Meet the Bell family!
Dave and Jen Bell felt the call to missions first in 1999 when they visited Mexico and worked in the landfill at Tijuana. It was there that God impressed upon them it was time to quit chasing the “American Dream” and allow God to “fill the empty space”. Their successful Tool and Die business in Hagerstown, IN was sold, and the journey began.
Following that call, the Bell family (Dave, Jen, Chris, and Nate) moved multiple places over the next few years. From Wisconsin to build and direct a mission’s program for Life Promotions, and ultimately to Kenya after God laid it on their hearts to move there permanently after some short-term times of service.
After moving to Kenya in 2006 with their second born, Nate, (Chris left for college when they left for Africa) the focus was on AIDs education and working with youth. During this time, working with multiple Children Homes was also a regular event, and it was during these times of visiting and assisting these homes that God began to reveal the fact that the huge majority of orphans will never be able to leave the institutional setting of a children’s home. The homes simply did not take the time, or exert the energy to get all the paperwork in order for a child to be adopted.
With this burden on their hearts, the vision of Mahali pa Maisha was born. A place where an abandoned infant once regarded as trash would be loved and cherished, with the focused goal of seeing them adopted into their very own Forever Family.
While working to overcome the cultural resistance to adoption in Kenya, God also impressed on them a burden to “walk the walk” and adopt two orphans themselves. So in 2012 the Bell family grew by two. Ethan and Selah joined the family and brought a new youthful energy to Dave and Jen as they pressed on rescuing as many abandoned infants as possible through the Infant Rescue Center. In 2021 Shadrach Jason (Shaddy) joined the family.
So how did it happen you ask?
Through a series of God-events, He led us to meet this incredible family. From that first meeting over lunch, we couldn’t shake what we learned!
We were invited to go visit their ministry so we can learn more. And the rest is history!
Well, an on-going, written in real time kind of “history”! But you know what I mean…..
We have a lot that we can learn from this family, and we are looking forward to doing just that!
James 1:27 says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” What better way to be His hands and feet than to love on His children!!
So until next time…