Happy Sunday

What a happy Sunday.

I led the Discovery Bible Study groups at Kamulu - John 6:1-15 is the story of the young man who brought lunch to the coronation (well, Jesus didn't allow the men to make him king, but they wanted to). Jesus checked out his disciples' faith and vision, then he pointed the way for them with a young man's lunch (should he have been in school with his lunch box?). The groups seemed to get the point - that Jesus can take the little that we think we have to offer him and make much of it. After all, he said his original plan is to shame the strong with the weak, exalt the poor among the rich, and so on (1 Corinthians 1:26-31). Francis Mbuvi preached a quality sermon on the same topic - he made us laugh and touched our hearts. It was all Swahili today, since our group of visitors from Texas A&M are off to the Coast. Darren Wilson is here working with Moses Okoth on our computer curricula, and Alex Atema (one of our older students) sat with him and interpreted.

After that we drove across the city to see Caroline Wanjiru and Jane Wangare. They were from the early group of young people from the streets who lived at Kamulu (before there were boys out here). They have been working at the Narcisse Salon for about 5 years. They have their own apartment, and they can cook!! We enjoyed a wonderful meal of rice, sukuma wiki (kale), fish, tomatoes with avocado, potatoes and beef stew. They were delighted to have us over, as they tend to think of us as the parents they might have had. We spent a long time talking about their plans, their church life and Bible study with other young adults, their words to pass on to our current kids and their work at the salon.

How great it is to see our kids loving God, successful at work, involved in church, and still caring about others who come out of the same situation they did.

By the way, there are more kids than ever coming out on the streets in Nairobi. Even the media and government have noticed it! And there are also articles and news broadcasts about the prevalence of alcohol addiction in Kenya - one of the reasons kids end up on the streets. Pray for us, pray for power and will to break addictions, pray for kids who suffer from the failings of those who are responsible for them.

Still, it was a happy Sunday!

Prayers and Strengths

We sent one of our students at Made in the Streets - Charles Kimani - to Malindi on the coast of Kenya this week to a medical clinic organized by Dr. John Bailey of BandS Ministries at a hospital there. He has a mass under his shoulder blade, and the doctor concluded, after looking at X-rays, that it needed to come out. But when they began surgery, they discovered that it is inoperable, and life-threatening either way. We will get further word about prognosis and what Charles can do. I announced it to the Team and kids in chapel today, and talked to them about the event with the young boy where Jesus said, "This kind comes out only through prayer." We broke up into groups of 7 or 8 and prayed for Charles, asking God to dowhat we cannot do, believing that He is able and asking that His will be done. So we invite those who love us and the street ministry to pray for Charles as well. More later. The pictures are of Charles when still on the streets and another a few months ago at MITS.

I also need you to pray for me. My diabetes is a tough case, and I have had a difficult time lately with sugar level. My body acts as it wants to, producing much more sugar than it needs or can take care of. It seems to jump up and down, depending on the stress level and on what I eat. I have needed help all my life with everything I try to do, and this is no exception. So please ask God to help me.

Otherwise, we are well. Darlene is with the Team and Kelly Davidson right now continuing the "strengthsFinder" seminar that Kelly has done with the Team. Today they are talking about how different strengths fit together, running scenarios on who would be asked to handle certain situations among the kids and Team and the ministry, and continuing to encourage the Team to use their strengths on behalf of God's work, develop their strong points even further, and mesh together as a Team. This is more in our ongoing plan to develop high leadership functioning in our Team.

Strengths

We are all gifted by God with certain strengths that are part of our nature. Making us in his own image means creating us with some of HIS strengths. Kelly Davidson, director of Aggies for Christ at Texas A&M University, is visiting with us, and he led our team through an exercise of finding our strengths and how they relate to one another. The assessment was done from a business point of view, so it doesn't portray a person's whole life. The reasons we do street ministry - compassion and love and understanding that God wants love and help given to the poorest of the poor and faith -- are not covered in this. But we found it very instructive and helpful in understanding one another.

The 5 top reported strengths that I have are called "Strategic," "Learner," "Responsibility," "Belief," and "Relator." Darlene's are "Communication," "Belief," "Positivity," "Developer," and "Responsibility." After hearing stories about the beginning and growth of Made in the Streets, Kelly said, "It is unlikely that Made in the Streets would have gotten off the ground without the certain strengths that Charles and Darlene have.

One of the best parts of the workshop was that all of us were struck with the idea, "That's how God made him/her." We had better recognition of why we are as we are. All of us felt better about each other. We also began to see ways that we could assist one another because of our particular strengths. Moses Gicharu said at the end, "I have been having some trouble understanding why some of the Team acts as they do. I have even been a little discouraged. But now I see, now I can feel better about all our work together."

We saw that Francis Mbuvi has a wonderful set of strengths for being our leader at MITS. And the Team at Eastleigh working on the streets all share the strength of "connectedness." This means they see the connections that exist between people and events, that they have a moral urgency to keep up those connections and to help everyone in their relationships. How important is that for working on the streets with demoralized kids?

On Thursday we will have a Team meeting, while the Aggies for Christ take care of our kids, and go over our strengths and how we can benefit one another and the whole ministry with our strengths. What a blessing!