Category: Kenya

Farming God’s Way and Kingdom Driven Ministries

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We have a solid first-tier of disciples here in Kenya (small in number but mighty) and a handful of others who are coming along, slow but sure. It is time to help them run with the vision for expanding the Kingdom of God. But just as we wazungu utilize the Two Kingdoms tract and the pamphlet of the teachings of Jesus to simplify the process,  they want to, too. That costs money, of course. We receive donations that fund this, and we also are able to offer  financial gifts to kick-start or expand businesses, provide food and medical care, subsidize funeral expenses, and whatever else seems needed at the moment. These folks are so hand-to-mouth that to be able to engage in Kingdom living and giving on this scale seems like an impossibility, and Kingdom Driven ministries (in the form of missionaries living here, anyway) isn’t going to be here forever. What then?

And so it begins: we’re taking what we’ve done here on the ground in terms of “making disciples who make disciples” and trying to make it self-propagating (i.e., not reliant on a constant influx of Western money). Marc is, of course, primarily the one involved in making this happen and he’s trying to begin with projects that will be successful, will replicate, and are not too difficult to implement. He’s looking at all of the strengths of the current discipleship here, determining what level of involvement they want in a project, what their giftings are, what the various returns on investment will be, and so on. (God is really utilizing the project management skills that Marc honed as a professional in the US!)

First up: buying large bags of dry beans. Right now they sell for about 100 KSH per kilo, but in a few month’s time they’ll be up to about 140, and in just shy of a year they might go as high as 200 KSH, if past performance is a reliable indicator. I don’t know how many kilos we’ve bought so far (I’m a blogger, not really involved in the operations!) but currently it’s stored in our office. Kingdom Driven Ministries has purchased a very small plot of land locally to build a storage building, but that can’t be completed until after the maize is harvested, in a couple of months’ time. Here’s what it looks like:

beans

Also, Marc has had a vision for teaching and equipping locals with the Farming God’s Way agricultural method, but he also wants to utilize it to profit the ministry so that the funds can be used to support Kingdom expansion and meet practical needs within the community. Project Number Two: KDM has leased a plot of approximately a half-acre, which will be farmed for maize and beans beginning early in 2014. An immediate need is to prepare the land by gathering large amounts of appropriate mulch. In a place where you very rarely get something for nothing (and where wazungu generally get charged double the usual going rate), Marc was thrilled a few days ago to get offered a free supply of non-flowering grasses from the property of a local muindi (person from India). He immediately mobilized several workers–one volunteer manager, a couple of Kingdom Christians who were in need of work, and several others from the community. The first day, we paid from our personal funds to gather some more mulch for our own garden (which this year functioned as a Farming God’s Way test plot). Today and tomorrow is earmarked to collect for the KDM field. For about $15 per day, we can gather as much as we want (mulch is free, only a daily wage is paid to the workers, at the rate of about $3 per person per day). Since the field we leased is currently home to someone else’s maize, we’re storing the mulch in our front yard.

mulch on bike
Isaiah is providing labor (50 KSH per day, 1/4 the adult wage) and assisting by running loads of mulch from the field to our yard on his Suzuki. Silas is using Marc’s Yamaha. Together, they keep things moving pretty quickly.
mulch pile
Jubliee (age 4) is not much help, but she feels very big standing on top of the growing mulch pile.

The kids are having a blast tumbling on it, throwing it around, building things with it, and whatever else they can think of. We’re excited about what it will do for funding future missions, not to mention how it is currently profiting our local community by providing several days’ labor for quite a few people. We are thankful that the Lord has provided a free source for this necessary ingredient for successful farming, which could have potentially been very costly.

We trust you are rejoicing with us in seeing how God is moving in East Africa for Kingdom expansion! We appreciate your prayers, and if you wish to donate to this or other work, you can do so here: www.kingdomdriven.org/donate. To give specifically to this project, you can give a general donation and earmark it with a note upon checkout, such as “Farming God’s Way project.”

