loving one another." The importance of sharing our lives together is at the heart of the self-help group movement that Erica and her CBM team have been investing in over the past eleven years.

Our colleague Andre Sibomana often says that you cannot love your neighbour until you move close to them. Being close to our neighbours about more than proximity. It is about opening our lives and taking time to listen and discover our common experiences.

Over the next two days, the CBM Pamoja team are meeting with Christian and Muslim women within the CBM Self Help Groups in Nairobi as they learn about the power of the SHG model to bring about sustainable change and hope in the lives of vulnerable communities. Above all they are taking the time to demonstrate the love of Jesus through talking together about faith and life. 

SHG members sharing about their experience of working together

Since 2009, hundreds of SHG groups have been formed through the CBM urban program in communities like Eastleigh, Pangani, Haruma, Garissa, Kiya-Michael, and Kariobangi. The Ark sisters which formed in 2017 is apart of a current network of 11 groups in the community of Kariobangi. 

The Kariabango SHGs were started in 2013 and has been a fruitful area for nurturing healthy Christian and Muslim relationships. We are so grateful for our great team and local partners. They are navigating many challenges that are affecting the daily life of this neighbourhood, from lack of proper sanitation and clean water to insecurity.

CBM Urban team members Laura, Patrick, Erica and Aaron

Despite the difficulties of a place like Kariobangi, we continually witness the power of faith and friendship bringing joy and strength to the people of this community. Throughout our meetings, we could hear the laughter of children playing outside as the women shared with us their stories. Your prayers and support are making a lasting impact upon these women and their families. 

One common thread through the stories has been the importance of sisterhood. Women helping women through struggles and hardship. Women helping women through the lows and the highs. Women coming together to raise their common experience of life.

Fay Renolds bringing home some of the beautiful handmade bags 

from members of the Ark Sisters SHG

The problems that face the world's urban poor are complex. There is no simple solution to wiping away poverty, injustice, or violence, but we believe that in the brokenness of the world that God is moving and drawing all people to the life that God intended for us all.

Advent is a season that reminds that in the darkness, in the loneliness, and in the desperate experiences of life, that light is not extinguished. God is drawing near and even in the lowliest of places hope will be born. 

Brenda, Erica, and Linda at the Ark School

Please join us in praying for the women of the self-help group programs in Nairobi, and for their families. We continue to remember the hundreds of thousands of refugee families that are living in the slums of Africa's cities, and for the local churches that are called to be the hands and feet of Christ to their neighbours.

Bringing the Gift of Clean Water this Advent

Brenda and Erica with the second of four water filter distributions from CBM's Hopeful Gifts for Change program. Today twenty-two women received training and ceramic water filtration systems for their families in the Kariobangi slum of Nairobi.

Once again, we want to share our sincere gratitude to everyone who has contributed to this important program. To learn more please visit www.hopefulgifts.ca

Pamoja Means Together

November 2018 Pamoja Conference

Thika, Kenya.

Over this coming week, Canadian Baptist Ministries and the African Christian Church & Schools are hosting the Pamoja Conference. For the past two years, Canadian and Kenya women pastors and Christian leaders have been partnering in mutual prayer and encouragement through the Pamoja program. It has been such a wonderful joy to finally see members of this group coming together for fellowship, sharing, and learning as they reflect on the blessings and on the unique challenges of being a woman in ministry.

The Canadian representatives leading songs of worship

After two days of orientation and getting over jetlag, the Canadian Pamoja SENT team participated in Sunday worship with one of the local ACC&S churches in Nairobi. Along with joining local churches over these two Sundays, the team will be facilitating the Pamoja Conference, meeting with women's groups in the Nairobi urban self-help group program, and with farming groups in the rural food security project in Embu.

Rev. Fay Renolds preaching at ACC&S Zimmerman

Moderator Ngumo with Anne Drost

As we kicked off the Pamoja Conference today, we were blessed to have ACC&S moderator Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Ngumo officially open the gathering. Under the moderator's leadership, the ACC&S has moved to fully ordain women to ministry and celebrated the ordination of their first woman reverend in March of this year. 

The moderator announced today that on December 30th during the 70th Anniversary Celebration of the ACC&S, the denomination will be ordaining 30 women to full-time Christian ministry. This is a historic development for the Church which is setting a strong example for other partner denominations.

Brenda Halk thanking Moderator Ngumo

Fun at Tea Time!

