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Yes, the Train is Still Coming!

Ronnie Matheny • 24 October 2017

Greetings dear Friends and Family!

As you are aware we have been in a holding pattern until it is official that the government “gazettes” our property. Once that happens then things begin to move with much greater speed.

This past week 14 officials from the railway, SGR and the Chinese construction firm came out to CMM. The officials present were the KR Program Director for Special Projects, the SGR Project Manager, the head engineer of the SGR Project, 2 KR board members, 4 top Chinese from CCCC and 4 other key staff. They came to visit, see all of our buildings and property, update us on what happens next and reconfirm the train is running directly through all 13 and a half acres of CMM. Our team gave the group a tour of all the buildings and explained our ministry. They also gave each person an ESV Study Bible, including the Chinese.

Who knows what these Bibles in their hands could lead to!

The head engineer is preparing an official letter from the Kenya Railways to CMM confirming that our land will be taken. The official gazetting is soon to follow. The bottom line (according to their projections) is that by the end of November, first of December the next phase (gazetting, evaluations, negotiations and compensation) will happen in December/January. They plan to “fast track” our process due to the fact we are an institution. They are hoping they can begin working on our land by February which means we would be out before then.

We are asking for your continued prayers. Once we appear in the Kenya Law Gazette, within 2-3 weeks we will be at the table with all the main players to determine the amount for compensation. We believe God will give us favor. Once compensation is settled, shortly afterwards we should receive agreed upon amount. At that point we will then be moving and starting over with building.

Debbie and I are returning to Kenya on November 14 th . If all goes according to these projections then we will return to Texas just before the January 30th banquet with amazing testimonies, miracles and pictures of where we are going and what the future looks like. It will be the first time in our family to not be together at Christmas but what will follow will make it all worth-while. (Probably means leaving bigger gifts than normal for kids and grandkids and much FaceTime).

Facebook Page

To keep everyone up to date on how things are developing with the “CMM Upgrade”, we will be adding many more detailed updates on our Facebook page – click here to like it now and stay informed:  

facebook.com/missionbarnabas

 

What’s Next?

Every year November and December are fundraising months for Mission Barnabas and the work in Kenya. Many of you pledge monthly which we are asking you to continue. However, during the banquet and then as we visit churches and groups that support MB, many give towards the projects and for the ministry of MB (shipping a sea container, purchasing concordances, travel and everyday ministry needs). This year we will not be presenting any building or construction projects, PTL! We still do however need to carry on the rest of the ministry of which the donations given during this season enable us to do that. So we are asking you to consider this next month: If you had planned to give at our annual banquet or before the year’s end would you send your donation by mail or go to our website and donate? 

 MB mailing address:

Mission Barnabas POB 820734 N. Richland Hills, TX 76182

or

May the Lord enlarge the borders of your tent!! Asante Sana!!

 

Major Prayer Requests

Kenya will be holding a repeat of the August Presidential election this Wednesday, October 26. There is much turmoil at the moment and the country is on edge concerning this outcome. The nation seems to be a tender box at the moment and one spark could cause much chaos. Please move this up on your prayer list for a peaceful and safe election.

 

Important Dates/Events Oct. 26th…..Kenya Elections Jan. 30 th …..Mission Barnabas Banquet

 

Blessings to each of you and may the rest of 2017 be a blessed season for you, your family, your health, finances and all you set your hand to do.

 

Ronnie and Debbie

 

PS…After we arrive in Kenya and are gazetted we will hold a ‘Virtual Banquet’, (about 15 minutes) live streamed from the new place God is providing. Stay tuned.

2024 End of Year Report

28 December 2024
Building Together!! A big thank you to everyone who has helped us accomplish the vision God has given us in Africa this past year. For those who have prayed for us, visited, encouraged, and supported us, THANK YOU!! Those who give monthly, one-time gifts, or both, THANK YOU!! Those that give toward projects THANK YOU!! If not for all the above, we could not do what we are doing in Africa. We are building the Kingdom of God together. If you missed our latest update for 2024, you can see it now HERE! We have made great headway on several of the projects we have shared with you over the past few weeks. We have been able to help a good number of students attend Clarence Matheny Bible College in March. One project that we need help with is shipping the 40 ft. sea container. We are scheduled to load and ship on January 4th at the Wellspring Church warehouse. The shipping cost is $7,600. Please keep this in mind, especially if you are planning year-end giving. If you send a check, please ensure it is postmarked by 12/31. To give online: www.missionbarnabas.us/donate Last, please note next year’s banquet date is November 4, 2025. May 2025 be your best year ever, and let’s continue establishing and building God’s Kingdom together! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Ronnie and Debbie

