So here it is... the final summary video I made. Of course it desn't come close to capturing all that we did and certainly not all that God did within us, but enjoy it.
Follow the Youtube link here, the video is under 9 minutes:
There have been some toughThere have been some tough moments on this trip. Pride-swallowing, heart-breaking and spiritually-stretching hours and days. But I know that the hardest minute will be tommorrow. Harder than dancing in bars, harder than singing on stage or preaching to 300, harder than seeing death in hospitals or kids abandoned on the street. Tomorrow I have to say goodbye to my team, my family. Unless you have experienced a similar community, you cannot understand the bond that we have together. I can't count how many times I've held a crying sister or sobbed on a shoulder. We have gone through tough days and come out better people, more reliant and in love with our Father. We have established a unique blend of humour that I don't think anyone else could appreciate. We've learned to live in small spaces, cook, shop, clean, pray, worship, farm, do all sorts of ministry, study the word and grow up together. We spill our guts and pour out our hearts as a part of our daily routine and my idea of what a relationship can look like has been blown out of the water. We can do anything together be it plan an entire church service ten minutes before it's start or split two bus seats five ways.
There have been some tough moments on this trip. Pride-swallowing, heart-breaking and spiritually-stretching hours and days. But I know that the hardest minute will be tommorrow. Harder than dancing in bars, harder than singing on stage or preaching to 300, harder than seeing death in hospitals or kids abandoned on the street. Tomorrow I have to say goodbye to my team, my family. Unless you have experienced a similar community, you cannot understand the bond that we have together. I can't count how many times I've held a crying sister or sobbed on a shoulder. We have gone through tough days and come out better people, more reliant and in love with our Father. We have established a unique blend of humour that I don't think anyone else could appreciate. We've learned to live in small spaces, cook, shop, clean, pray, worship, farm, do all sorts of ministry, study the word and grow up together. We spill our guts and pour out our hearts as a part of our daily routine and my idea of what a relationship can look like has been blown out of the water. We can do anything together be it plan an entire church service ten minutes before it's start or split two bus seats five ways.
I wish I could explain how proud I was of Michaela, Anna, Haden and Jake and if I had a way to articulate my love for them properly I would.
I can only thank God for them and for the miraculous way that God took 19 teenagers and college students (our leaders were 21 and 18) and used us to bring light to into the dark all around the world and to change ourselves from kids into men and women of God. 19 ordinary people who stared with a little bit of longing are going home prophet and warriors, persuers and persrverers. I was so blessed to have this incredible oppurtunity over the last year. God seriously planned everything that happened perfectly and He has been SO GOOD to us! Thank you for your prayers!
And although I think that this is the hardest time, it is also truly a time of rejoicing, as God is bringing me into new seasons. My next mission field will be a Toronto summer camp where I am working this summer, then the University of Ottawa in September. I left with sincere intentions but began ministry out of obligation because of the purpose of the trip. However, I've become aware recently that God has effectively transformed me into one of those crazy Christian people. And as a result, although ministry isn't on the schedule, I'm obliged by the purpose of this life to share hope and spread love for the glory of God.
After my church sees it, I will be posting a video I made about my entire trip with some pictures to go along with it. There might be a blog or two more, but for now, my adventures in blogging are finished. Thanks for reading and for your support. :)
After my church sees it, I will be posting a video I made about my entire trip with some pictures to go along with it. There might be a blog or two more, but for now, my adventures in blogging are finished. Thanks for reading and for your support. :) moments on this trip. Pride-swallowing, heart-breaking and spiritually-stretching hours and days. But I know that the hardest minute will be tommorrow. Harder than dancing in bars, harder than singing on stage or preaching to 300, harder than seeing death in hospitals or kids abandoned on the street. Tomorrow I have to say goodbye to my team, my family. Unless you have experienced a similar community, you cannot understand the bond that we have together. I can't count how many times I've held a crying sister or sobbed on a shoulder. We have gone through tough days and come out better people, more reliant and in love with our Father. We have established a unique blend of humour that I don't think anyone else could appreciate. We've learned to live in small spaces, cook, shop, clean, pray, worship, farm, do all sorts of ministry, study the word and grow up together. We spill our guts and pour out our hearts as a part of our daily routine and my idea of what a relationship can look like has been blown out of the water. We can do anything together be it plan an entire church service ten minutes before it's start or split two bus seats five ways.
I wish I could explain how proud I was of Michaela, Anna, Haden and Jake and if I had a way to articulate my love for them properly I would.
I can only thank God for them and for the miraculous way that God took 19 teenagers and college students (our leaders were 21 and 18) and used us to bring light to into the dark all around the world and to change ourselves from kids into men and women of God. 19 ordinary people who stared with a little bit of longing are going home prophet and warriors, persuers and persrverers. I was so blessed to have this incredible oppurtunity over the last year. God seriously planned everything that happened perfectly and He has been SO GOOD to us! Thank you for your prayers!
After my church sees it, I will be posting a video I made about my entire trip with some pictures to go along with it. There might be a blog or two more, but for now, my adventures in blogging are finished. Thanks for reading and for your support. :)
If you haven't read my post called, "take away their homeless things," read that blog for some background first.
