Previously, in Kenya … (In the Lost narrator’s voice)
The following morning , Jim and Linda Gandy, another missionary family, invited us to join them in going to their street-kid ministry. The “Street-Kids” are people who have grown up on the streets of Nairobi. Some were born there while others left home because there was not enough food for the whole family. That morning, we woke up about 4:15 and drove down to the heart of Nairobi. We met with about 20 men deemed “street-kids.” One of the local pastors shared a short devotional and then we prayed with them in groups. After that, we gave out some milk to each one. Sometimes food is also distributed but we only had milk this time. Though not allowed during the “meeting,” several were quick to pull out their water bottles filled with glue, often from shoes, that they inhale to get high. Drugs become an escape from the life they live. Respa was the only lady there and the first to return to her addiction. All that was within me just wanted to shake her and tell her, “This isn’t helping you! The One who can already loves you and is ready and willing!” We were there to minister and even in the midst of that, some of them still chose drugs. As we were finishing, our team experienced something that will remain ingrained in our minds. They usually wrap up by doing some medical work such as treating cuts and burns. As we were finishing a man rolled up in a wheel chair asking for help. We still aren’t entirely sure what the problem was. This man’s fingers were either slowly being eaten away by a bug called a “Jigger,” or deteriorating due to diabetes. It was the same with his legs and he expressed it was also in his groin. He was missing both his legs. The one showing came to just below his knee, with the bone visible. We had no idea where to even begin helping him. He desperately needed to go to the hospital, but he was afraid of going and getting a shot. We also found that in situations like this, it is better if his own people take him rather than the missionaries, yet none of his “friends” wanted to take him. Many of them were making fun of him. Linda tried to treat his wounds with some peroxide, though it seemed an insignificant treatment. She was finally able to convince some of the men there that they needed to take him to the hospital. She reminded them that they would need help someday, and if they couldn’t help this friend, why should she help them in the future? They quickly reversed their decision. It is an example of Kenyan culture. There is somewhat of a motto for Kenyans that says, “A person is people.” It is echoed here and with Obama’s election. Kenyans view people as a whole rather than individuals and know their reliance on others. We left the situation of the man in the wheelchair hardly knowing what to think. Our words can never describe the overwhelming sense of hopelessness and need of that situation. It was so sad on so many levels, yet we know that there is always hope with Christ. Seeing that man in his condition will forever be with us. While the physical needs differ from country to country, the spiritual need is always the same. While some people may look “healthy” on the outside, if they don’t know Christ, their spiritual condition is the same as that man’s physical one. I think we fail to realize the gravity of the spiritual needs when everyone looks “healthy.” We know that God wants all men to come to know Him, yet it’s easy to forget the urgency of their situations. That day will forever be a reminder to us of how desperately everyone needs to know Christ.
We know that the news we are sharing is not always the most joyful, so we’ll move from one extreme to the other. A lot of what we see here can be incredibly discouraging… apart from Christ. But with Christ ALL things are possible (Phil. 4:13), and there is always hope. We spent Monday through Wednesday of this last week as part of a mission’s project with a local church called Ridgeways Baptist Church. This church is located in one of the wealthier areas of Nairobi called Runda. However, right in the middle of this area is a small slum called Mji Wa Haruma. It means “House of Pity.” There are about 3,000 people living there. A few weeks ago, 5 young men from this village came to the church and asked if the church could help in some way. There are many problems with witchcraft, early pregnancy, and theft in this village. The church decided to spend a week in the slum, sharing the Gospel, discipling believers, feeding people, and making repairs, and we were, thankfully, asked to be a part of it. We met with the team on Sunday evening to be briefed on what to expect. The picture they painted was very bleak, again, basically hopeless. They were going to do service projects in the morning and seminars and revivals in the evening. The hope is that by the end of the week they can start a small church there. On Monday morning, we met with the team and drove to Haruma. When we got there, we were met by a group of about 20 kids between the ages of 1 and 9. They were our official welcoming committee and our unofficial guides through their home. It was much like Kibera, only smaller. We took a quick walk through the village, across a small river (where they brewed alcohol) and up onto a hill where we spent about 30-45 minutes praying for the people. We then spent a few hours talking with some different people and playing with the kids. The kids are so much fun to be with. They only know a few English phrases such as “How are you?” and “I’m fine.” Every time we see them, or meet new ones we are met with a chorus of, “How are you?” and “Mzungu” (That’s Swahili for white person). On Tuesday, we arrived at