A pastor from Kenya is visiting the Madison area this week at the invitation of a Stoughton resident who is working to help him raise the resources needed to continue operating an orphanage in Kenya’s third largest city.
Cindy Nawrocki discovered pastor Samson Nyameche when she started attending Abundant Grace Church in Milton. The church was already supporting his ministry in Kenya. But she made a strong personal connection with his work.
"He had a wonderful ministry going in Kenya," she said. "I was intrigued at the level of faith at which he was operating, and the fruit that was coming out of his life and his ministry. It wasn’t just my church’s mission anymore, it became something that God put in my heart personally."
Nawrocki and her husband operate a ministry called Bridges to the Nations with the goal of uniting believers, connecting resources with needs, and mobilizing interest in world missions. She uses the ministry’s tax exempt status for getting more people involved in world missions. "It’s to help you get a foot in the door and help you do what you need to do," she said.
Pastor Nyameche has a compelling personal testimony. He was orphaned at the age of ten when his mother was murdered for being a Christian. He lived on the street for two years until a Catholic priest took him into his orphanage. As an adult he had a career in sales until he met American evangelist T.L. Osborn, who gave him a scholarship to study at the Morris Cerullo School of Ministries in San Diego.
He began a church in his home town of Kisumu, Believers Fellowship Tabernacle Church. Almost a dozen additional churches have been planted in the area surrounding Lake Victoria, including some in other African countries. In 1993 the great numbers of street children who had lost parents to HIS/AIDS touched his heart. He and his wife decided to open an orphanage, Mama Wilfrida’s Children’s Home.
During the violence that broke out following the Kenyan presidential elections last December more than 700 people took refuge in the orphanage compound. Kisumu was one of the areas hit hardest by rampaging mobs. In March, his assistant pastor, the pastor’s wife and several children were murdered by machete-wielding protesters. The riots have made orphans of many more children. The number of children in the orphanage has almost doubled, from 65 to 115, as government officials have asked him to care for more.
"We also have a long waiting list of over 100 children," pastor Nyameche said. "They are government children, but the government doesn’t provide for them."
Now the violence has tapered off. "It is more peaceful now," he said. "We thank the government of America for helping restore peace."
In our modern world, shrinking in size due to improved communications and transportation, it’s now much easier to develop a personal connection with a truly needy ministry on another continent, as Cindy Nawrocki and many others have done. An orphan can be sponsored at Mama Wilfrida’s Home for only $42/month. But there are other giving options.
Pastor Samson Nyameche has two speaking appearances this week in Madison: 7 o’clock, Tuesday night at Springs of Hope Fellowship on Femrite Drive, and 6 o’clock Thursday night at the Madison International House of Prayer at 1714 Eagan Road. There’s also information available through the Bridges to the Nations Website on Pastor Nyameche’s Church and his orphanage.