Josh and Maggie Ghrist Update and Prayer Letter

This year has been full of growing in the Lord, facing challenges, and experiencing His many blessings. We got off to a bumpy start with the Kenyan elections, living through turmoil and violence that were unknown to this normally peaceful nation.  8 1/2 weeks ago, we experienced one of the biggest blessings of our lives when our second son, Caleb, was born here in Mombasa. We had no problems, and are thrilled our family has grown. Work has had many blessings and challenges also, as Josh has been working on expanding the computer class, thus allowing more students to join the Lighthouse Bible School. He’s taken on new responsibilities around the Lighthouse, including heading up the maintenance department and supervising the building of new church buildings in Malanga and Likoni. With each new thing, we grow through the challenge, and experience joy at God’s blessings in our life.

Life isn’t always easy, and one of the big issues we have been dealing with lately is the global economy crisis, and how that has affected the Kenyan currency.  We’ve been receiving fewer shillings to the dollar, resulting in a pay decrease, and this affects our overall support amount. To cope, we had to ask for a raise, in order to meet our family needs, and to help those who come to us for their assistance.

We would like to ask you to pray for our support amount, that supporters would be willing to join our team in giving monthly. We need to increase our current monthly support by about $800.  This amount includes our salary increase, as well as makes up for the 20% support that we have not been receiving towards our ministry fund.

We have another one-time financial need, and that is for our plane tickets to come home early November 2008.  We need to raise about $6,000 for the plane tickets.

Prayer Requests:

1. We need committed monthly supporters to join our support team.
2. We need $6000 for our plane tickets.
3. Pray for Josh as he handles a variety of jobs and challenges, that he will be a light to the men he does business with, and to the staff and students of the Lighthouse.
4. Pray for Maggie as she is home with the boys, to stay disciplined and to be an encourager to those around her at Lighthouse and around Mombasa.
5. Please pray for all those that we work with here in Mombasa, that we would meet needs, both spiritual and physical.

We appreciate all of you so much, and are grateful for your prayers and encouragement through your emails and phone calls. We look forward to seeing many of you on our 6 month furlough starting in November!!     God bless,    Josh, Maggie, Matthew and Caleb

To donate, visit www.lighthouseforchrist.org Click on "Make a Donation" then on "Online Giving"... Be sure to designate the Josh and Maggie Ghrist Fund. Thank you!!

Matthew's 2nd 2nd Birthday...Party!

Since we were in Nairobi for Matthew's real birthday, we postponed his party until last week. We had lots of fun! We invited all our American friends, and swam in the pool (keep in mind it's winter here), played on the swingset and ate dinosaur birthday cake. A good time was had by all! Thanks to Bobby and Lisa for letting us use their house!

Matthew with his friends, Andrew and Joshua Rains (on the monkey bars), and Elias Rains.

Josh was the kid-entertainer and did a fantastic job. He also helped me make the dinosaur cake, which turned out pretty good. We had a ROARing good time!  Thanks Ame for all the party decorations!

The Goat- Funny story

On our way back from Nairobi, we stopped at a little cafe in Wote. Matthew was immediately disturbed, as the piercing sound of a goat bleating filled the air. We explained to him it was just a goat, nothing scary. The sound quit abruptly, and it was then that I saw the special on the menu, "Goat Meat,  300 shillings."  Yum, fresh meat.

Hanging out with the Evans in Nairobi

We just spent a week in Nairobi with my family, to have a little more time together before they headed back to the States. Bob, Susan, and Maria are now in Texas for the next 6 months, where they will get Maria started in college at Union University with my brother Mike. I liked having them closer to us!!

We had a good time celebrating MATTHEW'S 2nd BIRTHDAY!!!! We had lots of fun playing on the train and four-wheelers at Village Market, and visiting the giraffe park.

We learned that giraffe's aren't as friendly up close as they are from a distance. One of the pictures is of my mom with the boys, and the giraffe head-butted her so hard I thought she would drop the baby, judging by the stunned look on her face. No serious injury, just a big knot, and perhaps the big giraffe is a few notches down on her favorites list!

Caleb is doing really well now, too. While we were in Nairobi, he adopted my sister's big stuffed monkey as his personal nanny. Every once in a while, I would forget the monkey wasn't actually taking care of him!!   These pictures are of Caleb at 5 weeks. What a cutie!

Caleb Robert Ghrist

We are happy to announce the arrival of Caleb Robert Ghrist into this world!!!!

He was born at 5:07 a.m. on May 17, 2008. After a very quick delivery, Caleb was born at 7 lb. 4 oz, and 21 in. long. Everything went smoothly and perfectly, even more than we had thought it would. Maggie is recovering fine, and Matthew is very excited to have his baby brother at home (so far!). We are all tired! We had quite the cultural experience, but we'll save that story for later... For now, we just wanted to share the news that he's arrived and put a few pics up. Thanks for all your prayers. We are happy to be home with our newest little blessing.