the village very early. Our plan was to repair a fence surrounding a small “school.” Instead, we decided to split up in small groups and walk through the village and pray with some of the people. Matt Seitz went off with two of the village men while Matt and I went with two younger men named James and Amos. We spent about an hour moving from one home to the next praying with the people that lived there. Many of their requests were that we pray for their health, finances, and family members and food. As we were heading back to the school, we came across 4 young men, about our age, playing cards. They explained to us that idleness was one of their problems and that they would gamble to pass the time. What they meant by this was that there were no jobs, at least ones they would consider doing. They think it’s so hopeless that they often don’t even try to make things better. One of these men, David, invited us into his shack. It’s surprising to see how “homey” they could make these dwellings. David’s was “tiled” and there was fabric lining every wall and the ceilings. You somewhat forgot where you were, which I’m sure was the objective. He had a poster of the soccer player David Beckham, and one of Jesus that said, “I am the Bread of Life.” He could speak a little bit of English. After we introduced ourselves, Jim told him why we were there, in Swahili. He then asked us if we would pray for him that he would have enough faith to accept Christ as his savior because he wanted to be saved. He said, “I want to be a good man, and I pray everyday that I will have enough faith to be saved.” Matt and I asked him if he knew what was meant by the poster that read “I am the Bread of Life.” We explained to him that all he needed was faith “as small as a mustard seed” and that God was faithful to answer his calls and become his source of life. Through our time with him, we found that he thought he needed to be perfect before he came to Christ. We explained that Christ loved him just the way he was and that even before any of us knew Him, He died for us. He then asked us if we would pray for him to be saved and we talked about how it was his decision to make. It was almost as if he had been convinced he had to say certain words, and he was relying on us to supply them. We explained that God knew his heart and that the words used were unimportant. The crucial thing was the condition of his heart and his recognition of his need for Christ. After a few minutes of talking about that, he looked up at us and told us that he was ready to ask Christ to save him. You could see the hope beginning to well up within him. So we prayed with him as he gave his life to Christ. During this time, his 3 friends had made their way into the home. After we prayed, we were explaining to him that Christ would never leave or forsake him. We also told him about the church and the events planned for that week. The story gets better though. He then told us that he wanted to come to the evening sessions and share what happened to him. He said it was amazing that God would send people from the other side of the world just for his sake. He told us that he was not afraid and asked us if we would pray with him for his friends. Instead of us praying though, he prayed. It was an awesome prayer. We then had to leave and go back to the “school” to prepare lunch. But our story about David isn’t done yet. Lunch took about 3 hours to prepare. It still wasn’t ready by the time we started working on the fence. Our job with the fence was to tear it down and rebuild it. The fence itself was a tangle of wood planks, bamboo, tin and barbed wire. The two Matt’s were busy tearing down a section while the other men were gathering supplies and I was playing with the children. All of the sudden we looked up and saw our friend David, in the midst of the other men, working harder than any of the others. Here was a man, who 4 hours prior, had nothing better to do than gamble, and no desire to do otherwise. Now he had given his life to Christ and was working on a ministry project in his home village. It was an incredibly encouraging sight and the highlight of our time here so far. The rest of our time here in the village was spent playing with the children. I think they view us as a human jungle gym. It’s not uncommon for 6 or 7 kids to be climbing all over us at the same time. They love to be picked up and/or hang from our arms. If you pick up one child, you are immediately swarmed by 30 others all chanting, “Mzungu! Mimi (me)?” I had one young girl ask me the other day if I wanted to be her mom as she held her younger baby sister. It is so humbling and heart-breaking to spend time with these children knowing that they love us so much and that we will eventually have to leave them. Our hearts will forever be with these children. Our only comfort comes from knowing the character of our Lord and the work He is doing here. We know He has great things in store for them. Please pray for them and the people of this village. That may not sound like much, but we have seen God work and move.
We have so much more we want to share with you, and yet we will never do it justice. There is no way we can adequately describe our experiences here. Words can never express the sights, sounds, emotions, smells and experiences here. If you really want to know what it’s like, then you’ll just have to make the trip out here. But you don’t have to come out here to see God work and move. There are people all around us everyday, wherever we are, who spiritually look like the man from the street-kid ministry did physically. God has invited us to experience the greatest of all adventures. We just need to trust Him.