A Year of Increase - the 2024 Annual Banquet

21 October 2024
For the past 20 years, I’ve invited everyone to our annual Missions Barnabas banquet by stating that it is time again for our annual banquet. This year, I want to say it loudly with as much excitement as possible: IT’S TIME FOR OUR ANNUAL MISSION BARNABAS BANQUET!! We're eager for you to experience what has happened, is happening, and is about to happen. We can't wait to share exciting updates and future plans with you! This has been the first year our new facilities have been 100% open, and we have seen an increase and expansion in all areas. Seeing the explosion in ministry, facilities, and partnerships will overwhelm you. You will be blessed to see how your prayers, encouragement, and support have helped us accomplish amazing things! We are also beaming to tell you about the future plans that await us in 2025. Get Your Tickets HERE! We had to change the regular week and date for this year due to the Presidential Election and availability of the Colleyville Center. So this year’s banquet will be Thursday, November 14 at 6:00 PM (doors open). This year’s menu is from Spring Creek Barbeque, ending with their famous cobbler for dessert. We will be blessed again by several of our Kenyan staff and team. Also, for those attending the banquet, Carroll and Myrna Sprenger will have a table there for anyone who would like to donate books, musical instruments, laptops, computers, unlocked phones, pictures, etc. to be shipped to Kenya in December. Please mark your calendars as well as purchase your tickets ; $30.00 per person or sponsor a table for your family, friends, or guests. See you in a month! Come hungry; bring a friend, some books, and your checkbook or credit card! Ronnie and Debbie Matheny  Get Your Tickets HERE!

A Happening March

23 April 2024
March was a very happening month at CMM. It started with a Leadership Conference with 420+ pastors and leaders, with 50% of these leaders being their first time to come to CMM. On top of that, we had leaders from 6 different nations (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Congo, and South Sudan. Uganda and South Sudan were represented by large numbers in their delegations. We gave brand new Strong’s Concordances to 174 first-time senior leaders. Watch their appreciation for this blessing in this video . In addition, we gave a total of 3,132 books away. Many thanks to an awesome group of conference speakers who brought heaven down, and SO many lives were touched, changed, encouraged, and empowered. Our staff spent 1-2 hours in a debrief after the conference just reading testimonies. We rejoiced, laughed, cried, and celebrated what God had done in so many lives! We were so blessed by Dr. Murphy Matheny, Dr.Brick Cliff, Pastor Dustin Aguilar, Hunter Howe, and Kathy Barton, in addition to our own Bishop Joel Chola and Evg. John Magangi as well as the CMM Praise and Worship Team. We were already pumped before the conference started as ‘Count Me In’ had just finished a 2-day outreach in a very poor area of the city, and 4-5,000 youth attended. The group from Wellspring Church literally just arrived from their flight into Kenya and went straight to the outreach. Several thousand youth were saved, renewed their commitment, returned to the Lord, and many lined up for prayer to be set free from drug addiction. 

Year End Report

22 December 2023
The past 6 weeks have been a whirlwind, starting with our annual banquet, and then traveling with 10 Kenyans to several churches and groups in Texas and Mississippi. The Kenyans turned every place we visited upside down. We had powerful services as we shared the 2023 update and the songs they sang, brought the house down everywhere. During this season, we were believing God for an outpouring of support for several major projects: buying concordances, shipping a sea container, buying needed items for CMM, scholarship funds for students waiting for help, travel expenses, and finishing paying for several projects that arose from opening. So far in this fund-raising season, we/you have bought 1,004 concordances, paid for finishing immediate projects, bought kitchen utensils, musical instruments, and funds for some scholarship help, and we load and ship the next sea container on Dec. 28th (if you live in the Metroplex we will load from 7am-1:00pm…snacks, lunch and a heavenly award provided). This response comes a couple of months after funds were given to buy our transformer and build a small building to house it as well as purchasing a 20ft. container equipped and customized into men's and women’s public toilets that CMM desperately needed. In this season of Thanksgiving, our hearts are full of thanks for each of you and your heart for Africa, CMM, and the part you play in enlarging this vision. From Debbie and I and all of our CMM team, we wish each of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Let’s all buckle up for a great 2024 and as always, may the Lord enlarge the borders of your tent! Ronnie and Debbie PS…If you have been contemplating where you might do some year-end giving…we have the place. We are still hoping for more funding to scholarship several more students for the Bible college (25 waiting for help), extra funds to bless our staff during this season as well as purchase a commercial dryer before the next rainy season. If God prompts you to help, CLICK HERE . Or mail us at: Mission Barnabas PO Box 820734 N.Richland Hills, TX. 76182

