5k Run for Love is right around the corner

We are now one month away from the mission’s team fundraiser 5k Run for Love to support our team heading to Nicaragua in June. Early bird registration is good until April 30th, and then the prices increase…so make sure you register today! Runners, walkers, and everyone in between are welcome to participate. And remember even if you are unable to participate that day, you are still able to donate to the team by purchasing hygiene packs at the booth in the gym after services throughout the month of May.

Hygiene packs are extremely vital to the people of La Esmeralda because it allows them to have access to everyday items that would otherwise be difficult to come by and more importantly it allows them to feel the love of Jesus.

We hope to see you there! 

Register today!

Preparation- Nicaragua team

A lot of preparation goes into the trips that we take.  We spend months planning, making decisions, getting our supplies, fundraising, getting to know our team members, and on it goes!

When we get to Nicaragua Fox River will join the Nicas and form one team.  Part of our team will be working in the Clinic and the other part will be out in the communities.  Although we will be doing some different things while we are there we are all just one team.  We go as ONE body, each given different gifts and abilities in order to fulfill the same task > Sharing the love of Christ.  (1 Corinthians 12)

I’m going to share with you about how the Nicaragua team is preparing to go…

We prepare for the tasks that we will be doing, physically for our health, for the environment we will live in, and most importantly we prepare spiritually to be open to what God has for each of us.

Some of the best moments we have as a team are our monthly meetings.  As a leader, there are so many details that need to be looked over with a fine tooth comb on a regular basis, having a team to help with planning and cultivate ideas is the greatest thing ever!  Don’t let the title ‘leader’ fool you, I have the great privilege of walking beside and among them as they plan and take ownership of the trip as a team!   At our meetings we have groups who work on certain tasks and we have moments where we come together as a whole and discuss.  We have groups for music, games, crafts, stories, and the medical group. EVERYONE is a part of the planning!  I am so grateful for my team!  

Our music group teaching the rest of the us the dance for VBS. 

My absolute favorite part of all the preparing, planning, and craziness is the time I get to sit with the team and get to know them.  We take time at each meeting to hear each others stories, to hear what they are excited about or maybe even what they are nervous about.  

Intentional prayer! 

Pastor Guy praying over the team. 

Then we spend time in what we call ‘Intentional prayer’, we give our worries, and praise to our Creator!  We want to make sure we are always working with God and not apart from Him.  We pray for our planning, our team members, travel, we pray for the people we will work with, for their planning, we pray for all the people that our team will come into contact with, we pray for the clinic and church in La Esmeralda, for our supporters, we pray that our hearts will be aligned with God’s plan, we pray for the unknown…  Will you join us in praying? 

God is already at work answering prayers of support and partnership.  He is working in the hearts of all of us and of those we will come into contact with. Supplying the needs we have as we prepare to go some obvious and some that we didn't even know we had.  Giving courage and peace to those of us who have fear and anxiety, and giving patience to others who can't wait to go see friends and make new ones. We have such a great God who loves us with an everlasting love, it is His desire that we come to Him to fulfill our needs.  Let this team be a testament that He does in fact meet our needs and bless us greatly.

Counting down the days until we get to see all the planning come to fruition! 

Goats and Chickens

Goats and chickens provide much needed nutrition for needy families in Kenya. Whether for their milk, eggs or meat, a gift of a goat or chicken can greatly increase a families protein consumption. 

The Fox River Kenya Mission Team is raising money to purchase 750 chickens and 25 goats to distribute in Kenya. The goats and some of the chickens will be a part of the farm project that supplements the nutritional value of the food provided for our school children. The majority of the chickens and any goats that we can purchase beyond the capacity of the farm will be distributed to needy families in the community. 

Would you consider joining us? Each donation will purchase a goat or chicken and help send the team to Kenya to distribute them.

Suggested Donation:

• Chicken: $10
• Goat: $50

You can donate through the Goats & Chickens page.