Linda and Erica

Wonderful interactions amongst the group, 

here are a few more pictures from the first day.

Please join us in praying for the Pamoja group and for the team joining us from Canada. We also pray for the ACC&S as they prepare for the celebration of their 70th Anniversary and for unity as they seek to carry forth the hope of Christ into their communities.

Anne, Brenda. Mimi, Lola, Fay, Brenda, Erica, and Linda

Christmas Update Video 2018

For our December update video, we are delighted to share a brief interview with our friend and new deputy team leader Andre Sibomana. Along with talking about some of his hopes for his new role with CBM's Africa team, Andre describes his own Christmas traditions in Rwanda.

Thank you for so much for your prayers and support for the ministries of CBM. Please feel free to download and share this 8-minute video. Andre, like all of CBM's field staff, relies on the financial support of partners in mission who are committed to the shared mission of Canadian Baptists around the world. If you would be interested in becoming a partner with Andre, please visit our website at www.cbmin.org or use this link.

We pray that you have a wonderful Advent as you participate in the love and hope of Christ's story for the world.

Thank you for the Gift of Clean Water

Sharing hopeful gifts in Eastleigh, Nairobi!

This Advent, a hundred families living in the vulnerable communities of Nairobi are receiving much-needed water filtration systems purchased thanks to contributions from churches and individuals from across Canada.

We want to thank everyone who has participated in the 2017 Hopeful Gifts for Change Christmas catalog program. Your generosity is transforming the lives of families around the world, who are encountering the love and hope of Christ through the words and deeds of ministries like the Urban Self Help Group project in Nairobi.

Through the CBM Christmas gift catalog, you are able to purchase tangible gifts from sending a child to school to providing a calf or pig to a struggling family in a rural village. Over the years, we have witnessed first hand the profound impact that these gifts make in bringing hope and joy into the lives of people across Africa.

Erica and the SHG team preparing for their first of four

water filter distributions and training for this year.

Aisha welcoming the beneficiaries of today's training

These gifts are given in the context of long-term ministries that build relationships of love and support. Gifts are selected through discussion and participation of beneficiaries, who are empowered to identify local problems and solutions facing their families and community. 

Many of the gifts, like water filters and farm animals, are accompanied by training and ongoing support from our church partners and teams. 

Aaron being beautified by the ladies!

Laura with SHG members

Our friend and colleague Andre Sibomana getting to know one

of the children of the SHG members

Erica, Aisha, and Laura with several of the beneficiaries of the water filter systems in Eastleigh

Aisha assembling one of the new water filters

You can be a part of bringing a gift of hope this Christmas through the Hopeful Gifts for Change.

Hopeful Gifts for Change 2018

Hopeful Gifts for Change 2018 Promo from CBM on Vimeo.


To learn more or to send a hopeful gift this Christmas, please five hopefulgifts.ca

Nooses Off!

Rosslyn Academy Theatre Department presents...

NOOSES  OFF

Members of the cast celebrating after the last performance

Over past three days, Emma has been on stage for Rosslyn Academy High School's fall play. This year the theatre department launched the side-splitting whodunnit farce "Nooses Off", written by Don Zolidis. 

"Nooses Off" is a high school version of Michael Frayn's famous bawdy 1982 comedy "Noises Off", which rifted on the idea of a play-within-a-play in a fast-paced physical comedy that brought the audience from a rehearsal to the opening-night backstage antics of a doomed play.

Similarly, in "Nooses Off" Emma and her friends play a wacky cast of struggling actors and crew with mixed relationships and misunderstandings. It is a hilarious comedy. How often do you see someone attempt a murder with a swordfish? Emma plays a frustrated female actor forced to portray a male police officer while navigating the fictional cast's multiple love interests.

Here are a few pictures of the wonderful three shows. If only there was audio, you could also enjoy the laughter as well!!

Emma with her friend and student director, Rainey

Emma getting her mustache on before the last show

The cast take a bow to a standing ovation

A BIG THANK YOU to director Steven Slaughter for investing so much into the students of the Rosslyn Theatre department. This has been such a fun fall production. The bonds of friendship and camaraderie formed among the cast and crew are irreplaceable. 

As we look back on these past thirteen years of theatre that Emma and our whole family have been a part of from kindergarten to twelfth grade, we are so grateful for this community and its commitment to the arts.