Bilah's Story

Bilah’s Story

This week we launched our spring fundraiser, “Planting Together”. The focus is to raise funds for our youth and young adults to go to high school, college, trade school and university. We currently have 44 and $24,600 to raise for their school fees, tuition and school supplies. We’ll share more specific breakdowns of costs for those interested in donating towards a specific area.

The funds needed for Bilah are a separate goal since her situation is a but unique. Bilah has the opportunity to join Bethel’s ministry and music school in Redding, CA in September. She was accepted into their international program last year. This is something she’s prayed and dreamed about for the past three years. To raise funds, she designed a shirt and all proceeds will go towards her remaining tuition costs of $4,250. (She also needs to raise funds for flights, students visa, room and board)

Bilah recently wrote out her story and we wanted to give space to share what she wrote. It’s longer than the stories we usually share but we felt it is a powerful testimony needing to be shared. It is important to us to honor each of our children’s stories and when they are ready to share parts of their story, to let them choose when and to also give the platform to share it. It’s a story we believe will encourage hearts and get to know the reason behind how the funds raised would impact her life and future.

Bilah currently also serves at Mattaw to help our team with weekly shoppings at Mattaw, leads worship with guitar and also takes pictures that you see on our social media platforms.

You can click the video to listen to Bilah share or read below what she wrote.

When my mom passed away ten years ago, I was only thirteen and I remember feeling like that was it, no Mom no home. It's the end of the world. So I gave in to being an orphan for the rest of my life, and Seven years later, I was out of high school and ready to just change my identity and start over.
I was so consumed by grief, anger, and bitterness that I was depressed and just tired of trying to belong. I remember waiting for anything to give me an excuse to leave the place I called home and the people that considered me family.

When I left for college a year and a half later, I wasn't planning on coming back. Three months into school, God had other plans for me.
One afternoon I was seated at this little restaurant in Nairobi contemplating on surrender and Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Suddenly I felt the weight of every single emotion like baggage placed on top of me. The pain was so real that I had trouble breathing, then I had a vision of myself on the ground so tired I couldn't even move, and I remember crying in pain, "God I don't want it anymore".

I didn't even know I was giving my life to Jesus since I always thought calling yourself a Christian meant you're saved.
But the peace that flooded my heart that very second, was one that I had not felt in years. I sat down in a crowded restaurant crying for hours because the freedom, peace, and joy were so real at that moment, and I had forgotten how that felt.

The next couple of weeks, the only thing that was resonating in my heart was the urge to go back home. Yes, the place I was running from. The place I would call home and the people I would call family for the rest of my life. So I took my first certificate exams and left.

A couple of months after I gave my life to Jesus, the healing journey began, and along the way, one thing stood out. My mom's walk with Jesus.

My mom gave her life to Jesus when I was two years old, and by then my Dad had passed away. So according to the culture, my uncles were in charge. But I remember her explaining how what she had found in Jesus was so much better than what the traditional norm could offer.

One evening, she came back home from a three-day conference so full of life and we were so excited to hear all about it. But right before we could hear the stories, my uncles came and asked to speak to her in private.
They did not like her new way of life. She was 'allowed' to love Jesus to a certain extent as long as it didn't offend the culture, and hers was already above and beyond. That was a major problem. so they asked her to stop.

My mom responded, "ogas amwaiwok, agot ndamenye ketit barak, kotaote Jehovah" (Listen to me, even though I end up living on a tree, I will worship God).

Now we didn't have much, my mom worked on this farm weeding where the cows grazed six days a week and made no more than $10 a month. She had to feed and send six kids to school. Yet she was not willing to let go of Jesus, so she could keep the support from my uncles and the community.
We were treated differently and excluded a lot. My brothers were attacked in the streets, called names because my mom's love for Jesus offended their way of life. All this yet she did not give up.

She's been gone for ten years, and her profound walk with Jesus is one being looked up to in the village.
Now looking back, I see where my journey started. The hot December afternoons when the entire village was out carrying out rituals of initiations for their kids in the name of keeping the culture, she would lock herself in the house praying her kids will not fall into the norm, and God heard her.

I am so honored to share her story with you, it humbles and makes me so hungry for Jesus in ways that I can't even explain.
She planted seeds in the dry season and prayed to God for rain, she held on to faith that her God was going to make her seeds grow, and maybe in due time she would witness the harvest season.

My walk with Jesus is the fruit, and even though she is not here today to see it all, I do not doubt she knows God kept his word to her. She trusted him in her time, the hardest time I can think about.
And so for her tenth anniversary(March 14th), Mattaw and I are doing T-shirts in honor of my Mom and to fundraise my tuition fees.
The design was done using her handwriting and the words on it are the very words she said and stood by. Aote Jehovah. It also has an English translation on it.

I would like to invite you to join us in both honoring my Mom and supporting the kids. It would mean the world for us to have you supporting us in any way possible.


Thank you very much!


Bilah.



PS: Sarah Jepwambok Koech is my Mom's name!