On Creativity and Supporting the Local Economy

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This morning, I was busy canning French beans (regular ‘ol green beans, which they don’t really like here but which we weird wazungu not only eat, but put in jars to save for later). One of my near neighbors, who now helps me with wash, was watching the process intently and ended up just shaking her head and laughing, saying, “You are funny!”

The big boys had gone to the market for me, and most of the other children were busy helping Marc sort our dry bean harvest in the front yard. That left Hannah and Jubilee in the living room, happily playing–but I wanted to give them something productive to do that would capture their attention for a while. I remembered when Rebekah was young, introducing her to sewing with lacing cards like this (photo courtesy of Amazon.com):Product DetailsOn occasion, I had also made my own sewing cards by cutting various shapes out of colored paper and laminating them, punching holes with a hole puncher, attaching yarn, and threading it on a plastic needle.

With a burst of creative energy that I admit I’ve rarely experienced since we moved to Kenya, I decided to make the girls some lacing cards. Colored paper is hard to come by here, never mind contact paper, and I wanted something durable. Fortunately, someone had recently thrown a small box in the garbage can, so I retrieved it and cut a couple of pieces of cardboard from it. Hannah fetched our hole puncher and I found some yarn that one of the boys had left on the kitchen shelf (as we so often forget that there’s “a place for everything, and everything in its place”). Having no nifty plastic needles, I decided to improvise by putting some duct tape around the end of the yarn. I made a heart and a flower, and the girls colored and sewed them while I worked on the beans. Here’s Jubilee’s heart:

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So passed a busy but relatively quiet morning. When Rebekah was done with her morning’s work, I asked her if she wanted to make some sewing cards for our neighborhood little girls. She said, “Oh, they do sewing like this already. They use small sticks for needles, long grass or straw for thread, and leaves to sew together.” And I thought I was creative! The simplicity of life here and how much these folks can do with so little never ceases to amaze and challenge me.

And totally unrelated to the morning’s activity, while I was looking for the yarn which I remember having last seen on the kitchen shelf, I also tried to count our mound of eggs:

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Each layer holds 30 eggs, so we have sixty, plus the additional eggs mounded on top…maybe 80? I am thankful, as for a long time after our arrival here, getting eggs was hard. We could usually only muster 3-4 eggs every few days, which was enough for miscellaneous baking, but never enough to have, say, scrambled eggs for breakfast. We got our own chickens not too long ago, but they’re certainly not American Leghorns that lay an egg every day. Out of our 7 (?) hens, we only get 1-3 eggs per day, and after they lay 5 or 6 eggs they want to go broody, so they’ll stop laying for quite a while, even if they’re not sitting on a nest. A good breakfast of eggs for us is a couple dozen at least, so left to our own devices that rarely (if ever) happens.

But lo and behold, it seems that word has spread far and wide in our small village that the wazungu like eggs. Almost every day (usually in the evening, as the Mamas are starting to prepare supper) we have someone come to the door with one precious egg, or maybe two…sometimes a half-dozen. Most always, they come with their bag of dry maize in hand as well. And as we give them their twelve shillings per egg, we watch them run next door to the mill, where they use 5 or 10 of those shillings to grind the maize to make their evening ugali. One older man comes frequently with larger numbers of eggs, though no one is quite sure where he manages to find them. Unfortunately,we’ve noticed that he doesn’t spend his egg earnings so wisely. Sometimes Marc shakes his head over spending so much money on eggs (a dozen eggs here is about the same price as its American equivalent, which tells you that they’re comparatively expensive), but we use them and are thankful for the protein, since we only eat meat once or twice a week. And we’re glad to be a small cog in the wheel of our local economy.

Field Day, Africa-Style

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I remember having a Field Day at the end of every school year–outdoor fun and competition all day long. Frankly, not my favorite day, because I’m far from athletic, but still–it was fun being outside with friends and not stuck behind a desk.

