2018 Year End Newsletter

Dear Family and friends,

Can you believe 2018 is coming to a close? This has been a year of transitions for our family and ministry. We got our first granddaughter, Peniel Angelica Cardillo who has been such a joy.

Jana enjoying a visit with Penny in the fall

Caleb and his wife Sarah moved into the apartment building next door. Love having family as neighbors. Ethan is finishing his last classes at Wheaton college and applying to grad school. Ruth just finished her first semester at Judson University and Timothy, although it has been a rough fall for him with his health, was named to the 2018 U.S. Paralympics Track & Field High School All-American team.

Timothy with his first place medal at Junior Nationals 

Dave and I went from working 4 different jobs down to focusing on two ministries. We are still serving as houseparents for homeless mom’s and their children here at Jubilee Villiage. Secondly, for those that are following us on FaceBook and in our past newsletters we have shared about us starting a non-profit, Diaspora Outreach Community (DOC). We have been serving in these roles as missionaries to the East African Diaspora here in Chicagoland since we returned from Rwanda 6 years ago. Now we are able to put our full focus on this. This has been a leap of faith and we are counting on your support and prayers to carry us through.

Some of the highlights this year in our ministry has been helping to host an East African summer cookout. Coming alongside the Tanzanian community to reach out to other East Africans and we were thrilled with the over 300 attendees.

Tanzanian East African Summer Cookout 

New friends were formed and connections were made. Networking with some credit unions to find help for our East African Community in the future with low-interest loans and financial advice. Celebrating with those in our community over becoming U.S. citizens. Grieving with those who have lost loved ones and helping our community grief from afar.

Last night we had a young man who graduated from KICS( the Christian International school we helped to start in Rwanda) and has just finished his college degree from Trinity and is now living close by. It was nice to hear about what is happening in his life, help him brainstorm about his future, and we are hoping and praying he finds a fulltime employment as he was recently laid off.

Dave receiving an award for service at the Ugandan Christmas Party

We love going to parties and hosting gatherings in our home. We find that God is using us in these times to encourage others and speak His words to those who are struggling. Please continue to pray for us as He uses us to bless and disciple others living in diaspora here in Chicagoland.

We would love for you to prayerfully consider giving a yearend one-time gift. We are also looking for more monthly contributors. We have limited funds at the moment so we were only able to send this newsletter out to our short list. Congratulations you were on it!⇁😃 (Now we are sharing this in Jana's blog)

Some of you are already giving to us and we want to say thank you so much. Your support really means a lot to us.

If you would like to contribute to our ministry send a check to Cornerstone Christian Church, 312 Geneva Road, Glen Ellyn IL 60137 and put Diaspora Outreach Community in the memo. Thank you very much (Asante sana. Webale nyo. Murakoze cyane.)

We hope you and your family have a blessed Christmas and a joy-filled New Year!

Blessings,

Dave & Jana Jenkins

Support Update

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Hopefully, you have read our latest newsletter, or seen our FB posts and live

videos where we have shared that we have started a nonprofit or parachurch

organization to enable us to better serve East Africans as missionaries

here in Chicagoland.

Friends and family that joined us for Thanksgiving last year

 We have been working on filing papers and all the things you do to get
a new organization started.  We are having to move faster than we had hoped
and have run into a few roadblocks. We are thankful to share that
Cornerstone Christian ( this is the church where Dave has officed
at over the last 3 years and where we are currently worshiping)
has stepped up to receive our missionary support as we get
DOC -- Diaspora Outreach Community up and running.

Thank you so much for supporting us. Ignite is no longer receiving our funds,

the director of Ignite is serving on our board so it has been a smooth transition.

If you have any questions or would like to hear more details from us please feel

free to write us or call.

This has been a tough month for us as Jana has had major surgery

and Tim has been sick and has missed almost 3 weeks of school.

Family and friends have really helped out during this time.

We really appreciate all of you who have brought food, cook,

bought us groceries and who have just come and sat with us during this time.

Please send your contribution to Cornerstone Christian Church,

312 Geneva Road, Glen Ellyn IL 60137.

Please put Diaspora Outreach Community in the memo.

If you want to set up a direct deposit please contact us

and we can help you set it up.

Thanks again so much for praying for us and

supporting us as we serve as missionaries here in Chicagoland.

Blessings,

Dave and Jana

6 years in our America Mission Posting

So we have been in our new posting in America for almost 6 years. Sometimes it has felt like one long extended furlough and I am ready to go back home--to where ever that is???

When I look back over these last 6 years, and ask myself what have the Jenkins been doing? I see several themes. One big one is relearning and trying to find our groove back in our passport country. A lot has changed in the U.S during the two decades we were gone. Did we idealize America, when we served overseas and have returned a bit dissolution? We tried very hard when we first returned not to make too many harsh judgments but to try and look at America through the same missionary lends that we did other postings.

