Creation and Necessity

I am so amazed at all the marvelous discoveries about the universe and all the thought that goes into where all this came from and what we can know from looking at the universe. Recently astronomers have found two planets circling a star. And there is a star out there that has an enormous amount of water around it. And scientists are thinking about it carefully. Already they say the water can't come from passing asteriods and comets and other celestial sources. The water is too close in to the star -- so the star itself is producing the water. But from what astronomers already know, the star should be producing carbon monoxide. Yet water is forming. It's exciting to think about what that might mean and what new discoveries will come because the formation of huge amounts of water is possible in a star.

Stephen Hawking is one of those thinkers who seeks to understand the universe and history and form theories about the source and the destiny of life. He thinks about gravitation and relativity and all those obscure things most of us know so little about. And Hawking has recently written that what we know about science does not bring about a necessity that God is involved in creation! He concludes that the more we know about the universe, the less necessary it is that we must argue from the creation to the Creator.

What a marvelous idea! What freedom to our faith! And it fits the theology of Scripture. We do not believe in God because the universe demands it. We do not believe in God because of some evidence built into the structure of the universe or the atom or gravity. We do not believe in God because reasoning about the nature of life leads us to that conclusion.

We believe in God because he has come to us, because he has made himself known to us, because Jesus Christ has described the Father who made all things. As John wrote, "what we have seen, what we have touched.." The mystery of our faith is this, that Christ lives in us. At the core of our faith is not knowledge about the physical universe, but knowledge about God himself.

Once you know God in Christ, then you can see where the farthest star and the most amazing phenomena fit into his reality. As Paul writes in Romans 1, the glory and majesty is seen in all the things that are. We might even want to talk about intelligent design. But we do not start there. We do not argue from design to the designer. We know him, for he knows us, and he came to set our hearts on fire.

Christ is in us. And this truth sets us free.

Vacation (Paris Style) Joy

John Wambu, with whom I work closely at Made in the Streets both in our building projects and relations to government offices, often says, "We can't take a vacation; we have work to do." He hardly ever takes a day off, and I almost never take a day off when we are in Nairobi. Street ministry and the boarding program are a 24/7 deal.

But vacations are really nice, as we found out again when we stopped off in Paris on our way back to the USA. Paul and Edie Tews hosted us with great kindness. Here is a picture of us in the Tuileries Gardens having lunch on Sunday afternoon. Delightful!

It was great attending French worship with them on Sunday morning -- what a cosmopolitan church, with many members from West and North Africa, both immigrants and second generation. And such noisy and happy fellowship before and after the worship time. And in the evening, after English worship, they had a fellowship meal. We were happy to get in on that, as the preacher is a good cook. Here is a picture of us with Roland and Rosa at the church building.

I Get to Preach

I am always happy when I get to preach. Most of my adult life has been involved in preaching. 1968 in Roswell, NM, then a two year break to teach in a University, then 21 years preaching in Redwood City, CA. For several years in Kenya, I would go to various congregations and be asked to preach. Since we have been doing street ministry, I have encouraged the young people we work with to preach and teach, and I have done less and less. Last week I was in Eastleigh at the new congregation we have opened at the Eastleigh Center, and I was asked to preach. It was the third meeting of the congregation, there were 70 people, and 5 young men from the streets were baptized. That was a good day!

These days Francis Mbuvi invites me to preach at Kamulu on the Sunday before Darlene and I leave for the USA, so that means I get to preach two times a year. TODAY was that day. My sermon was on the subject "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made," and my illustration today was BONES and the human skeleton. I had an 18 inch model of a human body and a handful of the 206 bones in the body. I also had 99 candles and 99 matchboxes.

Since what bones do for the human body is give us FREEDOM - we can move about, raise our hands, nod our heads -- freedom of movement, freedom to do what we were made for. And the equivalent of bones in the "body of Christ" are the teachings that never change, that form the hardness of the body of Christ. I spoke of teachings such as that of sexual purity and "love one another" and "receive the Holy Spirit" -- great things that make the church what it is.

I also talked about the MISSION STATEMENT of the Kamulu Church. Some of the leadership has been meeting to talk about our future and the purposes of the congregation, and so today we started asking the whole church to agree on our mission statement. Essentially it is "we are free to be friends," a message we want to spread all over the community (free from greed, free from hate, free from fear). And the second part is "we love children." The third part is "we want everyone to know Jesus." Today's emphasis was "free to be friends."

I said that in Kenya everyone needs a candle and a matchbox, because the electricity may be out tonight. Everyone nodded. And we had put a label on each matchbox that says,

Free to be Friends

The Kamulu Church

Christians Meet Here

Call 0733 834507

We have 3 groups that often meet after church on Sunday. So I asked each group -- the youth group, the young adult group, and the women's group -- to take 33 candles and matchboxes each, to visit 33 homes in Kamulu, and to explain to each that we want everyone here to be "free to be friends" and to tell them why.

Should be exciting to see what happens!

15 Years of MITS

Well, it's over. We worked for weeks and weeks to prepare the property, a program and our hearts for the Made in the Streets 15 Year Anniversary Celebration. And it came off so well. We had some local preachers with us, some officials from the ministries of agriculture, and gender and children, lots of former students, a guest of honor who was herself honored to be here, some former team members and various friends of the ministry -- some from local schools and from Good News Productions.

We sang and prayed and ate and heard very short speeches and recited Scripture and poetry and cut the cake and talked, all the things people do at a ceremonial function. But it was more than ceremony - it was joy and glad greetings and inspiration and encouragement and a chance to show what students have done and can do.

We can get by for quite a few days on this happiness.