So with regard to the street boys, my team confronted grave desperation. In a typical and detrimental short-term missions way we could have fed the kids a few Sundays, played a couple games of soccer, maybe preached a gospel of love while clutching our stuff to our chests and ignoring their nakedness and hunger. But we didn't come to fulfill expectations or take photos. We wanted to actually impact these kids and work for the kingdom of heaven. We looked to see if there is an organization already established to find that although attempts have been made the problem is deep-rooted and the children are stubborn, so people have long given up and the government and orphanages, who's intentions are often corrupt, won't give the kids a second-look because it won't be easy.
If these kids were the cold-blooded monstrous outcasts that society portrays them as, then Christians would urgently need to help them. But, in fact, they aren't even that disgraceful statistic. I know their names and their faces and their personalities. I know that when we brought them crayons and paper they all drew the same thing - their homes. Some are bratty, sure. They fight, they inhale drugs, they cuss, they have no respect for women. But sometimes they get tired of being strong and they come up to me and push their body against mine in a sincere, broken, I really need a mom hug. So I grab them and hold them hoping to be tender enough to combat their tough skin and singed hearts. We interviewed them one by one searching for the roots of their situation. Some just ran away from poor homes, now addicted to drugs and deeply ashamed they fear home. Some are victims are abuse or have fallen between the cracks in tense remarriage or polygamy situations. The fact of the matter is that a home isn't all these kids need. They need counseling, education, a trade. They need to see grace and compassion and to know they are covered by the love of Jesus.
Two days before we left Busia my team was sitting in our little room figuring out plans for the day. We started talking about the street kids in depth and realized that we were more united in our passion for them than we thought. We started dreaming and we noticed that we could, for real, feel the Holy Spirit as we got excited. A month or so ago, one of the members of my team started raising money for land to grow food so that the church could sustainably feed the kids on Sundays. After talking to a lot of people we realized that a real solution could be a halfway house. And on that morning, those ideas became plans. We are going to build a halfway house where street kids who have made a personal decision that they want to go off the street can live for up to 18 months. They will be rehabilitated, counseled and discipled. A mechanic, seamstress and electrician from the church have already volunteered to take older or completely uneducated kids as apprentices. Otherwise, after initial rehabilitation they will go to school and be slowly be expected to help on the farm. The goal will be that the kids can either slowly return to their homes, be adopted by a member of the church or find a place in a legitimate orphanage. Our hope is that it will not take long for the center to be self-sustainable. This will start with growing their own food and by building a base of volunteers to help with practical aspects. We have drafted our plans with the senior pastor of our church as well a a wise, very trusted 30 year old friend with a passion for the street kids who will direct the project from the ground and soon become full-time staff. The pastor is in the process of registering the center as a community-based organization and we are praying that a strong leadership board will fall into place. Within the next year it is very likely that at least two members of my team will come to help with the project and we will remain in very close contact with the leadership board as well as the visiting missionary teams who can offer a different perspective.
It is challenging because in East Africa organizations like this are associated with corruption. We are not social workers and we don't know what will be effective. (On that note, the college majors for 3/5 of my teammates changed this week. One's starting to actually learn Swahili.) And I know that something like this is a big deal. It comes with the responsibility of people's funds and children's lives, . We are well aware of our qualifications as a group of six college students. The reality of it though, is that after that passionate meeting a few mornings ago God came into that room and within a few seconds for no evident reason we all started sobbing. Then laughing, then singing and singing and yelling and singing. I think we walked straight into God's will and He didn't want us to doubt it. And that morning God told me something: "Take care of my kids." They are literally the epitome of the least of these. Eight, ten, twelve years old - sitting half clothed, high, dirty, wounds oozing, no way out and no one who cares. Even most churches in Busia will not let them in. At night truckers come through no man's land and do things to those boys that no eight year old should ever even know is possible. Satan can't get enough of those kids. He lets them walk around that place in that state. Then he sends someone to circumcise them, to rape them and he smiles at their pain and his relentlessness. But I am certain that God hasn't forgotten those kids. Those kids are going to be kings in heaven, myself a servant, might as well start serving them now.
Please pray for these kids. Pray for the strength of the Kenyan side of the leadership and that their vision will be translated into effective actions. Pray that God will defeat the darkness in no man's land. We will also be fundraising if you are interested in helping.
If you haven't read my post called, "take away their homeless things," read that blog for some background first.
So with regard to the street boys, my team confronted grave desperation. In a typical and detrimental short-term missions way we could have fed the kids a few Sundays, played a couple games of soccer, maybe preached a gospel of love while clutching our stuff to our chests and ignoring their nakedness and hunger. But we didn't come to fulfill expectations or take photos. We wanted to actually impact these kids and work for the kingdom of heaven. We looked to see if there is an organization already established to find that although attempts have been made the problem is deep-rooted and the children are stubborn, so people have long given up and the government and orphanages, who's intentions are often corrupt, won't give the kids a second-look because it won't be easy.
