New Project going on at SERVE Kenya Ministries

At the end of 1996, in the neighborhood I grew up in Mombasa, I met Chris Bransford, who discipled me for about one year and introduced me to Tommy Nelson tapes. My life was never to be the same again as I listened to these tapes and preached from them a lot. The love for the Word of God was conceived in me as listened to this passion-filled, Word preaching servant of God - Tommy Nelson.

Chris and Tommy believed in me when I was nothing and then planted a seed for the passion of the truth of the Word in me and that small tree is, has been, and continues to grow in me as I teach it weekly and many times daily! (if you would like to hear more of my testimony I shared a few years ago you can listen to it at: http://www.grahambible.org/media/1111_GBC_09-30-07.mp3)

SERVE Kenya, to a large extent, began because of the belief of these men in me and from what I learned from Tommy when he gave me the chance to learn the Bible under him in 2001-2002 in Denton. A lot of what and how we do ministry here stems from my time and tutelage under Tommy and great men in Denton Bible Church. 

For this reason, we would like to call the new administration and class block at the SERVE Compound the "Tommy Nelson Center", in short TNC.  In the coming months we will update you on the progress of the building with pictures, prayer requests and information on how you can give towards the same. It is a huge faith project that we believe God can see us through. We look forward with much prayer and anticipation on how God is going to use this new addition to meet the needs of the increasing number of pastors, not just in  Kenya, but in  East Africa, that come our way.

TNC will consist of three floors; the ground floor which will accommodate offices, a kitchen and two classrooms that can be converted into a mini-hall; the second floor  will consist of two 2-bedroom apartments (where out of town pastors and guests will stay) and the third floor which will be our big open meeting hall.

We are building it in Phases:

1. Phase one: Is the foundation which will cost approximately $20,000. Since the SERVE compound is completely sandy and there are no rocks we had to reinforce the foundation well in order to carry 3 floors without the danger of collapsing.
2. Phase two: will be the walls on the ground floor which will cost approximately $15,000.
3. Phase three: will be the ceiling of the ground floor which doubles as the floor for the second floor and this will also cost about $20,000. This cost is high because of the amount of material - cement, re-bars, sand, reinforcing timber etc
4. Phase four: Construction of walls on the second floor.The cost of the walls on the second floor is going to be higher since there are more rooms there that in the ground floor. The cost here will be about $17,000 to $18,000.
5. Phase five: will be the ceiling of the second floor which doubles as the floor for the third floor and this will also cost about $20,000 as well. 
6. Phase six: Construction of walls on the third floor. The cost here will be about $10,000 to $12,000 since it will be an open hall with few or no partitions at all.
7. Final phase: will be furnishings of the entire building which includes, windows, doors, tiles, kitchen and bathroom fittings, electricity etc. The cost here will be about $20,000 to $30,000. 

So the total cost for the entire project comes to about $130,000 from start to finish. The first phase will be coming to completion this month and then we begin to raise funds for the next phase. These amounts will increase or decrease depending on the fluctuation of the dollar to Shilling exchange rate which can drastically affect the price of the materials.

Praying and giving towards this project:

Please trust God with us in prayer to raise these monies and if the Lord touches you to give towards this project please write a check to Denton Bible Church and indicate on the Memo line "TNC Kenya Project." (If mailing please mail to: Denton Bible Church, Attn: Serve Office, 2300 E. University Dr. Denton, TX 76209)

God bless you as you pray and give towards this very noble course. Here are some pictures of the project:

The ground is cleared and ready for work 

Making final decisions before the work commences 

The measurements done and drawn on the ground ready for excavation  

Excavations begins 

Materials starting to come in - these men are offloading cement into the storage room

Re bars made ready to be laid in the foundations and erected as pillars and beams for the structure   

The trenches for the foundation were 6 feet deep dug by hand for about 14 days 

Starting to put it the re bars into the foundations 

they had to put it all round to make sure the building does not sink - oh and they had to lay concrete base  at the bottom of the trenches before laying the re bars!

Once all the re bar is in then concrete walls are built to the floor level

At the floor level concrete and re bar beams are tied around the whole entire building before the  floor  work begins.

You wonder where the sand mountain went, it went back where it came from :)

Thank you for reading through this very long email and for your prayers and support!
 - We pray it was helpful as you pray!

Dennis and Allison Omondi