2023 Banquet ~ It's Time!

10 October 2023
Greetings Friends and Family, It’s that time of the year again, celebrating at the Mission Barnabas Banquet! Please mark your calendar now for Tuesday evening, Nov. 7th. We are returning to the Colleyville Center, and have lowered the cost to $30.00 a person. LaHacienda Ranch will cater a delicious meal. mb2023.eventbrite.com It promises to be an exciting time of celebration now that CMM 2.0 is open and dedicated. What a celebration this will be. We have 10 Kenyans from our staff and team that will be at this year’s banquet. There will be inspiring praise, singing, testimonies and video updates of what has happened in 2023, the year of launching our new facilities, conferences, and Bible college.

Exhilarating, Exciting, Empowered, Exhausted!

12 September 2023
We have just finished five conferences at CMM over the past three weeks. Three of these were our conferences: 2 “Count Me In” (youth and college) and our Leadership Conference (pastors and church leaders). In total, we have accommodated 2,135 delegates. We are definitely up and running. Here are some of the highlights as the ministry explodes: During the youth camps (ages 13-19), several hundred received Christ, and many recommitted their lives to Christ. During the college-age camp (ages 20-30), powerful services and serious renewals of God’s purpose and calling on hundreds, many of them youth leaders During the pastor’s and leader’s conference, powerful teaching on “Knowing Your Purpose and Discovering Your Destiny.” There are so many powerful testimonies from the pastors. We gave away hundreds of books, plus facilitated a fantastic workshop to give out concordances and teach them how to use them. One of those in the seminar had recently been saved and had been a professor at a Muslim university. We also had 110 first-time delegates to attend a CMM conference. In other news, by God's grace, we received the funds needed (over $25,000.00) to purchase our own transformer, have it installed by the power company, and build housing for it. It should be installed any day now; even though we were told several weeks ago when we paid, that it would be installed quickly, we are still waiting. However, on Sunday, the power company came out and drilled a hole for one of the poles needed and left many parts to be used in hooking up our transformer. We are hoping this is done before Jesus returns. (Those who have helped us with this unexpected and quite large sum needed, Asante Sana!) There is so much to share with all that has been happening since we opened. So many miracles, blessings, and ministry explosion, along with God helping us through many challenging and stressful situations. You do not want to miss this year’s banquet on November 7th. Please mark your calendar, as this will be another celebration of what God has and is doing. Several Kenyans from our staff and team will be attending this year! We have a couple of projects we believe God will provide quickly. The next rainy season is in October, and we have one place that must have gutters and one area where we need a retaining wall. Both projects are $1,500.00 each. If God prompts you to help, just CLICK HERE. Or Mal us at: Mission Barnabas PO Box 820734 N.Richland Hills, TX. 76182 Enjoy some of the pictures taken over the last few weeks. Blessings, Ronnie and Debbie

“Debbie, have we paid our pledge?”

27 July 2023
Last November many of us made pledges to help scholarship some of the Bible college students who might need help. Our first term started in February and the second semester was completed in June and the 3 rd is this September. Our first class we had 40 students, 54 in June and we are expecting another group of first timers in September as word is spreading and there is so much excitement. We are expecting to reach 100 by Feb. 2024 semester. Debbie and I made a pledge and have it in our budget to pay. If you made a pledge, this could be a great blessing to help some of the students for the September class. CLICK HERE TO WATCH a video report about the college so far in 2023. Blessings, Ronnie PS…if you did not make a pledge or did not know about this challenge, if God directs this would be a great investment: $300.00 supports a pastor for 1 semester full scholarship or 2 pastors partial scholarships. Mail: Mission Barnabas Int. POB 820734 N. Richland Hill, Tx. 76182 Donate Online: www.missionbarnabas.us/donate Mark your calendar: Mission Barnabas banquet….Nov. 7

