Kibera

So it’s Kimber here…

I first just wanted to say Thank You to everyone who helped support all of us. Without you guys (and God of course) this opportunity could not be possible. This experience has already impacted all of us significantly and we have already learned so much.

Last week, we were focused mainly at the LIA clinic in Kibera. All the people from the clinic attended training with us so it was great catching up and seeing them in “action”. The clinic was also located on the same grounds of a small, primary school. I really enjoyed playing with the kids and just loving on them. While there, we got the opportunity to sit with some 5^th and 6^th graders and talk to them. They asked us some pretty tough questions. Talking with them broke my heart as well as opened my eyes. These kids seemed so much older than they really were. When you think about it, many of these kids live in a small hut with their entire family. They are exposed to everything that goes on inside their home; what their parents watch on TV, how their older siblings talk… One of the questions a little girl asked was, “Why are you guys rich and we are poor?” Try answering that how a 10 year old could understand. Training equipped us for this answer by explaining the definition of poor. There are many types of poor: physical, emotional, spiritual, etc… In America, many of us are considered “rich” but which type? We can be physically rich but if we are spiritually poor aren’t we still at square one?  We told them that while we do have materially poor people in America, we have many other types of poor.  A lot of people are spiritually poor and emotionally poor.  Some people have all the money in the world, but they aren’t happy. 

6 Americans at an Ethiopian restaurant in Kenya with a Somali.

Although the Somali country director’s background is Somali, he lived in Ethiopia for a lot of his life, so on Wednesday he treated us to an Ethiopian dinner. The atmosphere was so perfect, I actually felt like I was on vacation. He ordered for us because we had no clue what was happening on the menu. When our food came, there was so much! Traditional Ethiopian food is like some meat and some sauces and some other stuff served on top of injera. Injera is this bread-like stuff that serves as your utensils. You just dip it in the meat or whatever you feel like dipping it in. Oh yeah, Ethiopian food is eaten community style so we all just ate off two large plates. All the stuff you dip the injera in is served on top of more injera! We tried to finish it all, but it was so much food! After dinner, we had Ethiopian coffee. The coffee was so flavorful because they prepare it some special way that only Jim could explain (he’s our coffee expert). Coffee was served under a little tent where we sat on little stools. It was a really intimate setting and we enjoyed just sitting around and being a family together. We also shared coffee with 2 other people-one was a girl named Addis and the other was a guy named Anzy. The country director shared Christ with Addis and we got the opportunity to hear about Anzy’s life. It was such a great night getting out of the apartment and immersing ourselves into yet another cultural experience.  

blessings from Somalia

Hey everyone! 

Love, grace, and peace from the Kenya-ers! 

So we have been in Kenya for 4 weeks now and I (Amy) have just been reflecting on everything that has happened, what God has taught us, and just the countless blessings He has poured out on us. One of the biggest blessings has been sharing a home with some of the LIA country directors. For the first 10 days the country directors from Sudan and Egypt stayed with us and this week, from Sunday to Thursday, the country director from Somalia stayed with us. We are so thankful for the opportunity and privilege to live with and get to know these amazing people from various countries. Countries that not only have completely different cultures than ours, but also countries that don’t experience same amount of freedom as we do—especially in the freedom to worship. We are so thankful for how these country directors openly shared their lives with us.  They were transparent in telling us their struggles and challenges, but they also passed on so much wisdom to us—wisdom that could only come from an intimate walk with the Lord and from their experiences. These country directors could have simply lived with us, but instead they took the short time they had to invest and pour into us. So so good.

