Emmanuel Victorious Missions

Emmanuel Victorious Missions (K)(EVM), Started in August 2010 through the leadership of Pastor Elias Otieno Oguro, when he came to Kakrao Village to evangelize souls there.

In his quest to reach out souls in this village that was fast sinking under the influence of alcoholism and other drug related vices, not to mention the HIV/AIDS pandemic, that had left very many children orphans and yet infected families stigmatized, he started encountering many desperate cases of orphans and vulnerable children who needed love action. He met many widows who were languishing under abject poverty and stigma, some of whom their family had been wiped out by the HIV/AIDS and were left with their malnourished orphaned grandchildren, not even attending school because of lack of the learning materials.

Pastor Elias, together with a few volunteers who had been evangelized swung in to action by not only sharing Christ through the Gospel but also started sharing the Love of Jesus through Kind donation to the orphans and the widows, distributing food items and school learning materials. He travelled the 9 hours from Nairobi where he lived and worked as a teacher at the International School of Kenya, every TWO weeks to come and serve the local suffering people of Kakrao Village.

In April 2012, Pastor Elias and the few volunteers he had preached to established Emmanuel victorious Missions and he purchased ½ acre of land where he used his employment savings to build a mission house to get a centralised place to operate the Philanthropic activities they had jointly started to undertake.

Now the children and the widows could come every two weeks when he had travelled to the village to come and take their food items and learning materials, also a few cloths that he had requested families in Nairobi to donate towards the poor villagers.

In November 2013, Emmanuel victorious Ministry was launched to conduct church based services and outreach. The Mission house, with 3 tiny bedrooms of 9 ft by 10 feet was fully operational and some of the orphans and the vulnerable children were now being accommodated. Those were children who were met on the outreach and evangelism fields as the EVM team of Volunteers and their pastor traversed the village to try and preach sanity in to the souls of the dwellers.

Pastor Elias being a Pentecostal Pastor for over 15 years then, had friends both locally and internationally who were willing to support his course to reach out the villages of Kakrao. On the launching of the church programs, one local Bishop Called Alex Ominder and her Televangelist singer Mary Ominde (The Adamu na Iva family), In conjunction with an International Bishop from South Carolina in the U.S.A, Bishop Charles Cameron, came and blessed the work and established the church programs and ordained Pastor Elias and also commissioned the volunteers and the charity programs that had been established.

By the end of 2015, the ward had gone around and the area local authority was now aware of the work done at EVM. Rongo children department invited Pastor Elias to accept to take in one of the vulnerable children, and Migori Children department gave custody of Liliana Keyo to Pastor Elias and the EVM family.

Another favour also came when many Pentecostal church friends of EVM started volunteering to support the programs of EVM both financially and in Kind donations. Missionaries started travelling to come and see and support the ongoing work and the number of well-wishers and donors was increasing. VBS Vocational Bible Studies started taking shape for the children when students from schools abroad and locally realised the need to participate in encouraging the orphans and the vulnerable children who were now getting a full accommodation and support at EVM mission house.

Pastor Elias wrapped his stay in Nairobi and moved his entire family to the village and he resigned from his teaching job to come and offer full support to the EVM programs. His attention to preach in the EVM church and also council the children and the widows was now intensifying and that is why he could not afford to be a way in Nairobi for 2 weeks as he used to when he started the programs.

A program that was intended to be a light evangelical outreach turned in to a church and a fully operational charity centre.

However, at some point Pastor Elias and the EVM family, might have not had so much needs, it turned out that there is now a great need to put things in place both legally and operationally with a proper administrative strategies. In 13^th May 2016, The Rongo Children Department, an arm of the Government sent a letter requesting EVM through Pastor Elias to accept Jeff Omondi in to the EVM programs and gave his profile and needs that were truly deserving.

It is then that EVM team though it is important to start having proper documentations for the children who were fast getting adopted both from the streets and abandoned in stigmatized family homes.

However, due to the standard put by the Kenyan Government, the legal papers are taking a slower pace as there have been procedures to be followed in terms of asset requirements and financial base.

EVM programs continued to receive light support from well-wishers both locally and internationally in an informal way with occasional visits of friends of EVM from Abroad. More church members volunteered in supporting the day today managing of the orphans by washing cloths and cooking for them. Some taking the young ones to a near-by village school called Kakrao primary school.

In November 2017 Pastor Elias got the revelation from God about Sabbath Keeping and the need to follow all the 10 commandments as the Word of God required him to. He preached about this in many Sunday services and also testified to the friends of EVM who had now become partners and sponsors about his new revelation in the ministry.

Sad to say that many of those who were Pentecostal pastor friends and ministries disagreed with the Pastor about this and they deserted Pastor Elias and the entire EVM programs. They left many of the projects they had established unfinished, like the class rooms and the Hostels for the children, the security perimeter wall and the poultry project.

