Travels

The Coulstons are on the road again.  February 22 we are at the Otter Creek Church in Brentwood, TN.  Sunday morning March 1 we are at Eastside Church in Duncan, OK, and in the evening we are with the Singing Oaks Church in Denton, TX.  On March 8 we are at the Legacy Church in North Richland Hills, TX.  

We have been in Tucson, AZ, and a great visit with the Mountain Avenue Church; we have visited with many people at the Conejo Valley Church in Thousand Oaks, CA, while spending time with "the kids" - daughter, son-by-marriage and the grandchildren.  

It is our great joy to tie together two worlds that have many differences but One Lord -- the street ministry in Nairobi and supporting congregations and friends in the USA.  And what we are most amazed about is the continuing compassion and generosity we experience in Christians in the USA.  

Maybe the greatest difference is that our world in Nairobi is "homeless" while our world in the USA has the comfort of good homes.  In Nairobi the street kids sleep outside, so our work is outside also.  And our congregation in Kamulu is "homeless", since we meet outside in the courtyard of the Learning Centre at MITS.  But at Kamulu we are providing a home for kids, with each street kid having his or her own bed!  And the same is true for the girls with babies at the Eastleigh Center.  Your support makes this possible, and we are all grateful.  

The Pursuit of Happiness

In the USA, we believe firmly in certain rights for every citizen.  One of those is the freedom to pursue happiness.  Of course, happiness has different dimensions and definitions.  Since it is a pursuit, it hinges on certain realities, and that is where being happy differs for people.  For some, the foundation of happiness is having the economy strong, and that means having enough money to do the things I want to do.  For others, the foundation is family - having everyone together and safe and unified.  For still others, happiness comes from having the career or job or activities that one wants to do.  

If those things are not there, then happiness is lost, and depression or sadness or frustration sets in.  We hear this now and then from those who have lost jobs and whose happiness depends on money.  We hear it when a family member is in a dangerous place or separated from family.  We hear it when a person gets too old or is too weak to do the things he wants to do.  

It's easier for those who are not suffering loss to stand aside and regard people as weak or wrong-headed who are frustrated or unhappy.  

But there is another answer for life, one that enables us to find happiness regardless of human situations or losses.  God has an economy, God has a family, God has a purpose.  To accept God's economy, to enter into God's family, to take on God's purposes in our own lives is to find a way to happiness that does not depend on having money, or a safe family, or doing what we want to do.  

God's Spirit has his own ways to produce happiness in our inner lives, and our outer lives as well.  As we tell the street kids, "you are not bound by your past."  Now are we bound by present realities.  We also tell the kids "money is not the answer."  And we tell them, "we are also your family."  

We are free to pursue happiness.  Let us keep our ears open to hear the enduring words, "Happy are those who...." (see Matthew 5)

Raise Your Own

MITS HONORS ITS OWN

It really pays to invest in people.  Land and buildings and cash and clothes and furniture are all very nice, but people pay off in the long run.  In our short careers (have I mentioned that I am on social security now?), Darlene and I have always worked with young people, whether campus ministry in university, teenagers or nursery school kids.  We directed youth and children's camps for 20 years.  Our objective was to "grow our own," using high school youth who had been in our children's camps as counselors in children's camps when they were 15 and older.  And we used our college students as counselors in youth camps.  

   The first picture is a group of street kids taken early (1996) in the Made in the Streets ministry.  Laurent Mogambi is the one in the front with the baseball cap turned sideways.  At the time he did not know his real name, but he called himself "John Mwangi Isaac," with the Isaac emphasized because his little brother, Isaac, had been picked up by the police and Laurent thought Isaac was dead.  He wanted to honor his memory.  

  

The next picture shows Laurent at 15 years old just before he entered the initial live-in program at the Eastleigh Center in 1999.  He was a good student -- we were teaching Bible, English and Math.  Darlene's Mom came to Kenya 6 months each year (she was 72 the first year she came) and taught reading to evangelists and street kids.  She taught Laurent to read, giving him lots of encouragement and guidance.  He absorbed everything and wanted more.  When our team enrolled him in middle 

school (he was accepted into the 7th grade even though he had never been to school because he learned English and Bible and math at Made in the Streets), they also found out his name and other info a

bout him.  