Yesterday was what I called our “Field Day–Africa-Style.” It started with us dragging our beans out to dry on a big tarp first thing in the morning. We’re waiting until the pods are completely dry so we can beat them with a stick and get all the beans out. We tried some yesterday and found that they were still too wet. Well, several of our smaller kids decided that they wanted to shell beans by hand–it was “fun!” Not to leave them to their own devices, I jumped in to help. Next thing I knew, a few of their regular playmates were called in to help. Here we are (and as you can see by the photo, our oldest, Isaiah, on the far left, wasn’t one of the ones who thought hand-shelling beans was “fun”):

shelling beans

Of course, after we had been working for about an hour, the children went off to play kati (the African version of Monkey in the Middle). The littles commandeered the swing set. Eventually I heard cries of “Ume kufa!” (“You’re dead!”), indicating that the game had morphed into their version of freeze-tag. By noon I figured no one would be going home, so I started making beans and rice for a crowd. Mama Manu, who helps me with laundry, finished up that task and offered to beat the beans. She said they don’t wait until all the beans are dry–they beat them every day to get out what’s ready, then leave the remaining pods and do them again the next day. I don’t say “no” when someone offers that kind of help, so she went to work. Of course, her daughters (who had been playing) got called in to help clean the chaff off the beans after they were beaten. (Wish I had gotten a picture of Enoch (age 2) “helping” Mama Manu with his big bamboo stick!)

Mama Manu, hard at work
Mama Manu, hard at work
Little girls "helping"
Little girls “helping”

After the beans were cleaned off and set out to dry, most of the kids went on a “treasure hunt” of sorts, gleaning the piles for coveted “zebra beans”–they have a pretty, black-and-white swirl but were very rare in our harvest.

How many zebras do you have?
How many zebras do you have?

Then lunch, for two adults and 19 children, followed up by dish-washing on the veranda.

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Then, more play! Jubilee and Enoch had to go in for a nap, but the rest of the little kids hit the swings once again and the big kids decided to set up for volleyball.

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Volleyball net, take one: FAIL. Can’t see through it…oops.
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That’s better…
Mama Manu went home shortly after lunch, but the kids stayed on for volleyball. Our neighbor’s boy, Eliya, ended up coming over and was boasting so much about his fame as a player that the game ended up being Eliya vs. Everyone Else. I never did find out who won, though. Eventually the little ones got tired of sitting in the sun, so Micah set up his watercolor paints on the shady veranda and the fun continued:

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I kicked all the kids out at about 4:00, after a long day of work and fun. And there you have it, our first “Field Day,” Africa-style!

 

 

“I’m Afraid he’s going to be…an Engineer”

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Don’t get the wrong idea…we don’t watch Dilbert…but when Marc was working with a bunch of engineers, this little clip made its rounds in the office so everyone could get a chuckle out of it:

Marc immediately thought of our son, Isaiah, who (except for the “utter social ineptitude”) has had “The Knack” since he was just a little kid. Back in Indiana, his favorite thing to do was post requests on Freecycle and see if he could score electronics or things with motors that he could fix. If they weren’t fixable, he’d take them apart and save anything he might use for a future project. He’s made some really neat stuff, including a motorized bicycle (using an old chainsaw motor), a homemade BB gun, and a small blender (though not suitable for much besides having fun). Not only that, he’s constantly fixing things around the house (yeah!!) in addition to being our on-call tech support guy. Here in Africa, he’s also become quite gifted at small engine repair and regularly fixes motorbikes.

The down-side of this great trait is that his corner of the boys’ bedroom usually look like this (and, yes, he made the desk himself):

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I’ve learned to close the door or just not look too often. Unless there’s a window of opportunity for room-cleaning, which doesn’t happen as often as I’d like.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago he had a neat idea to make a portable sprayer, using a broken well pump that Marc let him have and some assorted parts he’d collected (see the blue bin in the photo above). He was thinking it would be useful for the garden, but I was thinking pressure washing, so he made two different nozzles. Here’s the finished product:

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Yesterday we harvested our beans and used Isaiah’s new invention to spray the weeds remaining in the field so we can re-plant in a couple weeks or so.