CURRENT ACTIVITIES OF E.V.M

CHURCH ACTIVITY

EVM currently conduct church services to nourish souls and also do outreaches and evangelism of souls in the entire Kakrao Village and the surrounding villages like Anjego, Otacho Rayudhi, Onding mon, Mukuyu, Rangenya and Warisia, amonth others.
We are involved in collecting and distributing Spiritual books including the Bibles and other spiritual based material and print outs.

Achievement

We have been able to reach out to over 300 souls in the past 5 years and out of those, we have established 50 to remain in the church as a part of E.V.M church family
We have managed to work in partnership with the Gideon’s Army and distributed over 50 bibles and also have distributed 250 spiritual write ups and materials to edify souls, both in the villages and Migori town.

Challenges

Due to lack of proper means of transport to reach out in a convenient way, we have not been able to achieve our best and we envisaged.
Printing materials and cost of printing and the buying of the bibles has been a hindrance a lot.
There has been a challenge with the harsh climatic changes that at times are so unpredictable.
Change from Sunday keeping to Sabbath keeping has caused us to loose all our Pentecostal support from friends and ministries abroad and locally.

Orphanage Program

At the start we had accommodated and supported 50 orphans. Due to the lack of enough support, we lost some of the children to starvation and dehydration and because we were slowly getting overwhelmed with the budget, we had to request other willing friends to accept getting other support centres for our orphans. They were not able to help with any number more than 15 children and so we were left with 35 orphans and the vulnerable children to take care of.

Achievements:

We have managed to build the small mission house to be operational base for us and a starting point for accommodating the orphans
We have successfully been able to positively identify the true needs of each orphan, ranging from their social need, academic needs and health needs
Those children who are bright and need education we have placed in the local village Government run schools. Those who are younger and unable to walk the long distance to go and learn in the Government schools we have established Kindergarten class for them and placed one volunteer madam teacher for them to coach them.
Those who have health issues we have worked in conjunction with the Migori District Government Hospital to identify their various health needs and the Beyond Zero campaign has conducted medical camps in our centre to help test and treat not only the children but the struggling locals as well.
We have managed to advocate to our local church members and the widows in our church to volunteer in helping our children in being settled in a family setup where we take children to live with some of the willing families for a duration of time then we change and give out others who have not been taken and then support them with food in those families, in the mean time we remain with a small number that we can accommodate in our small mission house.

However, the ones that go to live with the care takers still come every morning or at noon to eat lunch or take the 10 O’Clock porridge with the others at the mission house. They also attend many other church activities and teachings with the rest who remain in the mission house.

We have been able to receive donations in Kind. A 5000 litre tank and connection to the company clean water has been another achievement. We have received some Pair of shoes and blankets for the children.
We have been able to successfully distribute food items to care givers for our children awaiting full accommodation for them at the orphanage for those who older and cannot stay with us and the little children within the mission house.

Challenges

The mission house is too small to accommodate all the 35 children since some are growing up so fast. During sleeping time some of these children have to spend their nights on the floor and corridor of the mission house and yet some have to sleep in the cold church floor

Those children in Kindergarten have not had a proper place to be taught how to read and write and life skills. They lack desks to seat on and learning material. Their teacher have to bare using the church hall to give them learning lessons

The children lack enough playing materials since we only have one metal slide but no swings and balls and other playing materials that children need for their growth.

Those children who go to learn in the government learning institutions lack books and uniforms as required by the school managements

The children have suffered several starvation period and also they have missed in school lessons as the school requirements are hard to meet like school fees and other learning materials.

We have lacked proper means of transport (probably a van) to enable us effective drop off of children in the other far schools where they have to go and get their education.

Current state of the EVM programs

At the moment we have a Total of 35 orphans and vulnerable children (mostly girls who either stand risks or subjected to molestation)

Most of our younger orphans range between the age of 5 years to 12 years

Our older children, both orphans and vulnerable are between 15 to 17 years old

Every week we release 10 children to go and stay with care takers in a family setup and we support them from there with both food and other sanitary materials like soap and body lotions. However we allow them to come back to the mission house any time of the day as they wish in case they feel missing their colleagues

Currently we have 26 little children taking the Kindergarten lessons on reading and writing, life skills and religious education.

We feed on average 35 children every day with Breakfast, Lunch and supper.

We have to buy clothes for all the 35 orphans every 3 months but when things are so hard we buy every 6 months.

Currently we only have one bed bank and one flat bed with only two mattresses and 7 blankets that all these children have to share.

FOR NOW WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO GET LEAGAL DOCUMENTATION FOR 3 CHILDREN BUT EVM IS WORKING ON GETTING ALL THE OTHER CHILDREN HAVE DETAILS LEGAL DOCUMENTATION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

We hope that EVM as a community based Organization will be able to acquire the legal registration by the government as we have submitted all the forms filled in and signed and so we are in the process of official registration

We are taking this registration steps after we have realised that the church that had affiliated us from abroad abandoned us having noticed that we have converted in to SABBATH keeping and so they withdrew their licence cover for us, and we cannot send the 35 orphans away as they have no other place to from here.

We will be happy to be contacted by anyone who is willing to get further details of our programs or whoever may want us to ask any quest that may need answers.