a Historic Event at CMM

23 May 2023
Ten days after the first conference at our new facility, we were chosen by Great Africa Harvest to accommodate hundreds of pastors from every nation in Africa and every county in Kenya for an international conference held in Nairobi. We started preparations for this group the day after our conference ended and basically worked around the clock to be ready. The organizations involved in this evangelistic endeavor bought tickets for key leaders from all 53 nations on the continent for a 4-day conference. CMM provided accommodations (bed and breakfast) for 640 pastors and leaders for 5 days. We believe this was historic as, from our investigation, this is the first meeting ever to bring pastors from all nations together for one meeting, and CMM hosted all the international guests and Kenya county leaders. We were overwhelmed as we met great men and women of God from so many nations. I must share what happened on the last 2 nights of their stay with us. We have been sending containers with resources to Kenya even during the 5 years we have not been able to have conferences. We had hundreds of concordances on hand and felt it would be a blessing to give a concordance to all these leaders. On Wednesday night, after they returned from their conference, we gave them information about CMM and the Bible College and THEN gave all 640 of them a concordance (each concordance stamped with CMM contact information). On the following evening, I gave them a crash course on how to use it. So, get this, we have now given a concordance to leaders in EVERY nation in Africa!! What a glorious and fun time as I shook hands with pastors from Nigeria, Togo, Algeria, Ghana, Congo, Ethiopia, and many others, some I could not pronounce. It also looks like we will be having students come to the college from other nations in Africa as well. We signed concordances (so many requested that Debbie jumped in and helped sign them), did an interview, answered questions, and received invitations to travel to other nations and teach pastors. God is enlarging the borders of the CMM tent, and we (Ronnie) must now go and learn how to pronounce every African country. Enjoy the video of all nations in the new CMM auditorium waving and shouting thanks for their brand-new Strong’s Concordances!

We Are Back! CMM Dedication Day!

3 April 2023
What a glorious day, March 15, Dedication Day for CMM 2.0. The excitement, joy, and anticipation were ‘off the charts.’ After over 5 years of no conferences, when we gave the first shout of triumph, I thought the roof started to lift. With 500 pastors and leaders, an awesome worship team, many local guests, guests from the States, 80 workers, and our staff and team, 700+ celebrated this momentous occasion with such thanksgiving and praise for what the Lord has done. We will attempt with words, pictures, and videos to share and capture how exciting the dedication was. From the ribbon cutting to the first shout of triumph, the first praise song, to recognizing those that helped us to reach this historic moment to the dedication message, such joy filled the auditorium. Then we had the dedication prayer, the unveiling of the official opening plaque, the cutting of the cake, and the dedication offering while many of the Matheny family sang, “It’s Worth it All.” It is almost impossible for me to describe in words the emotions, the joy, and the glory of the Lord that filled the building along with so many smiling faces, high fives, hugs, and dancing. The rejoicing, the recognition of God’s Hand, and His blessings that made all of this possible were almost tangible, along with recognizing and appreciating so many that helped us reach this goal.

Banquet Tickets on Sale Now!

7 October 2022
Greetings Friends and Family, I have been anxiously waiting for the day to arrive to invite everyone to this year’s banquet. We have not posted the latest progress or developments in the construction of the new CMM so we can do a ‘big reveal’. Trust me when I say you will be blessed, excited, and amazed at the progress. Joel and Pauline Chola will also be attending again this year, and it is always wonderful to hear from them. You must plan to come and rejoice and celebrate as you have been on this journey with us for several years. This year’s banquet will be at the same venue as last year’s: The Bowden 1775 Keller Parkway, Keller, Texas Tuesday, November 1st, at 6PM. The cost is $40.00 per ticket. If you would like to sponsor a table for 10 guests, the cost is $1,000.00. These sponsorships are vital to making the banquet such a wonderful event, enabling us to make it so special. Why not stop now and go ahead and get your ticket or sponsor a table? CLICK HERE TO BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW! Last, please plan to invite other friends to be your guest so they can witness the miracles of this journey. Can’t wait…can’t wait…can’t wait to November 1st…see all of you there!! Blessings, Ronnie Matheny Chairman, Mission Barnabas The evening will include a pre-meal experience, a chef-prepared dinner and a special presentation from the Mission Barnabas Team. Doors open at 6:00pm. Please note: There will be no RSVP or walk up tickets available for this evening. You must purchase tickets online by October 20th in order to attend, with limited seats available. Children are welcome, but must have a purchased ticket.  Dress is Business Casual.
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