Today I was going about my least-favorite-task-of-the-week, beating and hand-scrubbing our area rug from the living room. (I regret that I ever complained about vacuuming. What I wouldn’t give to be able to vacuum this thing–I’d do it EVERY DAY!!) The easiest method for this is to roll up the carpet, carry it outside, and sling it over the kids’ swing set. After beating it with a broom handle and ripping a few holes in it, now I use some flexible hose instead. Then, I fill a basin with some laundry soap and water and dip my brush in it. Bit by bit, I scrub the whole carpet, continually dipping the brush into the cleaner as I go. It’s a messy and time-consuming process, usually taking me 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

Isaiah asked if I could “pressure wash” the carpet using his new sprayer. My only reservation was that it would get so wet it might not dry before the afternoon rain. Then what? But I figured I’d give it a try. To my great surprise and joy, it worked wonderfully, though I did do a quick scrub with a brush on top of the spraying. Though it’s not perfectly dry yet, it seems it will be before the sun goes away. And, good news is, it cut my carpet-cleaning time in half!

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So if you have a budding engineer in your family, don’t despair. Let ’em take stuff apart, overlook the mess,  put up with the single-minded focus that makes projects preferable to breakfast, keep encouraging the successes and sympathize with the inevitable failures, and enjoy the fruit of “The Knack” when you can.

My Dog Eats Better Than Some of my Neighbors

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It’s bad enough that we eat better than almost everyone we know. I feel a nagging sense of guilt about that often enough, but the other day, I had a thought that caused me even more consternation: my dog eats better than most of my neighbors.

We now eat meat two or three times per week (up from once a week, since Marc needs the complete proteins in his diet for healing his knee injury). The other day I decided to splurge and get 2 kg of beef and 1 kg of pork to make a meatloaf–a rare treat, but one everybody loves. Unusually, after I eliminated all the fat and bones from the beef, there seemed to be a lot more than usual. I decided that there were a few less bones than usual, which left me with more meat than I needed. I was sure we would eat the meat loaf, anyway, since we rarely leave much left over. I surveyed the bowl full of scraps and said to my little helper, Hannah, “Simba’s going to eat good tonight!” (Dog food is more expensive here than feeding animals people food, so Simba just eats what we eat.)

I looked out the window at the family next door, working hard weeding their shamba and harvesting their sweet potatoes. I wondered what they would eat tonight. And I could guess: ugali, probably with greens, and maybe some beans. We were having meatloaf. And my dog was eating  beef and pork “scrap” that would have been an amazing blessing to these people.

Shame. That’s what I felt.

Not to alleviate the feeling or to pay penance for it, but because I genuinely wanted to bless these hardworking and worthy folks, I sent some beef over to my immediate neighbors and a family a few houses down from us. I was happy to do it…and wished that I thought of doing it more often.

The very next day, the young mother from several doors down stopped by in the midst of her morning’s work. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes worn, and she nearly everywhere had dried mud clinging to her from digging her jembe into the dirt. She nonetheless beamed (and I always love to see her smile, anyway–it’s lovely!) and greeted me eagerly, saying, “Thank you so much for your gift yesterday. I was very excited when Jonah brought it, because we haven’t had meat in a month and I praised God for sending it!”

I want to remember this, so I will continue to send on little blessings more often than I do. I always “give to those who ask,” (see this post, for example), but I admit that I think less often about giving when the need is not obvious. It’s easy to get caught up in our routines, absorbed in what we’re doing, and forget about what it might be like behind other people’s closed doors. But let’s not.

“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. ”
(Matthew 5:16)

Hosting our first African Wedding!