If these kids were the cold-blooded monstrous outcasts that society portrays them as, then Christians would urgently need to help them. But, in fact, they aren't even that disgraceful statistic. I know their names and their faces and their personalities. I know that when we brought them crayons and paper they all drew the same thing - their homes. Some are bratty, sure. They fight, they inhale drugs, they cuss, they have no respect for women. But sometimes they get tired of being strong and they come up to me and push their body against mine in a sincere, broken, I really need a mom hug. So I grab them and hold them hoping to be tender enough to combat their tough skin and singed hearts. We interviewed them one by one searching for the roots of their situation. Some just ran away from poor homes, now addicted to drugs and deeply ashamed they fear home. Some are victims are abuse or have fallen between the cracks in tense remarriage or polygamy situations. The fact of the matter is that a home isn't all these kids need. They need counseling, education, a trade. They need to see grace and compassion and to know they are covered by the love of Jesus.
Two days before we left Busia my team was sitting in our little room figuring out plans for the day. We started talking about the street kids in depth and realized that we were more united in our passion for them than we thought. We started dreaming and we noticed that we could, for real, feel the Holy Spirit as we got excited. A month or so ago, one of the members of my team started raising money for land to grow food so that the church could sustainably feed the kids on Sundays. After talking to a lot of people we realized that a real solution could be a halfway house. And on that morning, those ideas became plans. We are going to build a halfway house where street kids who have made a personal decision that they want to go off the street can live for up to 18 months. They will be rehabilitated, counseled and discipled. A mechanic, seamstress and electrician from the church have already volunteered to take older or completely uneducated kids as apprentices. Otherwise, after initial rehabilitation they will go to school and be slowly be expected to help on the farm. The goal will be that the kids can either slowly return to their homes, be adopted by a member of the church or find a place in a legitimate orphanage. Our hope is that it will not take long for the center to be self-sustainable. This will start with growing their own food and by building a base of volunteers to help with practical aspects. We have drafted our plans with the senior pastor of our church as well a a wise, very trusted 30 year old friend with a passion for the street kids who will direct the project from the ground and soon become full-time staff. The pastor is in the process of registering the center as a community-based organization and we are praying that a strong leadership board will fall into place. Within the next year it is very likely that at least two members of my team will come to help with the project and we will remain in very close contact with the leadership board as well as the visiting missionary teams who can offer a different perspective.
It is challenging because in East Africa organizations like this are associated with corruption. We are not social workers and we don't know what will be effective. (On that note, the college majors for 3/5 of my teammates changed this week. One's starting to actually learn Swahili.) And I know that something like this is a big deal. It comes with the responsibility of people's funds and children's lives, . We are well aware of our qualifications as a group of six college students. The reality of it though, is that after that passionate meeting a few mornings ago God came into that room and within a few seconds for no evident reason we all started sobbing. Then laughing, then singing and singing and yelling and singing. I think we walked straight into God's will and He didn't want us to doubt it. And that morning God told me something: "Take care of my kids." They are literally the epitome of the least of these. Eight, ten, twelve years old - sitting half clothed, high, dirty, wounds oozing, no way out and no one who cares. Even most churches in Busia will not let them in. At night truckers come through no man's land and do things to those boys that no eight year old should ever even know is possible. Satan can't get enough of those kids. He lets them walk around that place in that state. Then he sends someone to circumcise them, to rape them and he smiles at their pain and his relentlessness. But I am certain that God hasn't forgotten those kids. Those kids are going to be kings in heaven, myself a servant, might as well start serving them now.
Please pray for these kids. Pray for the strength of the Kenyan side of the leadership and that their vision will be translated into effective actions. Pray that God will defeat the darkness in no man's land. We will also be fundraising if you are interested in helping.
SundaySunday night atSunday night at dusk I found myself one of three on a motorcycle in an unfarmiliar African countryside. The rains had come that day like every other and I was wet and cold from disturbed puddles and dowpours. Lush plains stretched as far as I could see, scattered with typical Kenyan manure huts, cows and and goats. We were quite a sight really - mzungus with raincoats and little backpacks shouting back and forth trying to determinethe whereabouts of a pineapple . We didn't actually know where we were suppose to go, only that we were staying with a pastor Haden. The motorcycle befriended in the marketplace. The motorcylce taxi dropped us off at on a small property with a couple huts and we stood there hoping that we had found the right home. A mama came out from the smallest hut and welcomed us, in Swahili, into her house. Soon the pastor and the rest of my team arrived. We ate, danced with the children and the neighbours and curled up on the floor to sleep. In the morning neighbours came to visit so we taught them about the love of Jesus. We got the neighbourhood tour, including a sugar plantation, a small, gleefully muddy river, a dozen family friends and some beautiful countryside. We also walked by a primary school where we were invited in to teach the kids for a short time while they were on break. We chased them, taught them and sang songs with them. Once again, my heart was stirred and my mind was boggled with the extent of the poverty in that place. I don't really think that mud huts or carrying water is poverty. Poverty is the big malnurished bellies on the kids who cannot go to school for lack of a uniform. Their eyes seem empty and even though they laugh and play when you come over to them, you know they are plagued with suffering. But in a typical, heartbreaking fashion there was not much we could do that day when our loyalties were elsewhere. So, afternoon rolled in and after some photos we headed back to a nearby town to catch a van.
