Suspending hope

Dear missionary friends, Christ be with us! It is with distinguished honor that I contact the Orthodox Foreign Missionary Fraternity to express my sincere thanks, because the support you have given to our new Diocese is a practical demonstration of the spirit of Orthodoxy and brotherhood that exists among us. The Lord continues to work miracles in our new diocese. Not with the speed one would expect of course, but we have already come a long way. I will mention some of our achievements. We have completed 90% of the construction of our offices. Fortunately we no longer have to pay rent as we have moved to our new offices. With the blessings of our Patriarch, we have a monastery of St. Cleopatra and soon the monastery of St. Anthony will be completed. We already have five nuns. Finally, we have acquired a car to tour our diocese. Thus, we have done several baptisms and consecrations of holy temples. As far as drilling is concerned, we have purchased a good drilling rig. Right now, we are constructing the St. Athanasius High School in Nandi, which has about 140 students. It is a building of the parish of Saints Paul and Dionysius, the first Orthodox Church in Busia. We had started a feeding programme in our schools for poor children, but for now we have stopped it due to lack of funds. Unfortunately our educational work is not progressing well as we have too many children and youth whose education has been stopped due to lack of funds. We also held many priestly meetings in which we taught them about Orthodoxy.

Unfortunately, we have many more problems and we need your prayers and any other help. There are many people who are still praying in the open. The congregations are growing! We now have about 300 parishes, about half of which have permanent buildings. Then we have an orphanage at St. Tabitha’s, which is my dream to see it grow, to see the children there have food and clothing and ongoing education. Each child needs about one euro a day. Another challenge we face is the salary of our priests. My desire is to give them at least 190 euros, but so far we cannot afford to give them even 50 euros a month. We have 110 clergymen. This year, I hope, God willing, that the construction of the classrooms at St. Athanasius School will be completed, so that next year we can move on to the next school. We need three classrooms, which will cost 1800 euros each. I also want to share with you, dear brothers and sisters, the miracles that our Orthodoxy is doing in our continent. In our diocese the people are flocking. People to my great surprise have embraced monasticism. Part of this good news I think has come from your help, so I am sharing with you some of our struggles, which I know that with your wisdom, guidance and prayer we will overcome in the coming years and thus the light of Orthodoxy will shine in all corners of the world and especially in Kisumu.

Thank you very much, brothers, for your support and for all your love for us. I thank all the Greeks who are helping to spread our precious faith in Africa and we all thank you because you have changed our lives here in Africa, despite all the difficulties that you yourselves are facing in your own country. Thank you for standing by our side, not only with material help but also with prayer and fellowship. You always pray for us and especially for me, the unworthy pastor of the Holy Diocese of Kisumu and all Western Kenya. May the blessings of our Lord be with you.

†O Kisoumou Athanasios