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Yesterday was a big day for the Carriers as we hosted our first African wedding. Charles, the groom, was a widower whose wife died several years ago, and he recently lost the youngest of his three children to TB. Due to his wife’s death (and his need to work outside the home) and the prolonged medical care needed for his little one, his older two children were being cared for at a local children’s home. Ester is a widow of just a few months, with nine children (the youngest born just weeks before her husband passed away). Both Charles and Ester (and Ester’s husband) had been baptized by Marc earlier last year, and they are part of a solid local house church where they have been discipled and have been growing in their faith. Charles had been Ester’s husband’s best friend for several years, so they have known each other well. Both saw the possibility of their marriage as a way to honor God and bring their children together in a strong family unit, also enabling Charles to bring his own children home. It was an honor for us to assist them in making their commitment official.

Set up and ready for the big event!

We spent the day Monday cleaning the house and the kids greatly blessed me by going the extra mile. I wanted to make sure our plastic stacking chairs were all wiped down, and the chalkboard wall and dry erase board needed to be cleaned off as well. I figured after they finished the bigger jobs like floor-washing, I’d get someone to take care of the little things. But lo and behold, while I cleaned carpets and washed the kitchen floor, the kids  jumped right in to get them done on their own. Not only that, Jonah noticed many of the spots on the walls (which have not escaped my attention, but time does not usually allow me to address them), and he got a wash basin and cleaner and went to work to make the walls sparkle!

After all the work was done, the kids decided to bless Charles and Ester’s kids with some gifts–treats like cookies, lollipops, and gum from a local shop, AND some of the toys from their small box of toys in the living room. Jonah has two Beanie Baby bears that they all like to play games with, and it seems that all their games involve both bears for maximum fun. He thought aloud that maybe they should put one of the bears in the bag for Charles and Ester’s children. One of our littles said, “But then we won’t have two!” And Jonah replied, “Well, right now they don’t have any, and we’ll still have one!” So into the bag it went. Not every moment here is a “proud mama” moment, but once in a while it is nice to see that God is working something in our children’s hearts. I was blessed to see their excitement in giving and to experience the unusual camaraderie over housecleaning.

Also on Monday, I made a wedding cake (my first attempt), and I hoped it wouldn’t be too “un-professional” for the big day. Isaiah did the writing with some colored frosting and a syringe, having had some experience with that when the boys made me a special birthday cake back in December. Marc and Isaiah went shopping for some of the food, including a HUGE amount of beef (8 kg, the largest amount of beef I’ve ever prepared). When they got home, Marc diced tomatoes, onions, and peppers and tried to add that and the diced beef to my 8-qt. pressure cooker–the only way to prepare really good beef here! But alas, my pressure cooker was much too small. Rather than do it in two batches, we decided to use my large pressure cooker/canner, which I’ve only used as a canner and never as a pressure cooker. It worked perfectly and the beef turned out delicious!

On Monday night, the officiating Bishop unexpectedly wanted to change the time of the wedding from 10 AM to 1 PM. This posed a scheduling problem, as we would have to notify everyone, and some were already traveling from some distance away. Not only that, but being on “African time,” we were pretty sure that 1 PM would probably end up being dinner time and we weren’t really sure how to “entertain” everyone until the Bishop made his entrance. Even so, we tried to work everything out and hoped for the best.

We wanted very little to do with directing the actual wedding, as we weren’t sure what the local customs would dictate. It was surprisingly similar to an American Christian wedding, except that the couple didn’t hold hands or enjoy a celebratory kiss after the vows were official. When the vows were taken, they actually held up their right hand rather than holding hands with each other, as is our custom. The cutting of the cake was part of the ceremony, and the bride and groom served bite-sized pieces to all the guests. I was called upon to assist with the cutting of the cake, and I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. The instructions I received weren’t very clear (and the tradition not familiar) so I fumbled a bit and was a little embarrassed, but everyone seemed gracious enough about my misunderstandings.Unusually, filling out of the official paperwork was done during the ceremony as well.

Here’s the happy couple when it was all over, including a parting shot with some of their children:

  

We praise God for allowing us to be a part of this blessed event. Kingdom Driven Ministries was not only able to fund the wedding through donations, but Charles and Ester should also have assistance in purchasing some property. This will go a long way in helping them to provide for their new, large family. Please join us in praying for Charles and Ester as they begin their new life together!