Sunday night at dusk I found myself one of three on a motorcycle in an unfarmiliar African countryside. The rains had come that day like every other and I was wet and cold from disturbed puddles and dowpours. Lush plains stretched as far as I could see, scattered with typical Kenyan manure huts, cows and and goats. We were quite a sight really - mzungus with raincoats and little backpacks shouting back and forth trying to determinethe whereabouts of a pineapple . We didn't actually know where we were suppose to go, only that we were staying with a pastor Haden. The motorcycle befriended in the marketplace. The motorcylce taxi dropped us off at on a small property with a couple huts and we stood there hoping that we had found the right home. A mama came out from the smallest hut and welcomed us, in Swahili, into her house. Soon the pastor and the rest of my team arrived. We ate, danced with the children and the neighbours and curled up on the floor to sleep. In the morning neighbours came to visit so we taught them about the love of Jesus. We got the neighbourhood tour, including a sugar plantation, a small, gleefully muddy river, a dozen family friends and some beautiful countryside. We also walked by a primary school where we were invited in to teach the kids for a short time while they were on break. We chased them, taught them and sang songs with them. Once again, my heart was stirred and my mind was boggled with the extent of the poverty in that place. I don't really think that mud huts or carrying water is poverty. Poverty is the big malnurished bellies on the kids who cannot go to school for lack of a uniform. Their eyes seem empty and even though they laugh and play when you come over to them, you know they are plagued with suffering. But in a typical, heartbreaking fashion there was not much we could do that day when our loyalties were elsewhere. So, afternoon rolled in and after some photos we headed back to a nearby town to catch a van.
About 3 towns, 3 kilometers in elevation and 3 hours later we reached the vilage famous for producing the worlds's best runners - Capsabet (1 hour from Eldoret). One of my teammate Michaela's best friends at home was born and raised there and we went to visit his family. They own this piece of land on the side of a hill overlooking a gorgeous valley. Different members of the family have different huts or houses along the hill between gardens, animal pens and a passion fruit vineyard. It is seriously like the shire - amazing beyond words. The family welcomed us so joyfully, feeding us mounds of rice, giving us tribal names, letting us pick fruit, milk cows and plant trees. They took us to the running track in town and we sat hours on end talking with them about faith, America and missions. Finally, on Wednesday morning we made our way back home to dusty Busia, making a a surprse stop to see one of the other teams in Bungoma.
Thursday we walked to no man's land in the morning near a notoriously raunchy Ugandan slum called Sophia. We prayed for that place and talked and prayed with some specific people. Then we spent the afternoon at a small crusade in a Busia outskirt. I reconnected with some friends there and got to encourage them. It was a moderately tough day, but I would have considered it easy if I had known what was coming the next morning.
We started with an activity that has become normal. We invited the street kids from no man's land, who are now our friends, to a specific field to play soccer. Ussually when they see us they run to us and hug us, they smaile and laugh. But when they showed up we confronted a serious and unexpected issue - some non-medical person had gone into no man's land and forced all the boys to be circumsized! They had no pain-killers, no beds, nothing to protect against infection or keep them clean. So my first thought was to fall on the ground laughing, but I when I looked at these friends and saw that they were in great pain I was upset. We brought crayons and paper, and the kids, even the older teenagers, drew eagerly instead of plaing soccer. Intrestingly enough, they all drew pretty much the same thing - their homes. But soon things got out of hand. Men acame and sold the kids drugs right in front of us. We watched one of our favourite kids go use a fake-crying tactic to beg for money to trade for inhalants. They began to fight and were antsy for the food we promised. My team was overcome by righteous anger and brokeness for their hopelessness. Even at home, one of my teammates was preparing fod and she broke down. One kid was lying on the ground sobbing in pain from a terrrible infection, so Jake carried him to the hospital where he saw half a bloody man dying.
I took a bike taxi home and figured out a way to explain in Swahili to the driver to take the food back to the otherside of town. I planned to follow him but instead found another one of my teammates who was home sick had become sicker, so with a change of plans I was off in another scurry to a hospital, knowing that there was still chaos with the street kids. So put simply: chaos, stress, brokeness, helplessness, darkness. But the flip side is: growth. I'm realizing more and more how helpless and useless I am and how great God is!
Perhaps, that is what Jesus was talking about when he said to take up our crosses and follow him - to be severely brokenhearted and distressed by evil.
To relax in the evening I visited a friend who has a tiny shop and danced and played with her children. She has been teaching me the language to use in the store and the prices of the few items she sells, so I take pleasure in suprising customers by serving them.
A few days later, my sick teammate is well on her way to health, we are planning to meet with the street kids once more before we leave and have helped the church started a councelling program for them. I am in love with this place more than ever before and I know that God is working in my heart. I even preached about perservereance through trials on Sunday for a couple hundred adults in a Pentacostal church. The power went out so I had to yell but it was great!