Thank you for making a BIG difference in the lives of the families your gift will touch!

Growth in Nicaragua

We love sharing what God is doing through Fox River Missions.  He is at work in many ways in the places He led us to invest in,  and we are so blessed to have a front row seat to watch His plans unfold.

God called Fox River to build and support the Medical clinic in La Esmeralda.   We are so glad He did, because we have seen the ministry that comes from that.  Through this partnership, we have come to love these amazing people and watching God move in the ministries they get to do.

Fox River is a part of some of those ministries, and has been called to help move them forward. 

Let us set this up for you…  La Esmeralda is up in a cloud forest in the Mountains of Nicaragua.  They are over an hour out of the closest city; very, very rural (you cannot find it on the map).  Very few of them have transportation, most all of them walk to where they need to go.   La Esmeralda is one of many communities up in the mountains.  People from these communities either come to La Esmeralda for church or they don’t go because it us just too far to walk. 

The church in La Esmeralda is growing and thriving. Pastor Denis and his team see this and are encouraged by this!  They also go into the surrounding communities and have bible studies with children and adults.  Las Nubes is one of those communities.  The church there is growing at rapid pace, and they have outgrown the homes they were meeting in. They are ready for a building of their own. By bus it takes about 30 minutes from La Esmeralda to get to Las Nubes, it takes over an hour on foot. 

Here is where Fox River gets to be a part… We are able to help purchase the land that they will be putting the building in the community of Las Nubes.  Over the years Fox River has made trips to La Esmeralda, and we have had the opportunity to spend time in Las Nubes.  Every time we go we see more and more growth in that area, this building is going to be a huge blessing to this community.

 It is exciting that God allows us to be a piece in this, and we cannot wait to see the fruits that come from this ministry!  Stay tuned, we will keep sharing!

Pray for Joshua

Joshua and his family are in need of your prayers. He and his siblings just lost their father.

Joshua is a young man in Standard 8 (eighth grade) at Crossroads Academy in Vipingo. His father passed away last night after an illness that had placed him in the hospital.

Losing a parent is always very difficult, but there is an extra burden on Joshua.  As the oldest child, the responsibility to provide for his siblings will fall on him, even as he is working hard in his final year of primary school and preparing to begin high school next year.

Please join us in praying for Joshua, his mother, and his siblings. We're asking God to comfort their family, and provide the strength and support that Joshua will need to balance his studies and responsibilities to his family.

Run for Love

We have a team heading to Nicaragua in June, both medical and a general.  Fox River Missions will be hosting the 5K Run for Love, to support our Nicaragua team. The run/walk will take place at the Waukesha campus on Saturday, May 21st. With every participant registration a hygiene pack will be funded. Each hygiene pack is a great benefit to the Nicaraguans because it allows them to have access to supplies that would otherwise be expensive and hard to get. And, it's a great way to support our team members as they prepare to go! We hope that you join us for this family-fun filled day. Registration is open, so grab a friend and sign up here!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Meet Jenna

As part of Fox River Missions, we have the great opportunity to partner with missionaries in each of the countries that God has called us to. One of the missionaries that God has partnered us with in Kenya, is Jenna Nyanje. Some of you might know her as Jenna Horgan. We are going to take some time today and learn more about who God made Jenna, and the role that she plays in our Kenyan mission. 

Jenna has been on several mission trips in her life, and she said that each time she came back she knew that missions was something she wanted to do, but there was always something that told her "not yet". She took her first trip to Kenya on a Fox River medical team in 2012.  Little did she know that this trip was going to change her life.  There was something about Kenya, and the people that she met there, that made it so clear, God said "Go".  She returned on several short-term trips before packing up her belongings and moving to Kenya in the summer of 2014 to go where God was calling her. 

Jenna on her first medical trip to Kenya.  

