Dear family and friends,   Wow! It has been a while since we sent an update. What a crazy year 2020 has been for so many of us. As much as we have been trying so hard to avoid COVID-19, as many of you may already know if you follow us on social media Dave, our son Timothy, and I had COVID-19. Thankfully, we did not have to be hospitalized and although the last few weeks are a bit of a blur of survival, we are hopefully through the worst of it. We are now just trying to get back to our baseline and our energy back. We are so thankful for all the support and care that we received. Many of you sent meals our way, and extra cash gifts to help us through this rough season. We also felt all the prayers and kind words that you sent to us!   We are so thankful for our daughter Sophia and son-in-law, Matt who cooked food for us, walked our dog, and organized a meal train for us that many of you participated in! We are thankful to have them living in North Dakota for this year before they head off to Med school next fall.

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I know this is a different kind of celebration this year. We had our smallest Thanksgiving celebration ever.  We were thankful that some of our family could gather. We held space for both grieve and joy this year.

Many of you know that besides following the East African Diaspora to the Dakotas, we were also drawn here because of a part-time teaching pastor role that Dave got. We were excited to be a part of a church where we could both use our gifts unfortunately none of us could imagine what 2020 would bring. For those of you in ministry know how hard this has been to serve in this season. It was especially hard for us as we were new to this church and did not have the bank of relationships to weather this storm. As our COVID numbers began to significantly increase in North Dakota in September and after 6 months of trying to get the church to develop some type of COVID protocol, we asked the church leaders if they could respect the local health recommendations and several adamantly refused. In addition, through this process, we began to see that we had significantly different interpretations of scriptures, and ways of seeing the world with the other staff and many of the leaders. Considering this after much prayer and counsel from others Dave resigned as teaching pastor at Revive Christian Church. We are disappointed but also feel real peace about our decision. Even though this was a part-time job it had taken a lot of bandwidth and energy that we felt was taking us away from our primary role of serving the East African Diaspora here in the Dakotas. We are still wanting to connect with churches here and hoping that Dave will be able to do some interim preaching in the area. In fact, this month he has already been asked to preach at the First Baptist Church of Bismarck as they sadly have lost their Pastor who has recently passed away with COVID-19.

With this loss of income, we really need to find some additional support to keep us viable here in North Dakota. Will you prayerfully consider giving a one-time gift or becoming a monthly supporter?

Jana and some of our new friends from Adoni Evangelical Church

Here are some highlights of the last several months:   We were thankful when the pandemic hit that much of our ministry is online, so we did not have to pivot as much as other ministries. This summer as there was a bit of a break in the pandemic we were able to have a few young people over as well as being invited into some homes and get to know the East African Community better here in the Dakotas.  Dave spoke several times at the East African church we attend Sunday afternoons-- Adoni Evangelical Church. Dave has started a Sunday morning Facebook live series “Neighboring During COVID-19 Pandemic” and many are joining in to watch and we have had several follow-up discussions.  Several of our adult kids were able to visit us in August. We had to quarantine some of the time they were here, but it was nice to have each other to quarantine with.  Matt and Sophia and our granddaughter Penny ended up moving here to Bismarck, ND for this year as they prepare for Matt to go to Med School in fall 2021. We are loving having them in the same town. This consistent time with our granddaughter is priceless!     Thanks so much for your prayers and support! We could not answer this call without you!   Jana Give Now

Jenkins Update

Wow-what a crazy time we have been in! I hope you all are all well. I know that we have all had losses, health, jobs, and even death. So sorry to any of you who have lost love ones at this time. We have been praying for all of you and for our diaspora community during this unprecedented time. We like many of you have had to pivot. Thankfully, God had been preparing us. Much of what we had been doing was online so we have been able to continue to support and teach from various platforms. As well as visiting one on one as those who have been struggling at this time. We have like many ministries and nonprofits had a significant decrease in our financial support. In the last 3 months, we have had only a fourth of what usually comes in. ( Which even our usual range was not meeting our budget goal) We are thankful that we do not have a lot of overhead at the moment as we work from home without office space etc… we do not have a large staff-- at the moment just Dave and I are working with EADC so we have not had to lay anyone off. But we are personally struggling to make ends meet. We would love for you to prayerfully consider either a one-time gift or becoming a monthly partner. Your gifts enable us to be available for counseling, online teaching, mentoring, and encouraging the East African Diaspora living here in the U.S. and beyond. We feel that God has given us unique experiences and relationships and we need to use these for His glory!  Prayer requests:   Now that restrictions are loosing up a bit we were able to have a few young East African leaders over for dinner this week to talk about gathering East African youth ( ages 16-30) They really liked the idea and thought of several friends they could invite. We plan on meeting on June 13. Please pray that God gathers those that need connection and that we can encourage unity and challenge this youth to be missionaries in their circle of influence. We are almost all settled into our new home here in ND. We just lack a few boxes in Dave’s office. Please pray that we can have time to get fully settled before the busyness of the summer rushes in. Please pray for our financial support. Hudson Taylor ( a British Protestant Christian missionary to China in the 1800s and founder of the China Inland Mission) said, “ God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supplies.”  Two of the beautiful young women who came over for dinner last week-- Joy and Francine Thank you so much for all your prayers and support at this time. We could not do what we do without you! If you would like to give online go https://secure.egsnetwork.com/donate/C0AF312B0E28441 You can also mail a check to East Africa Diaspora Community, P.O. Box 480 Wheaton, IL 60187