 

 

I Took Milk for Granted

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I’ve always disliked milk. In small part, I blame my Mom, who for the sake of frugality made us drink powdered milk. I remember plugging my nose and chugging down my obligatory glass at supper time so I wouldn’t have to taste it. Once on my own, of course I switched to “real” milk, but never did particularly like drinking a glass straight. Marc, on the other hand, grew up on whole milk and lots of it; he’s always been a milk drinker.

While still in America, as our family size grew and dairy prices increased, I tried to be conscious of our milk intake. Everyone had a glass of milk with supper, though, and we got plenty of dairy in other ways: cereal a couple times a week, sour cream with our Mexican or in a casserole, and plenty of cheese. During our last year or so we also enjoyed homemade ice cream every Saturday night.

Since we’ve been in Africa, things have changed. Lacking refrigeration, we boil milk for our morning tea but otherwise don’t drink plain milk. And in our village, more often than not, “milk is hard,” as our neighboring shop-owner, Silas, frequently reports. If we get a liter a day, that’s good. We rarely can get more than that, and sometimes we can only get a two cups. Shared between 10 of us, that’s not a lot of calcium intake. Milk is available in 1/2 liter pasteurized-and-homogenized bags at the village market, but it’s more expensive that way and also not convenient, as we try to shop only a couple times a week. Butter is also expensive (about 500 shillings per half-kilo, which is about $6 per pound!) And, because of the refrigeration issue, it’s also hard to keep fresh. Recently we’ve begun using Ghee (shelf-stable, clarified butter) which has a decent price point–more expensive than margarine but also much less expensive than butter.

We miss sour cream, cold milk over cereal, and definitely cheese and ice cream. For us, both yogurt and ice cream are an occasional treat (for practical as well as financial reasons; with no refrigerator/freezer, they must be consumed right away and we’re pretty far from town to get ice cream home without melting!) We try to eat more greens (a natural source of calcium), but I just can’t get everyone to eat them in the quantity that would be needed to have a positive impact on overall health.

So unfortunately, while we’ve never experienced problems with cavities, some of the children (and Marc as well) have been complaining of tooth sensitivities and possible cavities. Marc sees a direct link between that and our calcium deficiency, since our dental hygiene practices haven’t changed.

All of this to say, we were ecstatic the other day to have a traveling vendor introduce himself and show off four liters of fresh, strawberry yogurt. (Yogurt here is of the liquid variety and prices at about 200 KSH per 1/2 liter, which is…expensive.) The yogurt was fabulous and Marc bought all four liters for only 300 shillings! He talked to the man for a while and, as it turns out, he’s hoping to open a local dairy to sell milk, yogurt, ghee, and…cheese! I don’t know if it will actually happen, but I’m excited about the possibility of getting dairy products with greater ease–and at prices that seem affordable.

I confess: I took milk for granted. Funny how now I’m actually praying that this potential local dairy becomes a reality!

Amusing side note: as we consumed the four liters of yogurt (which didn’t take long!), we offered some to Silas, who happened to be over helping out with some work on our shamba (garden/farm). With a rather funny expression, he refused, saying, “I have never tried that and I will not,” or something to that effect. Later he told Marc that one should not buy food from persons that one does not know personally, as it is apparently not uncommon to be poisoned in Kenya. I had no doubt about the yogurt though, as after we emptied the man’s yogurt container, he immediately tipped it into his mouth to drink anything that might remain. I could be wrong, but if it were poisoned, I don’t think he would have done that.

Thanks to our Africa experience, I’ve become much more content to make more-with-less and I’ve learned to appreciate (and make do with) what is locally available. Sometimes it’s hard, particularly as we deal with potential health issues, but we’re trusting God with our health as with everything else. I’m not taking anything for granted.