As I said before, this past week the country director from Somalia stayed with us.  I’m not going to say  his name because of security, but he is fantastic.  I have had Somalia on my heart for the past year so when I found out that he was from Somalia I was so EXCITED! He told me how they are helping people affected by the famine, how they are helping orphans, and the struggles of building relationships and sharing Christ.  Despite all the challenges, he is one of the most joy-filled, energetic people I’ve ever met. He has such a close, intimate walk with Jesus.  It’s evident in his understanding and knowledge of scripture and by the way he carries himself and lives his life.  One night, he sat in on debrief and debrief turned into him just pouring into us. At one point, he talked about how much he loved the word of God.  He said that he would never leave Christianity, even if it was wrong, because that is how much he loves Jesus and His word.  This brought tears to my eyes especially as I reflected on my own walk. I want to know Jesus as intimately as he does. I want to have a love for the Word that leaves me hanging on every word and desiring to know more. Sadly, I haven’t put in the time and energy to grow that relationship with Christ.  He ended the night telling us about how the most important thing is to just love Jesus. Our ministry doesn’t matter; just love Jesus. When we do something for others, we do it simply because we love Jesus. At the end of the day, just love Jesus. We ended the night praying and just telling Jesus how much we love him. It was so powerful and way better than any prayer time we were planning on having. 

The four days with him were such a blessing. He shared his testimony with us and poured so much wisdom into us. I am eternally grateful for all that I learned from him.  Everything from the way he talked to the way he lived his life was modeled after Christ. He had so much wisdom and knowledge of God, but at the same time he has this child-like faith that I admire so much. It was so encouraging to hear how faithful God had been to him and how he has persevered despite the hostility to Christianity in Somalia. In America, we have a church on every corner and you can get a Bible almost anywhere—we have the freedom to seek Christ openly and to proclaim His truth to everyone, yet our lives don’t display that freedom. We can openly live out the gospel and we don’t, while our brother from Somalia doesn’t have the freedom to live out the gospel openly, but he does. He has much more at stake than we do. Our reputations might get tarnished, but his life and the life of his family is at stake. It just shows how much we take our freedom for granted. I’m encouraged by his testimony, but I’m convicted at the same time because my life needs to look drastically different. I’m so glad that we got the opportunity to share our home in Nairobi with ,him and I pray that I will get to visit him and serve with him in Somalia. 

 

Makueni - Retrospective Thoughts

James: Our week in Makueni exposed us to part of the ministry LIA is involved in and the model they use (the CHE model) to effectuate holistic community change. We learned about and participated in construction projects, played with kids, and evangelized with the pastors (which wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be).  We saw the powerful effect a coalition of pastors and churches can have on a community, and already I'm anxious to see how I can encourage churches back home to effectively share the Gospel locally. It was comforting to be reminded that people are people, regardless of where they live and what perspectives they have; we're all under the same grace and love the same Jesus.


Overall, the time we spent with the pastors and members of their churches helped tremendously in further solidifying the understanding of how LIA operates we gained in the previous weeks' TOT training. 

Makueni Overview

Bonsai here.  Sorry for the long delay between posts, we had very limited internet access while we were in Makueni last week.  I am going to give a brief overview of what we did each day and then others will post more detailed experiences that they had while there. 

On the first Sunday we all went to a small (20 members) evangelical church called Amen Gospel Church. 

On Monday we met with the Pastor's Fellowship group, went to a school and played with like 200 kids, and went to Pastor Stephen's house for lunch with all the pastors and many of their families. 

On Tuesday we helped do construction on a building that is going to be used for a storeroom for grain and kerosene so the churches can buy grain and kerosene in bulk and sell it at a fair price all year so the townspeople  won't get taken advantage of by businessmen charging way too much during the dry season.

On Wednesday we did evangelism visits to people's houses with Pastors and LIA staff.  The Mi2s were Amy and I, Jim and Rebecca, and Daniel and Kimber.

On Thursday we went to a construction project at a church for a Pastor's house/church office.   There wasn't much the Mi2s were able to do because of lack of tools but Jim, Amy, Kimber, and I went on a donkey caravan to get water. 

On Friday we did home visits that turned into evangelism and I helped lead my first person to Christ! (more on this in a later post).  We also had a bonfire that night with Pastor Stephan and many of the youth from the town. 

On Saturday we met with an HIV/AIDS support group and prepared sermons.