Summertime News

Summertime! This may be different for everyone but usually, there are trips or vacations planned. Sometimes projects that have been put off that needs doing. There may be extra kids home from college. Hopefully, a few slow days to enjoy the summer heat.

What have we been up to this summer? So far we have been pretty busy.  At the beginning of the summer in May, we held Kwibuka 25, the 25th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. You can read about it and see more pictures on our website https://diasporaoutreachco.wixsite.com/website.

The summertime our diaspora communities come out of the Chicago winter and summer Bar-B-Q s and parties began. We have already gone to several. We have had a few smaller parties and gatherings at our home with our friends from East Africa. We have also been visiting several Ethnic churches that are meeting in and around Chicagoland. Dave and I also were blessed to attend the Initiative Retreat in Green Lake, WI. The Initiative is a group of Christians from various backgrounds who covenant together to live in an intentional initiative, practicing deep and growing friendship with God and others, that the love of Jesus might exceed all divisions.

In addition to all of these activities, we have been busy trying to catch up on administration stuff and making a smooth transition with the East Africa Diaspora Community. 

We have also enjoyed having some family time. It has been fun having both Ethan and Ruth home this summer. Caleb and Sarah live in the apt building next door so we have enjoyed weekly family dinners. Sophia and Penny have visited on week this summer already and we are looking forward to Matt, Sophia, and Penny coming in August. We enjoy our granddaughter so much. Penny just turned 1! 

One of the things that happen with those of us that are relying on other’s gifts to sustain us and our ministries is what some call the Summer Giving Slump. This has been our experience for our whole missionary career. We call it skinny summer. Usually, we try and save up or do some extra pushes for giving in the spring to cover for the summer lol. This year as we have made the transition to Faith and Learning receiving our funding it, unfortunately, has happened during the summer. It was probably not the best time to make this transition but we did not have much choice in the timing of it all. 

We first want to thank those who have made the transition and are now giving to East Africa Diaspora Community EADC our project with Faith and Learning https://faithandlearning.org/. We could not do this ministry without you, so thanks so much for your sacrificial giving!

There may be some of you that might want to partner with us but are still a bit confused as to what we are doing. We have spent 19 years of our lives overseas building relationships with East Africans, mainly in Uganda and Rwanda and now we are following those relationship lines to East Africans living in diaspora currently here in Chicagoland and beyond. Over the last 7 years that we have lived here, we have proactively built relationships with several community organizations of Ugandans, Tanzanians, Kenyans, Congolese, South Sudanese, Rwandans, and others from East Africa. We are promoting unity and encouraging these communities to collaborate together on common projects. We have also acted as pastors at large and have helped with funerals, weddings, and other individual counseling and mentoring. We also do a lot of our teaching online through FaceBook live and writings. We are in the process of putting some of these into a seminar format called Welcome to America: how to live well in Diaspora that we are planning on using in some different Diaspora communities across the U.S. and abroad. 

If you would like to give; our project is found in the World Wide section https://faithandlearning.org/projects/  under East Africa Diaspora Community: Dave & Jana Jenkins. We have also created our own website at  East African Diaspora Community website You can either go to our online giving page for EADC Giving Page, or donors can also mail checks made out to East Africa Diaspora Community to PO Box 480, Wheaton, IL  60187. 

Currently, we are only about 19% funded so we have some additional support to discover. We would love for our current supports to introduce us to like-minded individuals and/or Churches.

But most importantly we would like for you to continue joining us with your prayers. We believe this is God’s work that he has called us too and believe that He will provide!

Blessings,

Jana and Dave