Samburu Friends Missionfounded in 1995 by Isaiah Bikokwa, a Friends missionary to the Turkana people

Isaiah Bikokwa retired in July 2013

Sammy Letoole, the first Samburu Friend trained at Friends Theological College, is now serving as the Mission Director. God is doing exciting things in Samburu!

Samburu Friends Mission is now a fully “indigenous” church, a mission of the Samburu people, for their community

The new leaders opened a local bank account, and are fully responsible for

managing the mission’s money

The mission treasurer and the monthly meeting treasurer are so proud to have made the first bank deposits of their lives

The staff of the mission are nearly all Samburu Friends

Samburu Mission has two full meetings and two new church plants. This is Lorian

Friends Church.

This is Malalwa Friends Church and nursery school, the newest church plant

Here are the youth members of Loltulelei Friends Church

The leaders of Loltulelei Friends Church inside the new meetinghouse

The new Loltulelei church after plastering the walls

Worship is at the center of all the Samburu Mission activities

One Sunday each month, the young adults lead the worship

Samburu Friends praise God through their indigenous culture

The men’s choir at Lorian Friends

One of the women’s choirs at Loltulelei, at the dedication of the new classrooms

One of the USFW choirs at Lorian

One of the USFW choirs at Loltulelei

The children’s choir at Loltulelei

Some of the members at Lorian

God is raising up dynamic young leadership among Samburu Friends

Rosinah Lepariyo, the first Samburu Quaker woman to be trained as a pastor

Christopher Leaduma,

the evangelist at

Lorian

Christopher Leaduma

and his son with Eden

Grace, FUM’s new

Global Ministries Director

Lorian Friends Church

Lorian Friends just built this new Sunday School and nursery school building

New borehole at Lorian

Loltulelei Friends Dispensary building – in dire need of new construction!

Simon and Peter, the clinical staff of the Dispensary

The biosand water filter project was recently introduced at Loltulelei

Wherever Friends are, there are Friends Schools

Loltulelei Friends School is a community-based primary school. This is the school board.

FUM’s Summer Mission Project in 2012 resulted in two new and two renovated classrooms at Loltulelei.

The new classrooms replaced rooms that looked like this.

Loltulelei Friends School students love their school – and they are the top

performing school in the District

Loltulelei Friends School has won national competitions with its traditional Samburu

songs and dances

Rehearsing for the upcoming competition in Nairobi

Loltulelei Friends Nursery School meets in the new meetinghouse

Most adult Samburu women are illiterate. Samburu Mission runs an adult literacy

program to teach these women

Children who work full-time tending the family’s animals come to a special night school called “Shepherd School”. This is the only program of its type in Samburu.

It is very difficult for a family to pay for secondary school, and girls are

often left behind. Samburu Mission sponsors 10 girls in secondary school.

The 2014 Summer Mission Project raised over $20,000 to support girl-child education in Turkana and Samburu

Upper Hill (Loosuk) Dispensary as it appeared in February 2007

The same building 12 months later

The Upper Hill compound was destroyed during the post-election violence of 2008

The windows, doors, furniture, supplies, equipment and roofing were all stolen.

This is what remains of the pastors house

This was the church and nursery school building

We can’t rebuild at Upper Hill. But God has not allowed us to be discouraged.

Friends have been given this land in Loosuk Market, a growing and

populous area, in order to develop a new ministry to the community.

Samburu Friends have a vision of an Empowerment Center on this land

An Empowerment Center will offer much-needed goods and services to

the community while also serving as a vocational training center and

providing an income

stream for the mission.

Lorian Church members are doing the planning of this project. They started out by identifying goods and services that are needed by the community and that have a strong chance of being profitable. Currently, people travel to Maralal for these services, about an hour by motorcycle, at a cost of $10 round trip.

Motorcycles are the most common form of public transportation. They are in constant

need of repair

Business services like photocopying, typing and email are in very high demand, and computer classes are greatly needed

School supplies and text books can’t be bought in Loosuk, yet every child is required to have them.

Sewing of school uniforms and dresses is a profitable business and a desirable vocational skill

A guest house with meeting rooms, like this one in Maralal, would allow many different groups to hold community mobilization events in Loosuk.

Friends are called to impact their community as well as generate income to sustain the mission work.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is changing lives in Samburu

The gospel is truly good news to the Samburu people

Thank you for partnering in what God is doing in Samburu through Friends United Meeting