On Sunday we all preached at different churches and had to say goodbye to Daniel and Margaret from LIA Makueni office and the Pastor's fellowship.  The pastors presented us with some REALLY cool gifts, too!

Makueni was so neat and it was so helpful having very little Internet access because it allowed us to focus on God more.   Look for many of us to be writing blog posts that summarize our best experiences from Makueni.

Bonsai

Hey everyone! It’s Amy. First I’d just like to say thanks so much for keeping up with our blog.  It means so much to have people back home aware of what is happening over here in Kenya and to be praying for us.  Today we will be departing Nairobi and traveling to Makeuni to serve in the projects that LIA is in involved with there.  This is our first trip away from Nairobi and this is the first time we will really be engaging in ministry, so we need YOUR prayers!!

•      Pray for team unity. God has really used these past two weeks to unify us and for us to really get comfortable with each other.  These past two weeks were absolutely necessary to prepare us as a team before we go out in the field—we couldn’t have gone out earlier and have been as unified as we are now.  But we also know that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy and we know that he will aim to divide us so pray that we stay unified.
•      Pray that our hearts, minds, and souls will be completely vulnerable to Him.  That we would be completely open to His spirit’s leading.  That we will allow Him take over.  That we will be completely open to all that He has for us and all that He has to teach us.  We don’t want to miss out on anything.
•      Pray that we He will give us His eyes.  That He will destroy any expectations or presuppositions that any of us have about the community, poverty, our role, slums, etc.  We want God’s perspective. We want to see this community and these people as He does and not from our American worldview.  That He will break our hearts for what breaks His.  That He will love the people through us.  That we will understand our roles as interns—vessels that have been entrusted with the gospel,  who are to live and breathe it in actions and words. 
•     Pray that Jesus will be glorified.  That Jesus will be exalted.  That Amy, James/Jim, Bonsaii, Daniel, Kimber, and Rebecca won’t be seen, but rather that Jesus will be seen in our actions and words.  That God’s kingdom will invade Makeuni and that God’s will be done in Makeuni and in our lives. 

Thanks so much for your prayers! The power of prayer is unfathomable and we have definitely seen the evidence of your prayers in these first two weeks! We love you all so much!

-The Kenya-ers

P.S.   We won’t have access to internet for the 8 days-ish so that’s why you won’t be hearing from us!

May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us now and forevermore. Amen

Graduation Day!!!

Bonsai (James B.) here.  What a week we have had!  This was our last week of our Training the Trainers training.  On Tuesday they took us on a field visit to Kibera Slums.  It is the largest slum in Africa and we saw just a minuscule part of it where LIA is working.  They have a health clinic that a fellowship of churches are running with LIA's help for just a little bit longer.  There are also community health evangelists (which are the members of the churches) that go out into the community and teach good health practices and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ through home visits. 

We also saw a shoe project where residents are taught on the equipment to make these really neat flip-flops that they are initially sending to a company in the United States to sell.  That contact is almost over though, so they are exploring other ways to sell the shoes.  It not only provides income for residents now, but gives them the training and confidence to work for a bigger company that uses similar machines. 

Since we recieved the full 10 day training that the leaders of the churches had, we were able to participate in the graduation ceremony on Thursday!  Dr. Florence and the Chairperson for LIA’s International Board was there to present us our certificates.  It was a great accomplishment to finish and be able to take this knowledge with us in the future. 

On Friday we went to Nairobi city center and got to walk around downtown.  It was really neat seeing such a modern city in the middle of East Africa, but also sad that these modern skyscrapers were so close to Kibera. 

We have an amazing week away from Nairobi ahead of us.  This will be the last time I will post until we get back next Sunday, so please keep Egypt in your prayers as they prepare for their critical elections on June 16th-17th that will decide the future of their country.  The already limited freedoms of Christians are literally at stake so I cannot stress enough to please keep them in your prayers.  Thanks a bunch for your support!! 

~Bonsai~