 

The Sobering Numbers Behind a Very Blessed Day

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It is quite possible to live a Western style of life here in Kenya; many (particularly in the cities) do. They have lovely homes with electricity and running water, perhaps a car, and ample food. Their children attend quality schools. They wear nice clothes, get their hair done, and enjoy many modern conveniences and entertainments. I’m not just talking about foreigners living here, but native Africans. There are opportunities to earn a good wage, and many do. As a result, they also enjoy the corresponding standard of living.

Such is not the case, however, in most rural places, including the village in which we reside. Though not a recent article, a report in Jamhuri Magazine shows how Kenya compares on the per capita income scale, rating as a “very poor” country with an average annual income of $1,000 to $2,000 per person. In our area, I would say that the average person makes a few hundred shillings per day, which translates to 10800 KSH annually. That converts to $1278 USD, which corresponds well with the Jamhuri estimates.

As I said in a previous post about a very blessed day, in which our family enjoyed some time away and a good meal, Marc and I always carefully consider our financial decisions in light of these figures. Though we have a Western income (albeit now lower than it used to be), we hesitate to live a lifestyle that is vastly different from our neighbors. We feel guilty for spending as much on a one-day pleasure outing as our neighbors would use to feed themselves for…months? When some folks can’t afford basic medicine for emergency needs and we easily spend money on preventative vitamin supplements, we sense the unfairness of it. Granted, having more money than some isn’t a sin, and neither is it wrong to enjoy some things in life. But living here where poverty is quite in-your-face, the fine line that defines “too much,” isn’t actually so fine, and the delicate balance of needs versus wants tips quite a bit more easily in favor of very basic needs than it did when we lived in the States.

Our family went out to eat twice last year–once about a month after our arrival, and once just after Christmas when we visited Kisumu. Marc also occasionally treats one of the kids to a meal when they are chosen to go into town with him on errands. We eat meat much more frequently than our neighbors do (once or twice a week). Instead of ugali with every meal, we often eat spaghetti, rice, bread, or potatoes–all of which have a higher price tag than plain maize. While they typically have one or two outfits of “work” clothes and one “nice” outfit, we have a half-dozen changes of clothes each. Many here sleep on burlap sacks, mats, or thin foam mattresses. We were just blessed to be able to buy a pillow-top mattress to replace our compressed foam–a gift designed to assist Marc’s recovery from the motorbike accident. A Bible here is a treasured addition to the  home, as the possession of books is rare indeed. We brought a small library of books with us from the states, knowing how hard it would be to homeschool without them.

As you can see, there is a great financial and material chasm between “us” and “them,” no matter how much we feel we have sacrificed in comparison to our previous style of life in America (which was not extravagant by any stretch of the imagination). No matter how much food, medicine, clothing, or financial assistance we are able to give, it’s still just a drop in the bucket compared to the number of needs out there.

What does God desire? Is it “that there might be equality”? (See 2 Corinthians 8:13-14). That goes against our capitalist and independent American way of thinking, doesn’t it? At the same time, if we were to live a lavish lifestyle when others lack money to pay for malaria medicine, antibiotics, and nutritious food, how would God judge us?

Here is our standard–one that we continually examine ourselves in light of:

31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Matthew 25:31-46

Living in a Kenyan village is hard, not because we’ve sacrificed to do so, but because we’re constantly faced with the realization that we could be doing more. Making moment-by-moment choices that used to be easy has become much more difficult. However, I think that living with this constant “tug” in regard to our finances and our expenditures is a good thing–it means that God is at work in us, showing us His ideal, and we’re doing our best to respond. It’s a journey…

God-Opportunities

valuesdr

Our first year here in Kenya went by rather quickly, much of it spent trying to acclimate ourselves to a totally new culture and way of life. There were many challenges for each of us individually and for us as a family, as well as trying to figure out what it meant to be on the mission field.

