Dear friends and family,

The Zotz family is excited to share some news with you this holiday season. We are planning an exciting mission opportunity next summer for our entire family. We will be heading to Nairobi, Kenya June 7th-16th, 2024 to serve with GOYA Ministries, a non-profit serving vulnerable children. It will be our first time going overseas with the kids.

GOYA Ministries began in 2006 by supporting a local ministry, Rural Evangelistic Ministries (REM) that started a day orphanage and Bible based school in a slum outside of Nairobi, called Mitumba. After bulldozers leveled the entire neighborhood slum in 2011, a need for a more permanent facility was obvious. In 2016, that high school was built on an 18-acre campus, and today nearly 400 high school students call it home. There is also a vibrant church, living quarters for the students (a majority of whom are orphans - James 1:27) and teachers, and medical and dental facilities.  They also work with sustainable agriculture on the campus and support developing entrepreneurs through microloans. Around Nairobi, REM and GOYA also started multiple elementary schools in slum neighborhoods serving hundreds more from K-8th grades, where Biblical discipleship happens daily, training up the children in the way that they should go. Their goal is to transform their corner of the world through the Gospel of Christ and through improving the situation of poverty for so many children stuck in a cycle of it.  As a result of years of discipleship, church plants have now formed as graduates of this ministry head out, spreading the Gospel. Many of those are now planting churches of their own. More recently, as a result of their demonstrated faithfulness and stewardship and convicting power of the Gospel, the Maasai tribe has gifted GOYA with land further out in Magadi, “in the bush”, making it a haven for young girls who would have otherwise been sold into marriage as early as 11 years old for a dowry. 100 girls already call it home and plans for further development are just underway.

 While there, we will be spending time in each of these locations, serving and encouraging the students, teachers, and workers there, while hopefully kindling a heart for global missions for our own children.  We will be arriving at the time to also work on the new short-term housing for missionaries, or possibly be the first to stay in it!  We will be developing the kids’ skills and showing them, as we prepare for this trip, how their God-given talents can be used for missional ministry: Nathaniel with his musical gift, Gabriella with her teaching and language skills (she’s already started learning and teaching the others Swahili), Zachary with technology, and Rebekah with her heart of empathy and friend-making.  We will be going with some very dear friends who are also taking their children on an overseas mission trip for the first time.  We are excited about our kids collectively getting out of their comfort zone, and their hands dirty in the dusty slums of Africa, having opportunities to wash the feet of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, to learn from and encourage their ministries, fellowshipping with brothers and sisters in Christ in a totally foreign culture, and return as ambassadors to advocate for these vulnerable children!  It is our hope and prayer that our children would live a missional life in whatever their vocation may be, and we are grateful for the opportunity to foster that with this experience.

 The total expense for this endeavor for the 6 of us is $12,000.  While we are blessed financially to pay for the cost of this trip, we are having the kids raise the majority of their own support.  We desire the kids to feel the struggle of need and reliance on God, and not their dad’s wallet. Nathaniel, Gabriella, and Zachary work part-time jobs and are prepared to raise the entire $1500 from their own earnings to cover their expenses.  Rebekah has enclosed her own letter.  The kids have plans for raising further support through jobs and service opportunities over the coming months, and deferring Christmas and birthday gifts until this trip.  We are primarily asking you to partner in prayer with us in this journey.  However, if you would like to partner with the kids financially, you are welcome to by going to https://goyaministries.reachapp.co/campaigns/the-zotz-family or the QR code below in order to send tax-deducible support in our name directly to GOYA Ministries.  In addition to prayer for the usual safe travels and good health, we would ask for prayer in God going before us in where we will be headed to prepare the path for us, for developing the talents God has blessed our children with for the purpose of ministry, and for the kids to experience reliance on God as they haven’t before.  Please let us know if you would consider supporting in this way, as prayer is the fuel of the flames of revival, whether here or in Africa.  If you could pray also for Janelle and Jared in our 12th year of homeschooling the kids! Pray for Janelle as she teaches US history this year in our co-op to 15 kids and our own 4 are now in 5th.8th,10th, and 11th grades. We’re also spending time this year on college visits! Pray for Jared in his mentally and emotionally challenging work, as he seeks to “minister the love of Christ through healthcare,” at Heart of Illinois OBGYN.   We covet your prayers and relationships and support in life and this opportunity.  We would love to spend some time telling you more about this trip if you have time, and especially after we return with some amazing updates!

Faithfully,

The Zotzes