God is good! He is good to me even when I am afflicted. There will be redemption for the street kids. There is hope for Sophia. Sorry this blog is all over the place. I pledge to post picturers upon returning to Canada in only ten days.
dusk I found myself one of three on a motorcycle in an unfarmiliar African countryside. The rains had come that day like every other and I was wet and cold from disturbed puddles and dowpours. Lush plains stretched as far as I could see, scattered with typical Kenyan manure huts, cows and and goats. We were quite a sight really - mzungus with raincoats and little backpacks shouting back and forth trying to determinethe whereabouts of a pineapple . We didn't actually know where we were suppose to go, only that we were staying with a pastor Haden. The motorcycle befriended in the marketplace. The motorcylce taxi dropped us off at on a small property with a couple huts and we stood there hoping that we had found the right home. A mama came out from the smallest hut and welcomed us, in Swahili, into her house. Soon the pastor and the rest of my team arrived. We ate, danced with the children and the neighbours and curled up on the floor to sleep. In the morning neighbours came to visit so we taught them about the love of Jesus. We got the neighbourhood tour, including a sugar plantation, a small, gleefully muddy river, a dozen family friends and some beautiful countryside. We also walked by a primary school where we were invited in to teach the kids for a short time while they were on break. We chased them, taught them and sang songs with them. Once again, my heart was stirred and my mind was boggled with the extent of the poverty in that place. I don't really think that mud huts or carrying water is poverty. Poverty is the big malnurished bellies on the kids who cannot go to school for lack of a uniform. Their eyes seem empty and even though they laugh and play when you come over to them, you know they are plagued with suffering. But in a typical, heartbreaking fashion there was not much we could do that day when our loyalties were elsewhere. So, afternoon rolled in and after some photos we headed back to a nearby town to catch a van.
About 3 towns, 3 kilometers in elevation and 3 hours later we reached the vilage famous for producing the worlds's best runners - Capsabet (1 hour from Eldoret). One of my teammate Michaela's best friends at home was born and raised there and we went to visit his family. They own this piece of land on the side of a hill overlooking a gorgeous valley. Different members of the family have different huts or houses along the hill between gardens, animal pens and a passion fruit vineyard. It is seriously like the shire - amazing beyond words. The family welcomed us so joyfully, feeding us mounds of rice, giving us tribal names, letting us pick fruit, milk cows and plant trees. They took us to the running track in town and we sat hours on end talking with them about faith, America and missions. Finally, on Wednesday morning we made our way back home to dusty Busia, making a a surprse stop to see one of the other teams in Bungoma.
Thursday we walked to no man's land in the morning near a notoriously raunchy Ugandan slum called Sophia. We prayed for that place and talked and prayed with some specific people. Then we spent the afternoon at a small crusade in a Busia outskirt. I reconnected with some friends there and got to encourage them. It was a moderately tough day, but I would have considered it easy if I had known what was coming the next morning.
We started with an activity that has become normal. We invited the street kids from no man's land, who are now our friends, to a specific field to play soccer. When they showed up we confronted a serious and unexpected issue - some non-medical person had gone into no man's land and forced all the boys to be circumcized! They had no pain-killers, no beds, nothing to protect against infection or keep them clean. We brought crayons and paper, and the kids, even the older teenagers, drew eagerly. Intrestingly enough, they all drew pretty much the same thing - their homes. night at dusk I found myself one of three on a motorcycle in an unfarmiliar African countryside. The rains had come that day like every other and I was wet and cold from disturbed puddles and dowpours. Lush plains stretched as far as I could see, scattered with typical Kenyan manure huts, cows and and goats. We were quite a sight really - mzungus with raincoats and little backpacks shouting back and forth trying to determinethe whereabouts of a pineapple . We didn't actually know where we were suppose to go, only that we were staying with a pastor Haden. The motorcycle befriended in the marketplace. The motorcylce taxi dropped us off at on a small property with a couple huts and we stood there hoping that we had found the right home. A mama came out from the smallest hut and welcomed us, in Swahili, into her house. Soon the pastor and the rest of my team arrived. We ate, danced with the children and the neighbours and curled up on the floor to sleep. In the morning neighbours came to visit so we taught them about the love of Jesus. We got the neighbourhood tour, including a sugar plantation, a small, gleefully muddy river, a dozen family friends and some beautiful countryside. We also walked by a primary school where we were invited in to teach the kids for a short time while they were on break. We chased them, taught them and sang songs with them. Once again, my heart was stirred and my mind was boggled with the extent of the poverty in that place. I don't really think that mud huts or carrying water is poverty. Poverty is the big malnurished bellies on the kids who cannot go to school for lack of a uniform. Their eyes seem empty and even though they laugh and play when you come over to them, you know they are plagued with suffering. But in a typical, heartbreaking fashion there was not much we could do that day when our loyalties were elsewhere. So, afternoon rolled in and after some photos we headed back to a nearby town to catch a van.
About 3 towns, 3 kilometers in elevation and 3 hours later we reached the vilage famous for producing the worlds's best runners - Capsabet (1 hour from Eldoret). One of my teammate Michaela's best friends at home was born and raised there and we went to visit his family. They own this piece of land on the side of a hill overlooking a gorgeous valley. Different members of the family have different huts or houses along the hill between gardens, animal pens and a passion fruit vineyard. It is seriously like the shire - amazing beyond words. The family welcomed us so joyfully, feeding us mounds of rice, giving us tribal names, letting us pick fruit, milk cows and plant trees. They took us to the running track in town and we sat hours on end talking with them about faith, America and missions. Finally, on Wednesday morning we made our way back home to dusty Busia, making a a surprse stop to see one of the other teams in Bungoma.