Most of Jenna’s work happens in the village of Vipingo. The property in Vipingo houses the classes KG1 (Kindergarten) through Standard 8, as well as a Feeding Center, Rescue Center and Bible College. She is the administrator of the school in Vipingo, think of her as the head principal. She helps the school run as smoothly as possible. She meets with the teachers weekly, as well as having Bible study with all of them. The teachers at the school take both their own and the students spiritual health very seriously. Jenna also helps keep track of the finances of the school, and helps keeping up with the students. Along with the leadership of Fox River she coordinated short term trips that you can come on! Which encourage Jenna and the people of Kenya so much. She also orchestrates the process of choosing the new KG1 (kindergarten) students, at the start of each new school year. Jenna and the teachers would love your prayers throughout the year, as they prepare to choose the students that God would have for our school.

Jenna also helped start the Rescue Center on-site in Vipingo, and continues to spend a lot of her time there. The rescue center takes in babies that have no home, and gives them a forever family. Right now the Rescue Center has three sweet boys, with a mama and an auntie. The Rescue Center is a huge blessing in the community of Vipingo and is truly going to change the course of the lives that enter it.

Two of the rescue center babies. 

Something that Jenna has done so well in Kenya, is acclimating to the culture and life of Kenya. Jenna dove right into Kenyan culture and life, and made herself right at home in Kenya. She takes the time to learn about their culture, cook their food and live the way that Kenyans live. She attends and serves at Crossroads Fellowship Church, where another missionary partner, Jim Horne, is the senior pastor. You can find Jenna teaching Sunday School, helping with the youth or even hear her on their video announcements on any given Sunday. Crossroads Fellowship, is a very special place to Jenna, because that is where she met her husband, O’Neal. They just got married in January!

Jenna says,

“O’Neal has an amazing testimony. One that I would never rob him by telling you 2nd hand. But I hope that one day you can come visit us and hear it. This man has a testimony of a faith in God so inspiring, that I distinctly remember praying one night over a year ago, that I might be able to meet him one day. And that was it, with no feelings attached. I remember writing in a journal somewhere asking God that I might have a testimony like his. I asked God that someday I might be able to meet this man that I had heard so much about. I think God laughed at my ‘grain of rice’ sized prayer. I know I certainly would have if I would have known how long he had actually been weaving our stories together.

God ended up orchestrating the day that we finally got to meet, in a coffee shop. And in that coffee shop we spent an entire afternoon talking about what God had done so faithfully in our lives and what we dreamed God would one day let us do in the future. We talked about those dreams as individuals. And today the dreams we talk about are the dreams that we now share as husband and wife.”

Only God can write a story like Jenna's and it takes a heart fully following Him to move halfway across the world and do the work that God has asked you to do. Although Jenna's first move to Kenya was only intended to be for a year, it was clear at the end of that time that God had called Kenya to be her home. She loves the people that God has put in her life as family and friends, and the people that she gets to show God's love to. 

We are so thankful for our partnership with Jenna, and pray that it would continue for many years into the future. As you think of her during this week, pray for her and her ministry in Kenya. 

Clinic Investors

Last week, the Clinic that the La Esmeralda church administrates received 4 donations - one from a pharmaceutical company in Nicaragua who gave medicines the clinic cannot normally provide totaling over $4000, one from a Nicaraguan coffee plantation owner - over 3000 pre-natal vitamins, a donation for $3000 of the dental equipment, and 75% off all the tools and basic equipment needed to start their dental clinic thanks to a local Nicaraguan dentist and former non-profit ministry partner. Fox River is going to purchase the equipment at the 25% cost!  I would say that God is greatly at work and blessing this ministry!!! Great work, Pastor Denis and Karen, and the ones who started this and are handing over the administrative portion Karen Davila Tellez!!! We are so excited by how God is providing the tools necessary for reaching people through physical needs in order to have a chance to reach their SPIRITUAL needs! That is WHOLE HEALTH and just like our GOD! 

