Kikitemo

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know that I really love to go to Kikitemo IDP camp.  The work that God is doing there is amazing.  The short story about these people is that they are Kenyans, whose lives were torn apart by the post-election violence of 2008.  They have wandered around Kenya for a while before finally settling in a wind-swept valley near Nakuru.  Our WBS worker, John Kariuki met them and preached the gospel to them and helped the start a church.  We help these folks with some food money each month for the orphans and widows among them.  If you want to read more about them, scroll down to my blog post from Friday, March 18.

When we last saw them, they had started a fledgling business to raise money and occupy their time.  They make jewelry and baskets that can be sold to tourists.  They are leveraging their one resource, time, to improve their lives.  They are aware that God has blessed them by providing them food through us, so now they are inspired, not only to tell God’s story to others, but to join with God in His redemption of their lives.  We have been buying their goods and bring them back to the US to sell for their benefit, and to give us another opportunity to tell the story of our part in their redemption.

Grace, their leader, tells me that they have seen a big difference in the attitude of the people in their camp.  Always grateful, they are now beginning to feel the satisfaction of benefiting from their own work.  She says that even the few men that are there are eager to help in basket making and other camp chores, now that they share in the profits.  This has made them think of future plans moving some of the families back into normal Kenyan society and making room in the camp for others who are less fortunate.   They no longer think in terms of just surviving, but now they are considering how to expand God’s work here.  Very cool.

By the way, when I say they are making baskets, I mean it.  They even make the sisal cords that are woven together with colored plastic tape to make the basket.  Grace demonstrated for us how they take raw sisal and roll it on their thighs to make the cords.  

When Grace and I were alone together, I told her she is my hero.  I’m not sure she understood what a hero is, but I know that she knows how much she means to all of us.  God changed her life in a very tragic way because he had bigger plans for her.  She told me that she knows that her reward is in heaven, and she is right.  In the fully redeemed world that God will create from the new heaven and the new earth, Grace has a mansion waiting for her.  I hope I can live in one of her closets or something.

Here are some pictures that Paul took.  He has been a great friend and helper to me on this trip.  Tomorrow he will be taking an early flight to Mwanza, Tanzania to visit his missionary friend, Jason for a few days.  I will be taking a later flight to start my long journey home. Hope this blog has been a blessing to you.

Banging my head against the wall

God has a way of making us humble.  Yesterday, I was opining about how great I felt that all of my experiences had prepared me for this work, and all that rot.  Today I tried to merge my two passions, computers and Kenya, and the result was "splat."

My goal today was to meet with our guys and cover a few items of orphanage business and then spend some time working on their computers and training them on how to use a new email program and Picasa, for managing pictures.  While I was looking at their laptops and installing software, Paul was leading them in a great presentation on vehicle maintenance and driving tips.  He had prepared manuals for them and everything. The software installation went well, so I was encouraged to continue on with my plan.

When we started the training, I discovered immediately that I was in trouble.  I know these programs very well, and to me, they are simple to use.  But "simple" to a man who has owned every major class of personal computer since they were invented is different than to an African who has only used it to do one thing. Here's an example.

Me: "Go ahead and launch your web browser."

Them: Blank stare, no movement.

Me: "Okay, double click on the Firefox icon."

Them: Blank stare, some little movement. Shuffling uncomfortably.

Me: "That orange, round picture on the desktop?"

Them: Some intense staring at the screen.  A few mouse movements.

Now, don't hear me saying that these guys are stupid, they are not.  They're just from a totally different mindset than we are.  It would be the same if they were trying to walk me through how to milk a cow, or plant sugarcane.  Chaos. In the end, there were so many problems uncovered during our training that I scrapped most of it and had to be content with the few tidbits of something that they might have picked up.  Paul's, deal was good, though.

After most of the guys had to leave, the rest of us went for a stroll in downtown Kisii.  It was interesting, like a walk back in time.  We saw brand new things that our great-grandparents must have bought.  Hand drills, two person bow saws, a plow made for an ox, side by side with Nokia cell phones and pirated DVD's.  We thought we might find a restaurant, but no luck.  Everyone in Kisii eats at home or from a street vendor, and I'm not that adventurous.

We are bout to go back to the restaurant to wait for a couple of hours for the same food we had yesterday and for lunch both days.  The Kenyans don't mind, it's what they eat every day.  Americans are spoiled to variety.  Even me, Mr. Kenya, is seriously craving pizza.  At least we will be able to watch another episode of "Soy Tu Duena", a Mexican soap opera, badly dubbed in English, on Kenyan TV.  This Is Africa!

A pitiful few pictures are here.

Training Center Day Two

Today was a good day.  After breakfast we met up with one of my favorite people in the world, Alfayo Bodi.  Alfayo runs our facilities at Ndhiwa and Tom Manning and acts as a member of our Kenyan leadership team.  He came to be with us as we met the contractors who will build our new training center. We got to hang out in the back of the van on the way to Dirubi.