P.S. – Thank you so much if you made it this far. We promise to make the next one shorter and quicker. The internet is somewhat elusive out here…
We love you all!

Missions 101

Jambo again! Our team is excited to report that, while things started off slowly, we have now reached the opposite extreme. Our days have been jam-packed full of opportunity to share Christ. What started as a directed ministry for college student s has now exploded into a Missionary 101 crash course. We are busy at the Nairobi Institute of Technology (NIT) as well as Graffins College, which happens to be a business college. We have had the opportunity to bring the Gospel to three different slums in Nairobi including Githeri, Kibera, and Mji Wa Huruma. We have even visited Hindu temples. Our goals remain the same; developing relationships, discipleship and encouragement.
The college work is a brand new ministry here and we are working closely with Rodney and Kellie White, two IMB missionaries who were given this ministry the day we arrived. It began slowly as we had to wait for permission to go on some of the campuses. It took several days and a handful of meetings on Rodney’s part to get us permission to go to NIT. Our team just happened upon Graffins as Matt S. and Rodney had planned on going to the YMCA while Matt and I visited NIT, but couldn’t get there because of traffic as a result of the Obama holiday(that’s right, there was in fact a holiday dedicated to Obama the day after he was elected.) We typically spend about 2 to 3 hours every other day at the universities. It’s very helpful because the campuses are side by side here in Nairobi. To say “university” is an overstatement. NIT is a 4 story building on a very small piece of property. About 250 students attend NIT, many of them live here in the city. As of right now, only Matt and I (Erin) have permission to go to NIT. Matt Seitz is not able to come because the school officials are weary of too many people. At Graffins , however, the three of us can go at our leisure. Last week the three of us were able to attend a Business Information Technology class where they were learning how to design a website. It was way over our heads but was also a lot of fun. They have a small “cafeteria” on the fifth floor where we hang out with some of the students and eat somosas ( Small, breaded and fried pouches of beef and other stuff), Chipates (Tortilla-like things that are cooked in oil), and Mendazi (Kind of like bread), and drink Passion Juice. We’ve become very good friends with a Christian student named Abel. He is in his early 20s and he works as a manager at a fast food chain called Steers. They sell hamburgers, chicken sandwiches and French fries. He was thrilled to find out about our (mine and Matt’s) jobs in McDonald’s. He has never been to one but has learned about it in school. He has a lot of questions about how to do business and how to do it as a Christian who intentionally lives to serve Christ. We have had some great conversations with him. When we aren’t talking with anyone, we either play ping-pong or pool at the school. The Matts beat two south Asian students 21-19 the other day in ping-pong. But this area is only a small part of the rest of our work here.
Early last week, we spent one morning with a missionary named Ralph. His area of work is with the South Asian population here in Niarobi. These are mainly Hindus and Muslims from India and some of the other South Asian countries. We toured two Hindu temples, one was the Swami Niryan temple and the other was the Shree Sanatan (which has been nicknamed Shree Satan.) At one of the temples, there was a walkthrough museum that basically credited the Hindu religion and India for almost all basic facets of modern knowledge, including the concept of gravity (Funny, I guess Isaac Newton was Hindu.) J. It was interesting to walk through these temples. They were designed and built using no iron, though I’m not sure of the significance associated with that. They were intricately carved from different kinds of specific woods, leaving almost no plain space. Every inch was covered with a carved design, idol, or associated animal. They had bells in the temples that the people would ring to “notify the gods” of their arrival to pray. It was indeed interesting. We all had to take off our shoes to enter the temples and the girls and guys had to separate in one of them. In this same one, the women could only approach the idols up to this rope. This was funny to me because the idols were in this huge glass case and I just wondered how they determined the distance to which it was acceptable for women to approach this glass case while the men still remained separated from the idol by the glass case, just a little closer. We also learned that “gods” are made for every occasion (more than 300 million). If there is not a “god” for the circumstance one is facing, one is made up. Additionally, it seems that the “gods” are ill-tempered and have ill-will for mere mortals. Their prayers and the food they place in front of them (they really do put food in front of the idols) is to appease them. It made me grateful that we serve a God that welcomes all and isn’t confined to a glass case.
