Steven M. Falk / Daily News

Dr. Elijah Korich is a native of Kenya who is organizing local Baptists to build wells in Kenya to solve a critical problem in that country: safe drinking water.

 Posted on Saturday, November 17, 2007  

They went to help and minister, and came home changed and blessed
 

By DR. ALYN E. WALLER

SENT TO BE a blessing, we wound up, instead, being blessed. This was the general sentiment expressed by the 48 members of the Kenya Missions Team of the Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church (ETBC) which, on Sept. 18, began its journey to East Africa as part of Enon's ongoing partnership with Keiyo Soy Ministries and its founder and chairman, Dr. Elijah Korich.

The ministry's charge was to minister to the people of the Rift Valley, a drought-stricken section in Kenya.
ETBC had previously donated $20,000 to fund a new water for relief of the region. Dedicating that water tower, leading a pastors' conference in the valley at the Kerio Conference Center of the African Inland Church and ministering to the people of Kenya's Rift Valley by way of crusades, made up the agenda of our trip.

On arrival at the Nairobi airport, we knew we were embarking on something special. Many of the team had never been to Africa, so just being there was exciting. Our first stop was Nakuru, Kenya's fourth-largest city, the capital of the Rift Valley province and the home of Lake Nakuru National Park. We stayed there before we began our trip to Cheptebo. The journey there afforded the team an opportunity to see the gorgeous landscape of Kenya, including the beautiful, tree-covered, majestic mountains that seemed to be everywhere.

In addition, the team had the opportunity to participate in the groundbreaking of an all-purpose conference center in the town of Koimur, planted two new trees in the space. We arrived at the Kerio Training and Conference Center prepared to do God's work. The staff, led by Joseph Kimeli and his wife, Sally, greeted us warmly.

The dynamic preaching and teaching guided many to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and encouraged others to have faith in a brighter future. Each person we encountered on our visits to various churches, schools, and towns, was generous, kind and truly glad to see such a large contingent of African-American missionaries. We believe we touched the lives of about 11,000 people on our journey.

This experience has altered, for the positive and forever, the lives of both the citizens of Kenya and the missionaries from Philadelphia.

The membership to the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention, part of Kenya's missions' project, is just one of three ongoing foreign-mission initiatives of ETBC. Mercy Home of Children in Uganda (an orphanage that we have adopted) and Mercy Home of Hope in Capetown, South Africa, where Reverend and Mrs. Nomdoe rescue boys and girls from sex trafficking, are the others.

Should you feel led to offer assistance to these mission efforts, contact the Rev. Kevin H. Murphy, associate pastor of missions, Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, 2800 W. Cheltenham Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19150. kmurphy@enontab.org, 215-276- 7200, ext. 1014. *

The Rev. Dr. Alyn E. Waller is the senior pastor of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church.
 

 Posted on Wed, Sep. 26, 2007  

Elijah Korich

Who he is: An elder at Germantown Christian Assembly and founder of Keiyo Soy Ministries (KSM).

KSM is a charity that has organized about 20 Delaware Valley congregations — Baptists, Presbyterians and Mennonites among them — to fund a construction project in Kenya's Keiyo Valley that's supplying clean drinking water for hundreds of people in three communities.

Why it matters: Put bluntly, it's a matter of life and death. In the past 50 years, the Keiyo Valley has had a drought every four years. Korich, who is originally from Kenya, started his ministry after he visited during a particularly devastating one in 1999.

"People were dying. It was the worst drought I had ever seen," Korich says. "People were looking at me saying, 'What can you do for us?'

"I came home and literally I didn't sleep for several nights. I stayed up, wrote the bylaws and incorporated the ministry and formed the board."

Providence steps up: In 2000, on a fact-finding trip, Korich's group identified a mountain spring that didn't run dry, even during drought cycles. They set in motion a plan to run pipes from the spring to three garage-size holding tanks that they'd build in the Keiyo Valley, miles away.

Philly's faithful step up: Since then, people of faith from congregations in the city and the suburbs have donated $200,000 to the Kenyan water project. Philadelphia's Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church has been a leading light, committing $20,000 (the approximate cost of one tank) a year.

Brick-and-mortar results: As you read this, a delegation of 50 benefactors from Enon is in Kenya celebrating the dedication of KSM's second water tank. In addition to purchasing stone and cement for the tanks, the money raised here has also paid for 8 miles of pipes, with 5 more miles left to go to carry water to a third tank that's under way.

The water from the mountain spring isn't treated, so the Kenyans still need to boil it for drinking and cooking. But it's accessible and dependable. Instead of trekking to a parched river bank where animals bathe and hoping there's more water than dirt, people who live near the community tanks get their water there.

Dividends for the soul: "What do people here get? The joy of seeing lives saved, of lives rescued from, literally, death," Korich says. "They see the satisfaction and the joy of making a difference, seeing a smile.

"We are not just here to consume, to occupy space and to breathe the air," he says. "We can give life. We can make a difference."

Full circle for a kid from Kenya: "I didn't go to school until I was 12 years old. I didn't know how to write or read," Korich says. "I grew up as a shepherd. There was no school. All we had was cows and goats and sheep."

Then a missionary came to his village "to share Christ," Korich says. "Along with that he shared that there is something called school. I went.

"There were six students. We sat under a tree, sitting on stones. My first pen was my finger. My first piece of paper was the dust on the ground. I would write the alphabet on the ground and erase it with my hand in the dust."

Korich went on to earn his bachelor's degree, master's degree and doctorate in theology and ministry.

Along with plans to tap new sources of dependable water for the region, KSM is looking to build a community center that would house a regional health clinic and a school on the spot where he practiced his ABCs.

How you can help his cause: Visit go.philly.com/teamafrica for a link to KSM's Web site, which shows inspiring photographs of the group's work in Kenya and has an address where you can send a tax-deductible donation. *

— Becky Batcha