  

   The next picture shows Laurent at his final meal preparation at the cooking school the Team 

enrolled him in, which he cooked for Darlene and me.  By God's grace he got an internship at the University of Nairobi cafeteria, and he has cooked there for five years.  He has cooked at meals attended by the President of Kenya, and this year he helped cook a meal for the contenders for President (Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga) held during the negotiations for the new coalition government.  All along Made in the Streets has stayed in touch with Laurent, and his wedding to Eliza (another of our former students) was held at the Kamulu Center in December.  

  

Now our investment in people really starts to pay off.  Laurent becomes the fourth of our former students to begin working on the MITS Team. 

  Last week Francis and Mauryn Mbuvi moved into their new house, moving out of the house at the girls' center.  The next day Laurent and Eliza moved into the house vacated by the Mbuvi's.  Laurent will begin part-time teaching at the new cooking skills area in the Connor Brown Memorial Skills Training Center.  As soon as he finished his responsibilities to the University, he will be full-time with MITS.  He will train students to cook, and he will direct their work in operating the small cafe we have on the highway at our Shops Center.  Eliza both sews and has good ability as a hairdresser, so she will likely work in some capacity in relationship to MITS.  

  There is nothing like "raising your own" when it comes to good management of resources and investment in the future.  The church can always do this by giving young people lots of responsibility and opportunity to stretch their abilities and faith.  

Have a good time in your investments in 2009

    

Christmas in Kenya

Now that we have a president in the USA with a slight connection to Kenya, we also have more news correspondents in Kenya, and they need to find something to do.  So one of them has done a good service with an interesting and true-to-life article on Christmas in Kenya.  It's Edmund Sanders in the Dec 23 issue of the Los Angeles Times.  You can find it at www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kenya-xmas23-2008dec23,0,2397369.story

Kenyans who live in Nairobi spend a lot of money going home for Christmas -- higher bus fares and other costs, but especially relatives in the country who expect their "rich" Nairobi relatives to bring gifts and cash home for Christmas.  This happens partly because those who go to Nairobi to seek a living don't report back home that they only got a security guard job at $60 a month and one-third to half of it goes for rent.  They continue to make it sound wonderful to live in Nairobi!  The truth is that about half the people of Nairobi live in the slum areas of Kibera, Mathare, Soweto, Korogocho and the many scattered but smaller slums around the city.  And more than half of the people don't get enough food every day.  And most of those who come to the city to seek riches can't get skilled labor jobs but must work at the lower income jobs.  

We are happy that Made in the Streets can give the street kids who live with us a better Christmas than many get -- each one has a bed, and enough food to eat, and an opportunity to visit some relatives at least once during the holidays, and Team members who truly love them, and literacy education and skills training and a shopping trip and other activities that normal families take together.  

Thanks to all those who help us do this, and Merry Christmas

Tolstoy Tells it True

Had a great night last night.  The granddaughters spent the night with us for the first time.  An evening of delights for grandparents!  We had popcorn, colored Littlest Pet Shop, made a snowman craft, sat in front of the fire, blew up the air bed for the girls, ate turkey and dressing dinner, and read Leo Tolstoy's The Three Questions.  All while the parents were out of town having dinner and a night on their own.  Makes me really glad God let me live this long.

The book we read is a children's adaptation of Tolstoy's original story.  In the story Nikolai gets his 3 questions answered:  1) when is the best thing to do something? 2) who is the most important one? and 3) what is the right thing to do?  The girls appreciated the story and remembered the 3 answers -- good lessons for them, and for all of us.  I recommend the story to you, in either version.  

More good news -- social security is giving me an increase for 2009 -- such a deal!  It's great to grow old in this time.