Again, from one extreme to another. While the Hindu temples were lavish palaces of crafted, “specially blessed” wood with marble staircases at their entrances, the next couple days we visited numerous slums. Though there was a huge disparity in the amounts of wealth between the two, they housed people equally lost. The slums gripped our teams’ hearts in a different way though. The first slum we visited, Githeri, was with Jerry Stevens, another IMB missionary that has been here for years. We were there for only an hour, but we got our first glimpse of how the poorest of our world live. We drove through tightly-cramped tin shacks that sat in mud. It was really a self contained “fourth-world” village. There was a butcher', little shops where people could buy clothes, wooden boxes jam-packed with chickens. It was strange. It was enough to make you cringe that someone could spend their entire life within this slum. The idleness of everyone there was the other thing that just seemed foreign. We are so used to bustling cities filled with people and their own swamped agendas. These people just sat. Nothing was productive because there was no money to exchange for goods. There was no money for goods because outside the ones with shops, none have jobs or they have jobs that pay so little, it affords only food enough to get by. There are no luxuries, only the most basics, if that. As we drove, we eventually made our way to a small tin building, probably also made with no iron. Its support beams were branches. It was a simple, yet it housed hope. It in we found about 12 Kenyans, hungry to hear and know God. The pastor began our meeting by playing a homemade drum that set the rhythm of worship. We sang several songs and then Jerry demonstrated one of the evangelism tactics we have come to learn called Storying. We left Githeri filled with a hope, that despite the horrible conditions, Emmanuel was there and was at work.
The next day we visited the biggest slum in all of Africa and possibly in the world. Kirbera. Upon arriving, we were encouraged to learn that Habitat for Humanity had begun to build a road and some apartments through the slum, but were then quickly discouraged when we learned of the government’s involvement in the project. We learned that it is not unlikely that the apartments will be taken over by the government, taken from the people of Kibera and rented out to futher stuff the pockets of the wealthy and corrupt government officials. Though Kenya is tagged as democratic, it is not truly democratic. The government is corrupt as well as content to see its people remain impoverished as long as their seat cushions are plump. We waited for the pastor of one of the little tin churches in Kibera, as he was to appoint a guide to walk us through the slum that houses 800,000 people in just a couple square miles. We were warned it was not safe for us to go just the four of us due to the gangs that reap havoc throughout Kibera. It was heartbreaking to again see children, two and three-years-old wandering by themselves, as we learned rape is commonplace there. We passed tin shack after tin shack with flowing sewage inches from their doorway. The ultimate low for me was seeing a little girl with no shoes on stomping in the sewage that had become her playground for lack of a better one. There is no grass, only a dirty mix of mud, sewage and trash in the walkways that connect the tin shacks. The children were the really the only ones with smiles and we were grateful for the opportunity to love on them. They loved to have their pictures taken. After 45 minutes of walking through we returned to the car through literally a hole in the wall that separates Kibera from the rest of Nairobi.
There is so much more to tell you about, but we’ll have to post it tomorrow. Things move slower here, yet we never seem to have enough time. We hope to update the blog by tomorrow morning.
TO BE CONTINUED…

The Beginning...