Thursday we walked to no man's land in the morning near a notoriously raunchy Ugandan slum called Sophia. We prayed for that place and talked and prayed with some specific people. Then we spent the afternoon at a small crusade in a Busia outskirt. I reconnected with some friends there and got to encourage them. It was a moderately tough day, but I would have considered it easy if I had known what was coming the next morning.
We started with an activity that has become normal. We invited the street kids from no man's land, who are now our friends, to a specific field to play soccer. When they showed up we confronted a serious and unexpected issue - some non-medical person had gone into no man's land and forced all the boys to be circumcized! They had no pain-killers, no beds, nothing to protect against infection or keep them clean. We brought crayons and paper, and the kids, even the older teenagers, drew eagerly. Intrestingly enough, they all drew pretty much the same thing - their homes.
For the most partFor the most part you’ve probably heard the story of Jonah. And while I have few insightful parallels or anything of that sort about it I hope to enlighten you with a bit of a retelling.
The first part is pretty straightforward really. God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah but it freaks him out because he knows Ninevah has a history of screw-up. He escapes his burden by boat, and God’s evident disapproval rocks the ship side to side in an unpredicted storm. The crew freaks out when they realize Jonah’s the one to blame,and fearing the God who sends storms they try to get back to land, but fail. So, kerplop, Jonah gets what’s coming to him and finds himself at God’s mercy in the sea. And God has mercy! A gigantic fish swallows Jonah up and he manages to survive three days and three nights of dark, seaweed covered, fish-belly repentance until God sends the fish to spit him up on a beach somewhere. Jonah presumably takes a quick rinse and heads directly to that evil city.
And cut, the Sunday school version ends here right? Perhaps, but the story’s not half over.
Jonah arrives in Ninevah. The bible says 110,000 people lived there so imagine the Kitchener downtown area with a couple of the suburbs attached. In a seemingly obnoxious display, Jonah started preaching destruction.
“Forty-days from now…”
He probably felt like a fool, got pretty odds stares and was uncomfortable being judged so hardcore. But at the same time the people walking by him, staring at the ground, unadmittably to their friends at first, heard him and their hearts’ raced with conviction. In fact, the King caught wind of the situation and took it seriously. God softened him to believe, and he passed bylaw amendment # 379b:
Section 1:
NOBODY, NOT EVEN YOUR ANIMALS CAN EAT OR DRINK UNTIL WE GET THIS MESS WITH GOD SORTED OUT
Section 2:
PRAYLIKE YOU’VE NEVER PRAYED BEFORE TO JONAH’S GOD
Section 3:
WEAR BURLAP AND SIT IN ASH
And so the city geared up for this desperate attempt to change their lives, committed themselves to righteousness and in a grand display of grace, God, “Changed His mind.”
Meanwhile Jonah doesn’t want to be demolished in God’s anticipated wrath so he climbs up some hill where he can see Ninevah. Nothing happens, because God was merciful, and Jonah gets peeved. It’s absurd, but I can kind of see where he was coming from. He spent a month promising the end of the world and then December 22nd 2012 rolls along like any other day and it’s quite evident that he was mistaken. So he was sitting in a little lean-to he built himself on this hill with his pride burning and a black-eyed ego. Remiscent of Jack and the magic beanstalk God makes a leafy plant sprout up to give Jonah shade. Jonah’s real happy about it too. But then, God sends a worm to destroy the plant and between the hot front rolling in from the East and the sun Jonah is one sun-burnt, miserable mess.
Enter our illogical human sense of entitlement.
“Oh, kill me now,” he petitions God furious at the death of his shelter.
Then God just says something like:
“You really care so much about this plant that was only around for a few days? How much more do I care about the 110,000 people of Ninevah, that I would show them mercy.
And voila, that’s it, a bit of a cliffhanger for a final verse.
In the post-Sunday School chapter of this prophet’s memoir we see an absurd display of indifference for the people of Ninevah. But let me ask you, how often does our pride eclipse our compassion? Or our desire for earthly dignity scores against our logical response to an unfathomable grace in the first period?
In the post-Sunday School chapter of this prophet’s memoir we see an absurd display of indifference for the people of Ninevah. But let me ask you, how often does our pride eclipse our compassion? Or our desire for earthly dignity scores against our logical response to an unfathomable grace in the first period? you’ve probably heard the story of Jonah. And while I have few insightful parallels or anything of that sort about it I hope to enlighten you with a bit of a retelling.
The first part is pretty straightforward really. God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah but it freaks him out because he knows Ninevah has a history of screw-up. He escapes his burden by boat, and God’s evident disapproval rocks the ship side to side in an unpredicted storm. The crew freaks out when they realize Jonah’s the one to blame,and fearing the God who sends storms they try to get back to land, but fail. So, kerplop, Jonah gets what’s coming to him and finds himself at God’s mercy in the sea. And God has mercy! A gigantic fish swallows Jonah up and he manages to survive three days and three nights of dark, seaweed covered, fish-belly repentance until God sends the fish to spit him up on a beach somewhere. Jonah presumably takes a quick rinse and heads directly to that evil city.