Our missionary partner, Donna, just told us about this great news.  Seeing how much impact the clinic has on the people in and around La Esmeralda is truly a blessing!  Having so many people see the importance and wanting in on the life change can only be the work of God himself.  The dental clinic has been a dream and a need for a while and to see it become reality is really exciting!  There are just a few more things that are needed to get the dental rolling, including a dentist.  We believe God will provide all of this in His timing and we will wait eagerly until then.  Will you pray with us for the people that will come and be part of the dental clinic?  As a dentist, as supporters, and as patients. "Nothing shall be impossible, Your Kingdom reigns unstoppable, we'll shout your praise forever more, Jesus our God unstoppable!" God is our faithful provider, let us never forget that He knows our needs and is faithful to provide for them. 

Introducing Pastor Denis and Karen

Let us introduce you to our partners in La Esmeralda, Pastor Denis and Karen. These two are the hands and feet of Christ everyday up in the mountains of Nicaragua. As Fox River, we are partnering with Denis and Karen to carry out God’s mission in La Esmeralda. There are many different areas where this takes place and we can see the fruit that God has produced. We have the honor and blessing to see how he is working in and through the lives of the Nicaraguans.

What does that exactly look like? Let us try to paint a picture for you and give you a glimpse of what they do.

In church

Each week they offer three services for all of the community to be a part of.  Pastor Denis preaches at the services.  Karen leads the childrens classes during these services, she also attends and supports Denis as he preaches and leads the congregation.  A service generally includes, music, a time of greeting, and a message.

At the clinic

In the clinic, every patient, before they are ever seen is given the opportunity to hear the gospel. On average in a year, the clinic sees 10,000 people.  That is 10,000 people who might not have heard the good news, and got to because of the clinic and the ministry Pastor Denis and Karen have built. As a church, supporting the clinic not only means the medical side of the ministry, but also it means that we are supporting the kingdom of God here on Earth.

How cool is it to know that when you partner with Fox River Missions, you are having an eternal impact?

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Youth Group

Youth group is a night dedicated to the teens of the community and reaching them where they are. This includes games, a message, and small groups. Denis and Karen are investing in the lives of these teens which is extremely important at such an opportune age where they start making big decisions that will impact the rest of their lives. It offers them a better place to go rather than getting caught up in the pressures of their peers.

Women’s Ministry

Karen leads a bible study for the women of the communities. Often times the women are behind the scenes in the community taking care of their families, so this is a great way for the women to come together, to dig into God's teachings, and to learn how to be a woman of Christ.  It refreshes them so that they can do the ministry of being a wife, mom, cook, etc.

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Sports Ministry

The sports ministry meets outside of the church walls and reaches youth that would not be involved in church otherwise. As a result, we have seen many lives changed through this ministry. Six of these athletes have come to Christ and are serving in the church in other ministries. This ministry is growing at a rapid pace and we expect to see much more growth as it continues to reach more and more people in and around the community.

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Pastor Denis and Karen are a vital part of Gods plan for the community of La Esmeralda. Their love for Christ and his people is truly inspiring. 

Would you join us in praying for them and their ministry?  

Be the Hands and Feet of Jesus

Have you ever wondered what it's like to take a mission trip? Consider joining the 2016 Kenya Mission Team in July. You will:

Meet our 800 incredible kids!

Students at New Life Academy, Bomani, Kenya

Students, staff, and team members at Crossroads Academy, Vipingo, Kenya

Participate in community service projects like hanging mosquito nets or building a mud hut.

Mosquito nets help provide protection from malaria and are a way for us to show love to the people of Kenya.

Building a mut hut is messy work, but a lot of fun, and provides a home for someone who needs it.

Community Outreach Days with soccer and volleyball tournaments, camel rides, face painting, acrobats, so much more!

And just loving on our kids!

Deadline is April 1 or until spots are filled. Read more on the Trips page. 

Feel a tugging on your heart? Pray about it and ask God if He is leading you to Kenya! If this seems outside your comfort zone, you may be surprised at how God works in you. One thing is certain, should you join our missions trip, you won't return the same!