Alfayo, Francis, Paul, Thomas, Simon, Simon the Principal and I arrived at the Dirubi orphanage and we sat down to go over the revised plan that I worked on late into the night.  I had to accommodate a stream running through the middle of the site and a change of plans on the septic system in order to get a workable building plan.  The guys were all on board with what I had done so we called in the mason (who acts as the general contractor), the electrician and the plumber to join us.  These will be the principal players in the construction phase. But first, a pause for a personal moment.

When GCR cancelled phase two of the Kingdom Now project that would have completely remodeled the auditorium for the first time in 45 years, I was pretty depressed.  I felt like we had lost a great opportunity to transform the nature of our worship and our church.  I wondered if we had completely wasted a lot of time and money designing a room that will now never be built. I took this as a personal insult, even though I know it wasn't about me at all.  But one thing I have learned about God in the last few years is that He is able, and totally willing, to use tremendous pain in this life to teach us about His nature. In every loss, there is a lesson to be learned.

During the design phase for Phase Two, I met a brilliant architect named Kevin Callahan.  Kevin is a little weird, very west coast and ADD at the same time.  But Kevin did the very cool thing as we were gearing up to start construction.  He took the entire building design, every page, and taped it to the walls of our meeting room.  Then he invited a representative of each of the sub-contractors to pour over them, asking him questions and taking copious notes.  He was as eager to learn from them how better to do his job as he was to get the project ready to build.  He totally exposed himself to their criticisms, in order to make sure the design was as tight as he could make it.  Now, I'm no Kevin Callahan, far from it.  But I saw the tremendous value in what he was doing and it stuck with me.

So today, when we went over the design of the new training institute with these Kenyan tradesmen, I tried to emulate the master, and I asked them over and over to ask questions, make suggestions, and help me get this right.  At the end I did just what Kevin did at GCR, I asked each of them to look me in the eye and tell me that they could build it like I had drawn it.  And they did.  So we are going to build it.

God uses loss and tragedy to teach us lessons He needs for us to know, when we need to know them.  I have no idea why I am here, at this time, doing this work.  I could never have imagined that almost everything I have ever learned is being put to use in the kingdom in this way.  But God knows, and that's enough.

So why are we building this?  To do our part to help God redeem the world through the power of His church.  Because it not enough to save the life of a child if you leave them as a helpless young adult.  God expects us to lavish His gifts on them like he would, and He is doing it through us.  No gift is too small, but none is too big either for our God!  Praise Him!

After our meeting we drove back to Kisii to welcome our orphanage workers for our meeting together tomorrow.  On the way home I put my fancy Bose headphones on Thomas and let him experience Gungor's Beautiful Things album.  He really liked it and so do I.  There's a song on that album that says, "He makes beautiful things, He makes beautiful things out of the dust. He makes beautiful things, He makes beautiful things out of us!"  How right you are.

Pictures from today are here.

Back at Dirubi

First, let me apologize for not blogging last night. I know a few of you are waiting to hear from us but sometimes, fatigue wins.
We got to worship with our friends at Kamulu Sunday morning, which is always a blessing. Francis Mbuvi preached a great sermon and the singing was amazing. Very African. We even got to see an original song perfumed by the youth. After worship, we quickly set out for Kericho to be close to Dirubi where the new training institute is to be built. On the way, we stopped for some supplies at Nakumat at the Village Market. Security was quite a bit tighter there than usual, owing to the tensions surrounding the UBL killing.
Last night we stayed at a new hotel, called the Dream Cottage Guest House. It was nice, newer than the Tea Hotel, but smaller and with little character. Meals were prompt though, rare in Kenya. This morning we went to Dirubi, site of our first orphanage. Across the road is the new site for the Vocational Training Center. This requires a word of explanation:

With over 900 kids of all ages in our orphanages, every year a few of them graduate from high school. We had to come up with a way to get them some edge in the employment market in order for them to have some shot at taking care of themselves. Up until now, there were just a few but every year there are more and more. Next year, there will be more than 40 and each year the number increases to around 150 per year. The new KWO board of directors decided that building a training center for our graduates would be the best way to tackle the problem. Last month, John DeFore made his (maybe) last trip to select the best site for the new center and Dirubi was selected.
I am here to finalize the building plan and meet the new principal and the builders who will construct the facility. It's very important that we get this right. This will be the biggest thing we have every built, so good communication and planning on the front end could save a lot later. So today we were on the site. I brought a good, long tape and we walked the entire site. It is more than big enough, but it has a small stream running through it, so my initial plan required some modification. After all of our discussions, we went to our hotel for the next few days in Kisii and I have been modifying the plan in order to print for the builder. We will meet him tomorrow.
Sorry for the lengthy explanation, but it's the whole reason for the trip!  Here are some of the pictures Paul and I took . By the way, Francis let Paul drive us from Dirubi to Kisii, about a 90 minute drive. He did great!

Greetings from Kenya

Greetings from Kenya! We have arrived safely on our latest adventure in east Africa. This morning we got to worship with our friends at Kamulu church of christ, and I was reminded once again of how great it is to be a part of the body of Christ that meets all over the world today. I hope that your day of worship and service to our King is wonderful.

Please pray for our travels and the success of our mission to begin construction of the new Vocational Training Institute, even as we pray for all of you back in Midland. Be blessed!