And cut, the Sunday school version ends here right? Perhaps, but the story’s not half over.
Jonah arrives in Ninevah. The bible says 110,000 people lived there so imagine the Kitchener downtown area with a couple of the suburbs attached. In a seemingly obnoxious display, Jonah started preaching destruction.
“Forty-days from now…”
He probably felt like a fool, got pretty odds stares and was uncomfortable being judged so hardcore. But at the same time the people walking by him, staring at the ground, unadmittably to their friends at first, heard him and their hearts’ raced with conviction. In fact, the King caught wind of the situation and took it seriously. God softened him to believe, and he passed bylaw amendment # 379b:
Section 1:
NOBODY, NOT EVEN YOUR ANIMALS CAN EAT OR DRINK UNTIL WE GET THIS MESS WITH GOD SORTED OUT
Section 2:
PRAYLIKE YOU’VE NEVER PRAYED BEFORE TO JONAH’S GOD
Section 3:
WEAR BURLAP AND SIT IN ASH
And so the city geared up for this desperate attempt to change their lives, committed themselves to righteousness and in a grand display of grace, God, “Changed His mind.”
Meanwhile Jonah doesn’t want to be demolished in God’s anticipated wrath so he climbs up some hill where he can see Ninevah. Nothing happens, because God was merciful, and Jonah gets peeved. It’s absurd, but I can kind of see where he was coming from. He spent a month promising the end of the world and then December 22nd 2012 rolls along like any other day and it’s quite evident that he was mistaken. So he was sitting in a little lean-to he built himself on this hill with his pride burning and a black-eyed ego. Remiscent of Jack and the magic beanstalk God makes a leafy plant sprout up to give Jonah shade. Jonah’s real happy about it too. But then, God sends a worm to destroy the plant and between the hot front rolling in from the East and the sun Jonah is one sun-burnt, miserable mess.
Enter our illogical human sense of entitlement.
“Oh, kill me now,” he petitions God furious at the death of his shelter.
Then God just says something like:
“You really care so much about this plant that was only around for a few days? How much more do I care about the 110,000 people of Ninevah, that I would show them mercy.
And voila, that’s it, a bit of a cliffhanger for a final verse.
In the post-Sunday School chapter of this prophet’s memoir we see an absurd display of indifference for the people of Ninevah. But let me ask you, how often does our pride eclipse our compassion? Or our desire for earthly dignity scores against our logical response to an unfathomable grace in the first period?
This is a big week for my team here is Busia! Over the last month we have spent time engaged in hut to hut ministry, working intensely with street children and farming among other things. We also had a great few days in Uganda camping along the beautiful Nile River and debriefing our time in Kenya so far. This week we are serving at a big crusade. Today we spent all morning just moving materials to set up a gigantic stage on the biggest field in Busia. Hundreds are coming to participate in a "great commision" conference, crusade and revival. Pray for a huge turnout, that the spirit moves and that my team will have energy cooking, cleaning, speaking, serving and praying from 7am until 11pm from Wednesday until Saturday.
Also pray for Brenda, a fourteen-year-old street girl I have become close to. This week we are proposing to her an option to become an apprentice with a seamstress in order to leave her life of prostitution and poverty.
I thought I would include a paragraph from my journal a couple weeks back...
With only about four weeks left of this adventure, the end is in sight. It is hard not to think about going home. It isn't that I want to go home, I love being here. I just have this made-up idea that there is something satisfying with old comforts and Western luxeries. It's funny because that is very much the same thought I had about going out onto "the field." Maybe, I thought, there is something different out there. Some kind of rawness about barefeet and rice that would satisfy my soul. It is raw and beautiful sometimes. The ministry satisfies like nothing else I know and the way my relationship with God has grown is addicting. But in this world I don't think I am suppose to get comfortable. It's only for a little while, anyways. It's wonderful to think that even if going home doesn't satisfy fully, and if comfort turns out to be uncomfortable, it's okay because in the end I'm going to a place that fufils. :)
My mind wondered to a strange thought the other day. I thought that about if I were a flower in a field of other flowers. I thought that I would definitely want to be the best flower. I would always ensure my petals were at the right angle to catch the sun's rays and I would hog the nutrients in the soil so I could grow. I would shelter myself in stroms and try to catch as much of the enjoyable breeze as possible. I would hope that I could live exist at the best place on the field to overlook astounding scenery for my pleasure, that the sunset would be visible, and maybe there would be mountains and lakes in my view.
And in the end I would hope to....
Darn it... where am I going with this?
Do I hope to be picked my a sweet little girl?
Do I hope to placed in a vase or to wilt in a natural way and again becmoe soil?
There is no happy ending?
Flowers die.
Everything is meaningless, completely meaningless! Like chasing the wind....
(Ecclesiastes)
Temporary. Selfish. Worthless.
Am I drowning in a sea of people deceived into seeking only empty glory and vain satisfaction?