I entered our second year with some sense of victory, great thankfulness to God for His grace, and a deep desire to do more. Unfortunately, I am pretty limited by lack of transportation, responsibilities for home management and homeschooling, and Marc’s busy ministry schedule. So, both before and after writing this recent post, I began just praying, in earnest, for God to bring me opportunities to serve, to give, and to share the love of Christ with people in my community. I can’t do much, but I can do something. I’m willing, and God knows my limitations, so I just asked. And, as He is so faithful, He has been responding.

First, a neighbor brought a sick child to our house asking for assistance. She had persistent diarrhea and fever. I gave her some liquid amoebicide that we had on the shelf (water-borne amoeba being a common problem) but a couple days later the problem hadn’t cleared up so Isaiah offered to go to town on his motorbike and talk to the local chemist. He returned with a couple of medications, which a grateful Mom administered to her baby (who, coincidentally, was born the very day we arrived in Kenya!).

Not more than a few days later, another neighbor arrived in a rather disconcerted state, explaining that she’d gotten an emergency phone call from a relative in a neighboring town regarding her husband (who is currently working away from home). Unsure what the problem was and lacking money for transport, she came knowing that I would help. I was happy to give her some money for transport and promised to send food for her five children and look after them while she was away.

The next week, two brothers in the Lord came for malaria medicine. One stayed overnight for some rest and nutritious meals. It’s the season for malaria here, so we’re keeping a supply of anti-malarial on the shelf for just such visits.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been focusing on helping Marc get well from his motorbike accident, and we’ve all been encouraged by God’s faithfulness and Marc’s speedy healing. He’s been quite a trooper, and very patient with sometimes waiting for things he needs as other demands are met.

Just this morning, I was praying for God to send more opportunities, as Marc is needing much less of my time and attention. And I was so happy to see Mama Helen come to our back door! Not long after we arrived here, she was a somewhat regular visitor. She is very quiet and kind but our communication is of course somewhat limited by my little Swahili and her little English. I’ve tried to learn about her from others in the community. I think she has three young children and I’m not sure if she’s widowed or if her husband has abandoned her (that is unfortunately common here), but she has little means of providing for herself, from what I am told. A woman we know has shared the Gospel of the Kingdom with Helen using the Two Kingdoms tract, and she had been visiting us every few days for food. However, it has been quite some time since we have seen her and it was rumored that she had left the community. At the same time, our front gate (which was normally kept open so as to be welcoming) had to be closed to keep our new chicken and rabbits safely in the yard. We also got a dog, which we found deterred some visitors. So I’m not sure why she stopped coming, but she was just one thought on my mind as I prayed this morning.

Whatever the reason for her long absence, I was so pleased to greet her and try to find out how she has been doing. What brought her, unfortunately, was a foot injury. I couldn’t discern how it happened but there were a couple of deep cuts, which hadn’t been cleaned or cared for very well, plus signs of infection. I got our wash basin and first aid supplies and did my best clean and bandage the wound. I also gave her a pair of flip-flops for her bare feet. However, it was clear that she needed further care. Isaiah, who had already been planning on going into town, arranged for a piki piki to transport Helen to the local Catholic hospital, and he followed with Sam (a local Christ-follower who is a great help to Marc in the work of the ministry). They saw to her care, and Isaiah reported that they really went “above and beyond,” not only dressing the wound and providing antibiotics, but washing her legs and hands and trimming all her nails as well.

No sooner had Helen left than one of my neighbors arrived, explaining that they were hungry. I could tell that although it was early, she had already been hard at work on her shamba–and without something to eat! (She was one of the happy volunteers who assisted us with planting this weekend.) I filled up a bag for her and she was off for a quick breakfast before returning to her work.

Then Helen was back from the hospital, cheerful and thankful, and on her way again with a bag full of food.

I don’t have great giftings, just a desire to serve. And I’m thankful that God is aware of my limitations and is faithful to bring people right to my door who have needs that I can help fill. Join me in praying that God would likewise bring opportunities for all of us to serve, for His Kingdom and His glory!

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. …If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”
Matthew 7:7, 11