We thought we would return and fit back into middle-class living but unfortunately, we have had to learn how to live in poverty. The last 5 years we have teetered on the poverty line. I almost hesitate to write this as we have had so many given so sacrificially over the last 6 years of which we are so thankful. But we have also had several years where we could not keep up with our monthly bills, where I would hear a truck go by in the night and think it was the repo guy coming to take our van away. Thankfully today all our cars are paid off ( 2 of them were given to us). They are older vehicles so we occasionally have maintenance cost but we are thankful. Our kids have received free lunches or reduced lunches at school, we have stood in line for free food. We have continued to host people and serve meals to those that God brings our way.  When you are at this level for an extended period of time, it can really wear on you. We are constantly in survival mode trying to figure out how to make everything work. There have been some helpful people that God has placed in our lives that have helped us to navigate the system to get some much-needed resources. It is hard, to be honest about this. We were on food stamps for a season and have had help with Health insurance. When we have sat in American churches we have felt marginalized at best. Judged at worst. Many times we feel like a project. One thing that I can share is that it has helped us empathize with others that walk this similar journey.

Another is trying to use our gifts, experiences, and relationships and answer God’s calling in our lives. We love our friends and family from East Africa. Many are in and around Chicagoland. We have been able to go to parties, and host parties and fellowships with those from East Africa. We have laughed together, prayed together, and cried together. We have had weddings, celebrate births, and mourn the loss and buried some. Over the last few years, we have tried to plant an international church. Challenging our East African friends to be missionaries here in America with the idea to reach other multinationals. As we have spent time and energy doing this, we have spent less time with the larger East African community pastoring them. Ironically, as we have done the day by day of trying to lay a foundation for our church plant and doing the weekly set up and service we actually feel we have discipled less. We know from past church plants that in the beginning you need to delay gratification and there is a lot of drudgery and grind. This phase has lasted longer this time around. We know we need more core people and resources to get to the next stage. Are we stretching our community too far? Are we asking too much from our partners? Is the American church not ready to receive missionaries?

We have tried many things in this season. Currently, we are doing 4 things. First, we are still trying to serve our East African community. This last month, we hosted a couple of concerts for a Ugandan Mother and Daughter Christian artists. Dave helped to raise money to send the body home of a Rwandan friend that died too young. Dave also spoke at several East African social and spiritual events.

Secondly, we are houseparents for a transitional home for single moms, this is a volunteer position that provides housing for us. We have enjoyed mentoring these young Mom’s and serving with a great team here at Jubilee Village but it does take time and emotional energy. Here is a story of one of the girls on our floor . https://www.outreachcommunityministries.org/jalenas-story/

Third, we are planting Nations Chapel. We have a great place to meet at Outreach Community Center in Carol Stream. We are so thankful for this location. We are meeting Sunday afternoons and usually share a meal together after worship. We are still just a small core that is consistent. Ignite’s monthly financial commitment was up in December 2017( they have been helping with $1000 per month) but they are still receiving funds for us from other individuals that support us as missionaries in America.

Finally, since January, Dave has been interim pastor at Lighthouse Fellowship Church in Huntley, IL. https://lfchuntley.org/ This is a congregation made up mostly of retired people. We have enjoyed getting to know them. They are a wise group of people. In addition to being with them on Sunday, we usually spend one day a week visiting the members and Dave attending the deacons meeting. We are finding ourselves falling in love with this community.

Dave has also been spending extra time with our son, Timothy in this season as he has had some health challenges with his Cerebral Palsy. In addition, I have had some health difficulties that started out with having melanoma skin cancer in my left arm and has sent me on several Doctor visits and many tests. Thankfully most things have come out fine but they did find a mass on my tailbone, at this point, it is benign but needs to be removed. I am having an MRI next week with a follow up with the surgeon on how to proceed. We would appreciate all of your prayers for this and also Timothy’s health.

As you can see it is a very busy season and we are struggling to do our best in all four of the ministries we are involved in plus family life. We would also like you to join us in prayer as we seek God to give us wisdom as to how to hone down some of what we are doing. We feel we need to focus on two instead of four things so that we can better serve. We are trying to hold things loosely and asking God to make clear what He wants us to do. Thanks again for your support and your prayers!

Blessings,

Jana and Dave

P.S. We are excited to announce that we are grandparents and we will meet our grandbaby face to face in July when he/she decides to make an appearance. We have enjoyed having Matt and Sophia here for Easter. It was a real blessing to have our whole family together.

 
                                           ( Ruth, Sophia, and our daughter-in-law Sarah)