I sat in a mud hut last week with a couple of my teammates and a Kenyan pastor discipling a new Christian. She sat on the floor in tattered clothing. Her house was maybe 3 or 4 meters in diameter with a bed, a couple chairs, a water filter on the wall and a stack of clothing. A broken, batteryless radio served a a table for her Bible which only had the pages from Deuteronomy to 1 Corinthians. Her poverty didn't really break me. She had food, her children were in school, she was getting by. But it really struck me that blessed are the poor. It sounds easy for me to say, well-fed, well-clothed and drowning in oppurtunity. But I didn't say it was easy or best, just, in a way, blessed. You see, she had everyting that I have, maybe more - everything that counts. When life ends and we are put through the fire, 95% of me will burn away, she will stand whole. The first world idle of oppurtunity and prosperity, of stuff and friends and our desire to be unique and successful and attractive are meaningless. Even our desire to good... we must obsess with the King, not only the Kingdom.
As a church and as individual follwers of Christ we NEED to start praying and lessening ourselves. I don't want to die regretting 95% of my existence because it didn't count for anything.
There is a nameless place where I go. It isn't on maps or included in census statistics. Coincidentally, the world probably would like to remain ignorant of it's existence. It is a bad place. Not glamorously dangerous or interestingly broken, it's just desperate. It lies between Kenya and Uganda - unclaimed and unwanted, a strip of land not 100m wide with no law and little hope. The entire strip is covered in trash and pools of gasoline. Trucks pass in long lines through the place they refer to as "no man's land" leaving wafting clouds of smoke. Shacks made with straw, tin or tarp lean along each side, serving as places for illegal dealings and the sale of leftover goods for no man land's leftover people. The dismal scene is blurry in the heat from engines and the hot sun. Men sit in pools of salvaged trash with tattered clothes and hats, their eyes empty and lucid. Boys play in the dirt, playfighting and pretending crushed bottles are soccer balls or lying lifelessly hoping the day will end. If you watch them for a few minutes your heart will be stirred. When a new puddle of gas is found they gather around it fighting to put it into remnants of bottles and to soak their clothes, even the ones they are wearing, in the black fluid. They breathe as much of it in as they can so that perhaps their minds will float away from them for awhile and they can forget that nobody cares about them. Some of them are as young as eight, many in their mid-teens. There are a couple of girls too. Rumour has it that a street boy can pay 25 cents to rape her. It doesn't matter weather they have no place to go, or if they ran from troubles somewhere, when we saw these kids we knew this was not a place where God delights.
My teammate Michaela blogged about Isaiah 59:15-16
The LORD looked and was displeased
that there was no justice.
He saw that there was no one,
he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;
(read it at michaelafinn.myadventures.org)
Who loves these children? Who prays for them? Who shows them mercy?
We invited the kids to come to the church everyday for a week for games and food. Fourty showed up the first day, hungry and desperate. We dished out the beans and rice we cooked and poured liter after liter of water into their cups. Some boys came high and fought, but we carried on. They thought the floor was just about the best thing ever, pulling each other across it and rolling the way little boys should. Some kids ate and fell asleep in the corner, relieved to be in this safe place. We interviewed them to try to dig at the problems that led to their situations. They are sweet and funny with normal antics and dimpled smiles. We played Uno and told them about God's love. On their way out the door, the first day, one of my teammates shouted out that we wanted to pray for them before they left. I would have expected them to be disrespectful. I thought they would scoff and mock but instead the most incrdible thing happened! Every one of them dropped to their knees, their faces on the floor and cried out to God! In their desperation, when the devil has them in more chains than I can imagine, these kids have still grasped something so important - they NEED Jesus!
Yesterday a boy stumbled in late and lay on the floor without eating. I came over to him and lay on the floor too so he would listen to me. His name was Derek and he was eleven. Something wasn't right, his eyes shifted eerily but it wasn't just inhalants. I felt his forehead and made a decision, we needed take that kid to a doctor. Jake carried him on his back to a clinic and returned an hour later with medicine for Typhoid fever, malaria and a respitory infection. This was one sick kid. In the end, however, this is a wonderful story. After taking care of him for the day we drove him home to his grandmother!!! At eleven he has spent almost a year and a half of his life on the street afraid to go home. Just say that there were a few people crying. His grandmother, not angry but relieved, shed a couple tears. Derek was a gonner...
The more we learn about the street kids. When we put names to faces and stories to their tattered, dirty clothes, the more I realize that the problem is deeper than a lack of shelter. My teammate Hade is raising money to buy land for a halfway house and farmland to sustain it that would be run by trustworthy people from our church with a passion for the church. If you would like to help email him at hhallman92@gmail.com.
Join me in interceeding for this great injustice...
Here are some pieces of a song I wrote for the street kids:
Don't be afraid, He can ransom us
He will call you by name, you are His... (Isaiah 43)
We don't deserve a second chance
We don't deserve a fighting chance
We are filthy sinners, lost
It must have been a high cost
But He saved us
In the shadow of your wings Take away the homeless things
In their hearts
With justice but through grace
Show them the face
of a Father
The drug addicts are yours
The theifs are in your hands
The prostitutes are on your heart
The abused will be redeemed
The forgotten will be prophets
The hopeless are in your hands...
Oh you love them x100
Please check out annafew.myadventures.org for pictures.