When you pray, please remember these

  1.  Our good friend Virda Stevens needs God's healing hand,

  2.  Another friend, Hugh Fraser, needs continued improvement,

  3.  Land issue at Made in the Streets isn't settled yet - should get final court ruling Thursday

  4.  One MITS student, Joseph Kamau, left us to go and help his aunt on her farm after his uncle died.

  5.  15 young people from the streets have taken government skills exams in November and December -- in auto mechanics, 8th grade exit exams, and sewing -- and 3 others finished training programs outside of MITS (hairdressing and cooking) -- pray for their success in finding work and living on their own.  Anastasia will go to a 'bridging' program for her journalism studies at Universal College.  

Thanks -- peace and joy, charles

Surprised by Joy

We came to Oxford, England, to visit friends posted here to teach by Abilene Christian University.  Darlene has read the Narnia stories by C. S. Lewis to all the street kids in our Kamulu program.  And this year we took all the kids and team to see Prince Caspian because two young girls in Thousand Oaks, California, gave their earnings and allowance and money from recycling to Made in the Streets so we could do something with the kids.  It was a great experience -- 75 of us went to the theater in Nairobi on a day when they gave away hot dogs, popcorn and a soda with the price of admission.  The kids loved it, and Francis Wahome told us afterwards that he did not drop even one grain of popcorn but ate it all.

We had no idea we would get to see all the C. S. Lewis memories.  Mel and Jan Hailey took us on a walking tour of Oxford.  We walked down to Magdalen College where Lewis taught.  And we went to his house and walked around the little lake and wildlife trail where he often walked, which must have been his inspiration for Ransom's walks in Out of the Silent Planet.  And we saw trees there that looked like the Ents in Tolkien's stories (Tolkien was a friend to Lewis).  We walked over to the Trinity Church where Lewis attended and saw his grave in the cemetery.  And finally we went out to eat at his favorite restuarant.  

Needless to say, this was a rich experience.  Lewis influenced me greatly with his wonderful arguments in Mere Christianity about the value of the coming of Christ into the world and about the moral teaching of the Bible.  I saw in That Hideous Strength the necessity of taking action when truth and hope and joy are threatened.  

I feel once again a sense of joy, a sense that I am blessed above all men, a sense that God thinks about me and remembers me and makes a way for me.  

May you find an unexpected joy today,

charles

Love is a House

A long time ago, when I was in University, I fell in love with stories, so I read all the short stories I could find and listened to storytellers.  A few I vividly remember, like "love is a house."  It was the English countryside, and every person lived alone there, each in his or her own small brick home, for there were only so many bricks, and there was room for no one else inside.  One day a cargo plane flew over and accidentally dropped a load of bricks, which landed on a man's house and smashed it.  When he patiently rebuilt his house, it was larger than before.  

He gathered some extra vegetables and fruit, and he went over the hill to where a woman lived in her small house.  He invited her over to eat with him.  She was reluctant, but finally she came. And they were both delighted.  

So the next day he went out hunting for more bricks, and he rebuilt his house again.  Then he went into the valley and found others to invite to his home.  Years later, after he married and raised his family and lay on his death bed, his son leaned close so he could hear the last words, "love is a house." 

And it's true.  We are delighted with the home we have.  Wednesday evening we invited half of our leadership Team (and wives/husbands) to our house for Christmas dinner (I know it's early, but Darlene likes to get started on Christmas!).  I cooked steaks and sausages and roasted corn upstairs on our rooftop patio.  It was great sitting up there talking to Jackton and Irene and Robin and Victor as we cooked.  After dinner we all went upstairs and talked about the moon and Venus and stars and meteorites and whether they might ever have gold and the trouble we've faced over Made in the Streets land.  We are all so glad that we have chosen a non-revenge and patience and let-justice-take-its-course and God-will-work-his-will course.  

And the next day John Wambu came over after his work of building on the new nursery school building and his visit to the Department of Lands, and we sat on the rooftop and talked and enjoyed our friendship.

And tonight Darlene and I went upstairs after dark and turned off all the lights and felt the strong wind blow and watched Orion rise in the East and a beautiful but quickly burned meteorite.  And we felt the peace of love.  

Merry Christmas from Darlene, and may your house be love.