Fascinating Sunday with Friends

Truly a fascinating day! One of the great things about missionary life is that we get lots of visitors - and ones who love us. Worship at the Kamulu Church was true harmony! Several of our street kids were involved in leading worship. Francis Mbuvi had really studied about the UNITY of the body of Christ and wanted so much to communicate well what it means to have the DNA of Christ in us. He wanted us to get it, he wanted to share something good and precious. And one of our students, Francis Cugia, led the Lord's Supper and the collection, and he also spoke about unity - of the whole Christian movement in the world - and he reminded us of the need to give, to share. He meddled in our lives; he said, "even you students, you get some money and you go to the store and buy an avocado, and as soon as you get back to the boys' or girls' compound you say, "Don't ask." And don't we come to church, he said, after we have earned money during the week, and we say to God, "Don't ask."

Then we had 10 for lunch. Since we were almost out of food, Darlene made a great stew and homemade biscuits and we had some chips and salsa. And everybody wanted iced tea!

The retired dentist is an old friend who has helped us a lot at Made in the Streets. With him were three business and medical people working in a clinic on the Kenyan coast. One woman visitor has spent years in South Africa. Another one said, "Oh, if only our anesthesiologist could have been here; he would love the singing. They came over to be with us for a day and a night. And a young couple who live in the Sudan now and are learning Arabic and planning to help people there with agriculture - and the love of God - showed up to be with the church also. And one of our MITS Board members who is a teacher is here with her daughter. We had happy conversations, though some of it was about "the worst food I have ever eaten anywhere."

It is so great to have friends. Get one today.

Life with Young Moms

What an interesting day. I spoke in chapel at Made in the Streets today about the very beginning of the street ministry, about the first street youth that we met in 1992 and how that meeting changed our lives and led to there being Made in the Streets.

Then I spent most of the day working on the new home for the moms and babies from the streets who are now at Kamulu. There are 7 of them and they have 8 children together. We are moving them into a house next to the girls' compound, and later we will build a wall enclosing them into the compound.

In the afternoon Darlene and I met with the 7 girls, our girls' supervisor and the woman who will supervise the moms and live in the house with them. We talked about what we expect from them and how much we love them and their children. Expectations like respecting one another's space and taking good care of their own kids and not hitting the children, just as we do not hit the moms, for any reason.

After the meeting I went back to the house. Two of the young moms came over, excited to see the house, and helped me with the beds and with cleaning the floor and picking out which pillow and sheets go on which mattress. After a while I was concerned about whether they were supposed to be doing something else at the school. So I asked them, "If you were not here, where would you be?" Mercy looked at me and said, "Oh, I would be in a terrible place, just terrible, I might be dead!" She is truly happy to be at Made in the Streets. That was a little more than I wanted to know, but I thanked her for that and asked, "Well, if you were not in his house at this moment, where would you be?" They said it was teatime, and the others were drinking tea but they wanted to help with the house.

As they were finishing cleaning and working on the windowsills, Veronica noticed something and called Mercy's attention to it. Then Mercy showed me where hornets had built a very long nest along the edge of a window. I went home and then set out on a "wild at heart" adventure. You have to be careful with hornets, for they are fast and have a bad temper. And they were scattered all along the window, not bunched up to make it easy to battle them. With my "Doom" in hand, I carefully took aim and hosed them good. And this time I won!

Now the moms and babies have a new clothesline, the walls puttied and painted, all the beds put together with mattresses, pillow and sheets on them, all the lights working, along with the toilet and shower -- a good day's work. I'm tired, but the girls will rejoice when they move in tomorrow. Before I left, I noticed that Mercy had put her scarf under one of the pillows and Veronica put an exercise book under another one. Staking out a claim...

Tonight our feral cat who sneaked into our house and had 4 kittens in the bottom of a wedding dress actually came up to me and took bits of cheese out of my hand. Then she had the nerve to try to get up on the table and get at my hamburger, but I won that one too. One of the kittens is living with Francis and Maureen now, and another will go to Jackton and Milly's house soon. Two to go, then we can lock her out! Well, maybe not, cats have a way of getting in the heart.

May your heart be captured by something good today.

In the Place Christ Chose

My life has changed a great deal since we began working with street children, going into the alleyways of Eastleigh and the warren of small houses down in Mathare Valley. Spending time helping young men and women who have a heart for ministry learn how to do it with eagerness, with endurance, with joy and with confidence in the face of great difficulty.

In earlier times I was a preacher, and I loved preaching. I also taught religion and philosophy in university, and that was great joy. Then I was administrator of a technical (computer and electronics) training school, and that felt like real service, doing something genuinely good.

I have been very comfortable with all my work. We fit in well in California, both with the church and universities. Life has been blessed and full of joy.

We are having a special study lately in Sunday morning class about the human body and the body of Christ. I have downloaded pictures from the internet of human cells -- red and white blood cells, bone cells, eye cone cells, fat cells and nerve cells -- all those wondrous things in the body that show how fearfully and wonderfully we are made. Today's class was on "specializaton," making the point that a cell must "sacrifice" anything else it might have been for the sake of the body. It specializes, for the good of the body.

My life has changed as I have gotten closer to the heart of Christ, as I have found the "special" role that is mine. So now I don't preach any more, now I don't teach in the university, now I don't manage a school. And I'm no longer in California. So I am living in a less comfortable place, and my role is different. Now I am a fundraiser, and a networking liaison and an advisor, none of which make me most comfortable. But I am in the place where Jesus has placed me. It is not what is "natural" to me, but it is what naturally happens in the body of Christ.

And for this I give God glory and honor and praise, for the choice he made for me is that which makes the heart happy and fulfills the longings of the soul.