Jambo habari ya Kenya! Sorry it has taken us so long to get this blog up and going, and we apologize in advance for the length. First of all, we want to thank everyone in our families, from River Cross Church, First Baptist Daytona Beach, and all our friends who have supported and encouraged us to this point. Your prayers, encouragement, advice and support have been so very valuable to us. We have mixed feelings, we love it here but we can't wait to get back and tell you all about it as well.

To catch you all up on our team, we will start at the beginning. Matt Sietz has been here in Kenya since the beginning of August. He spent nearly 3 months at a small orphange in Kakoye village, near the town of Kakamega. Matt taught English, Math, and basketball to the orphans as well as taught Sunday School and hung out with the kids. In the process, he acquired the talent of killing and cooking his own chicken. We have the video evidence to prove this. TIA! Erin and I arrived in Kenya about 10 pm on Oct 28th, solidifying our team. Our original plan was to arrive with Matt in August and begin working with the University students in Nairobi. Andrew was also going to come but he is holding down the fort for us back home. Luckily we didn't have any trouble finding Matt at the airport, as he is 15 inches taller than anyone else in Kenya, o yeah, and he is white. Matt was joined by the Tidenberg family and we had a great time meeting up with them. We also met the Lee and White families. That night Erin, Matt and I stayed up till about 3 am and didn't wake up until about 11 the next day.

There are a number of different missionary families here. All of them have been incredibly welcoming and encouraging. We have definitely felt spoiled in the last week and a half. Tim and Annie Tidenberg have allowed us to stay at their house during our time here. We spend much of our free time here with them and their daughter Hannah. They have 7 dogs, a rabbit, and a giant tortoise named Sami (even though you aren't here Sami, we think of you everyday.) Its definitely a slower pace of life in Africa. "Fast food" and quick service are not in their vocabulary but thats ok, its actually pretty nice. The first few days we spent some time exploring the city. We ate a lot of ice cream and went bowling. Go figure. One of the neat things to do here is go to the markets. They're kind of like flea markets. You can buy all sorts of pictures, carvings, and African weapons. Its a lot of fun because you bargain with the sellers or they will rip you off. Erin and I had one guy offer us a small necklace and 2 "crocodile" teeth (by crocodile he really meant camel) for about 16,900 shillings. They were really worth about 800 to 1000 shillings. Thats a difference of $210 American dollars. He didn't get any of it but it was interesting.

The weather here is great. It feels like the perfect spring day in March. It usually rains in the evening, which is really cool. One of the most interesting things out here has been the US presidential race. We knew that Obama had family members in Kenya but it seems that all Kenyans believe he is related to them somehow. In the days approaching the election, the country was gripped by "Obama-mania." Everywhere we went we heard his name, saw campaign ads and T-shirts, and even heard songs praising him. We've heard things like "The day Obama is elected, greed as a human ambition worldwide will come to an end," and "when Obama is president the US Congress will give him a blank check to end crime and poverty in Kenya." Kenyans seems to believe that Obama will make their nation a 1st world country. The day after he was elected was declared Obama Day. It was a national holiday in all the schools and most businesses were closed. Its been very sad to see how naive most Kenyans are. They don't ever hear the whole truth about Obama. Many do not know his views, morals or opinions but simply support him because he has half Kenyan. One good thing that seems to come out of this is that many Kenyans seem inspired to work hard and aim high. We just hope Obama doesn't ruin it for them. It appears this country and many others in Africa are banking on him to be a positive influence. In some ways this has given us a lot of material for conversations with the locals. We just have to tread carefully. If it was up to us, we wouldn't even discuss the subject. But thats impossible when everyone knows you are American. We worked on our British and Australian accents but weren't very convincing. So we bailed on that idea.

