ZOE-KENYA Mission Trips

Two upcoming mission trips: February 18-27 and July 14-23, 2020

We are excited to announce that we have just added a FEBRUARY trip as one of our two upcoming missions to ZOE in Kenya.  Choose the trip date best for you, either February 18-27 or July 14-23.

MISSION: Our team will travel to Maua in central Kenya to work with ZOE, which is an orphan empowerment program. We will be traveling to meet with the ZOE staff and learn more about how they reach out and make this generation change with these children. The team will also be visiting children who have graduated and that are currently enrolled in the 3-yr. ZOE program. We will observe their villages’ meeting with their working groups and their places of business. Your team leaders will share more about our R&R location scheduled for the last day of the trip.

TOTAL TRIP COST is approx. $2,840 (depending on flight cost, and for any visa requirements).  Trip Cost includes the $1,290 Non-refundable trip fee paid to MPUMC, and then you purchase your own flights per a specific round-trip flight schedule provided, which was for last year’s trip approx. $1,550.

Read below for instructions on how to sign up to join a Kenya mission team. 

For FEBRUARY 2020 trip, please FIRST contact Nancy Holmes, the Ministry Assistant in Missions, at nholmes@mpumc.org for instructions specific to this quickly approaching trip.  After talking with Nancy, you MAY be asked to complete the Myers Park UMC’s Online Registration Form: FEBRUARY 2020 ZOE-Kenya Trip .

For JULY 2020 trip, read further:  THREE STEPS to OFFICIALLY BE REGISTERED for our JULY 2020 ZOE Kenya trip: Total Costs for JULY mission: $1,290 PLUS your flight cost (flight last year was $1,550). Note that you will make your own flight reservation on a specific flight schedule that will be shared by contacting Nancy Holmes at nholmes@mpumc.org and that each team member is required to travel together as a group on this flight to coordinate ground transportation, etc! Also note that the $1,290 ZOE-KENYA trip fee is Non-Refundable.

First for JULY MISSION: Complete the Myers Park UMC’s Online Registration Form and Pay Trip Fee at JULY 2020 ZOE-Kenya trip

Second: Please send a clear, color copy or a scan of your passport to Nancy Holmes in the Mission’s office at nholmes@mpumc.org.

Third: Complete the required forms that Nancy sends you from the ZOE organization and return those to Elena Ballam at ZOE (Requires your doctor’s signature!) Please print out forms, and once completed, mail to:
ZOE c/o Elena Ballam
700 Waterfield Ridge Place
Garner, NC 27529

For more details of ZOE trip to Kenya go to: http://www.zoehelps.org/zoe-trips-of-hope/.

Questions about trip? Contact: Nathan Arledge at nathan@mpumc.org or 704-295-4816.

Click here to watch a video discussion from MPUMC about ZOE.

Read more: World Outreach Committee Chair, Brandon Lowery, shares about his and Nathan Arledge’s trip to Kenya in 2017 with ZOE:

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words.

February 15, 2017 Rev. Nathan Arledge and I flew to Kenya to meet the children in the picture you see above.

Thirty-six of these children are the heads of their household.  Orphans taking care of orphans, their younger brothers and sisters.

We at Myers Park United Methodist Church, together with a partnership Nathan has formed with Providence United Methodist Church, have sponsored these thirty-six children in a 3-year empowerment program through ZOE. Sponsorship funds were made possible by your giving to Jubilee Plus.

The name ZOE might be familiar.  Our church has a standing relationship with ZOE through our Children’s and Youth Ministries.

A representative of ZOE explained “one of the most powerful parts of the empowerment program is the way these children put their faith into action in their own community. They forgive those who have harmed them; feed others who are even poorer than themselves; adopt other children and share their resources and knowledge with them; pray and care for one another; and pay fair wages to those who had once taken advantage of their situation with hard labor and poor pay. These children return good for evil and can be examples to all of what it means to live our faith.”

So why do Nathan and I go halfway around the world, what can we do?  The hope is that we experience this living example of the love of Christ in a way we can begin to give you all their 1000 words and more.

If you would like to learn more about ZOE, visit www.zoehelps.org.  Nathan and I will also be hosting events over the coming years to update our congregations about the Conquerors Kiula Working Group.

Brandon D. Lowery, World Outreach Committee, MPUMC

Have unanswered questions about what ZOE is all about? Contact Gaston Warner at gaston@zoehelps.org.  For mission trip questions, contact Brandon Lowrey at bdlowery@gmail.com.