Physically adjusting to life in Nairobi has been interesting. The weather is great, the elevation and smog... not so much. We are about 6000 ft above sea level. We "played" basketball for about 2 hours last Sunday. We now know why Kenyans win all the marathons. The food has been an adventure in itself. We've eaten everything from Kenyan, Ethiopian, Indian, to American food. Some of it doesn't even look like food at all, but it almost always tastes great. Whether or not you hold that opinion a few hours later is a different story. We've faced a few bumps along the way but nothing serious. Aside from a few stomach issues, Erin's had a small cold, we drilled a hole in Matt Seitz's big toenail, and he spent 2 nights in a Muslim hospital called Aga Khan. Actually, his toe wasn't too bad, just gross, and he stayed at the hospital with a missionary friend of ours who had a minor surgery. All in all its been great, and we've definitely been blessed.

I'm sure by now, most of you are wondering what it is we are actually doing here. Our original plan was to arrive here in August as a team of four(Matt Seitz, Andrew, Erin and I) and spend 4 months working in the universities of Nairobi building relationships and doing discipleship. The plan didn't work that way, it worked better. When the plan changed, our team came across Ephesians 3:20 which says, " Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly more than all we can ask or imagaine..." That has definitely been the case. We arrived here as a team of 3 on October 28th. Our plan is still to do university work, but that has hit a few bumps as well. This is an entirely new ministry here and things are moving slowly. There are definitely some cultural factors here that we are learning to deal with. As of right now, only Erin and I are permitted to go on the Nairobi Institute of Technology campus. There seem to be a lot of political hoops to jump through. so far Erin and I have spent about seven hours on campus and talked with Christians and students who don't yet know Christ. We've spent time talking with Ben, Lee, Micah, John, Jeff, and Billy. Of them, four are Christians. We are encourgaed by this. Our goal is to train and encourage them to share their faith. The goal of the mission here is to get Kenyan Christians to share their faith with other Kenyans. That is the only way the gospel will truly take hold here in Kenya or anywhere else for that matter.

Since the school ministry is slow starting, we are looking forward to other ministries as well. The three of us came across a soccer field where we found a Kenyan organization called Christian Sports Contact. They are local Kenyan Christians who spend their time ministering to the street kids, some of them past street kids themselves. Streetkids are children who live on the streets, in the slums of Nairobi and are often involved in drugs and theft. The organization's goal is to share the Gospel with them, keep them off the streets, clean of drugs, and teach them soccer, a productive alternative. We hope to sepnd some time with them in the future. There are several other ministeries we will be working with here. As soon as we find out, we will let you know.

This trip has been and definitely will be an amazing opportunity to see God do what only He can do. One of the really neat and challenging things we have seen is the importance of Christians truly putting their faith in Christ and intentionally living their lives for Him. Many times people think that the goal of a mission trip is to convert as many people as possible. While our goal should always be to introduce as many people to Christ as possible, our passion should come from a godly desire to see people come to know Christ and never to come back with a report that glorifies us. All the glory should be to Him. If we can get a handful of Kenyans to truly live out their faith, they will be far more successful in seeing Christ change their country than we ever could be. There is a problem here with many local Christians being too dependent on American missionaries to evangelize instead of doing it themselves. As a result, the Kenyan Church has plateaued and may possibly begin to decline. Its similiar to the situation in America. This is an interesting thought to entertain. We wouldn't expect Kenyan Christians to be missionaries in America, recognizing the work to be done in their own homeland. We often forget that work is there in the US as well. As Christians, we need to stand upon the Word of God and our faith in God and intentionally live lives as ambassadors of Christ. This trip has been a challenging reminder to our team of the responsibilty we have. Whether you are in Nairobi, Kenya; Pucalpa, Peru; or the USA, the need is the same. The Gospel is the same. And we serve a God who does not change and has invited us to be part of the greatest adventure imaginable.

There is definitely much mroe we want to share with you and we hope to have another post within the next few days. We are so thankful for all your prayers, support and encouragement. Please pray for the missionaries and locals here in Kenya. The challenges here are spiritual in nature and your prayers are the most valuable thing you can do for us. We love you and miss you all. We'll be talking to you soon.