Moving Gets You More Friends

Those who know Darlene and me know how much we love California.  The San Francisco Bay Area was home for 21 years.  We love the rugged Pacific beach and the stunningly beautiful Sierra Mountains.  We love many people there who live in our hearts.  The Redwood Church holds wonderful memories for us.  

And we have truly enjoyed having our "base" in Southern California for the years we have worked in street ministry in Nairobi.  Returning for time with family in between visits to churches to make reports is a delight, as we watch grandchildren grow and spend time with an aged mother, who herself did great ministry in Nairobi for 6 years.  And the growing relationship with Conejo Church has enriched our lives, as we have developed many dear friends.  

Now our lives promise to be divided further, as we will have 3 homes.  We will continue to be in Nairobi half our time, but we will be divided between the Greater Dallas-Fort Worth area and California.  Because of street ministry, we have found great friends among Christians in Irving, Denton, Colleyville, North Richland Hills, Hamilton and Garland, not to mention Dallas itself.  Such varied churches as South MacArthur, Prestoncrest, Legacy, Hamilton and Singing Oaks are dear to us.  

Every move we have made has resulted in finding dear friends with whom to enjoy life and ministry.  We are certain that will continue.  In Christ there is never a need to look back, only forward, and sideways to those we walk beside.  For Christ is always the "yes" to what we seek to become.

An Answer to Despair

  I am happy to have an answer to my questions in a short time.  I have known people who struggle with issues and bad feelings for long periods, and who thus have to battle against bitterness as well.  Asaph writes in Psalm 73 of his own struggle as he watched bad people get good things.  The rich got richer, the proud gained more reason to be proud.  He was almost reduced to complaining and bitterness.  Then, he says, "I went into the sanctuary."  Then he understood the vaporous character of gain without gratitude, the slippery slope of self-pride in place of God-pride.  

  So today I went to church.  It's my job to make coffee and teach the 9:00 am Bible class.  Today it was 1 Thessalonians 2.  But it was afterwards that I found my answer.  I begin on Sunday getting ready for next week's class, which is to be 1 Thessalonians 3.  I sat in church and listened to two of our girls sing, and one of our boys read a scripture about hope from Isaiah.  And in a quiet moment I started to read chapter 3.  Paul wrote to the church that "we must have these troubles." He says, "we told you that we all would have to suffer."  I know those concepts, but it was only in the context of the church that they became real for me.  For Paul also wrote, "we have much suffering, still we are comforted by the faith of the church."  

  So there it is.  Suffering does not diminish joy, when you are in the church.  Loss does not bring despair, when you listen to the song and the scripture and you experience in living color the faith of the church.  

  Next time I suffer loss and feel the pain, I will seek to remember to go right away into the presence of the One who lets us see.  And I will not forget the church.  And I will never cease to value the role of the church in my life.  

Dealing with Loss

John Wambu and I are having a hard time dealing with loss.  We made the offices at the Learning Center of Made in the Streets as secure as we knew how.  We put a safe in the wall when we built it -- and put a cement roof on the room.  We put a metal door on the office, a metal door on the outside office door, metal gates on the Learning Center, and we stationed a dog at the Center.  As it turns out, we did not have at the time of the break-in the strongest possible locks everywhere, but we had strong ones.  Thieves broke in and stole $8,000 of the ministry money, which was scheduled to do renovations on the property, to build part of a new building and to pay for special activities for the street kids, among other things.  No one had actually seen us bring in the money, and only 4 people knew about the safe.  

But people know that a school will have cash at the end of a month.  And they know it will be in the most secure office.  And someone may have noticed that there was a connecting door between the conference room and the office area, and the conference room had a strong lock but one that could be cut.  So...they came at night, broke the locks, found the safe and took the money.  

For us, loss is hard to deal with.  Both John and I feel guilty, knowing there was more we could have done for security.  And we feel bad for the ministry and the kids.  We sorry that someone we know and love may have been involved.  We wonder if we can keep money safe the next time.  

There are many things we think of.  Jesus suffered loss; he even let Judas Iscariot continue to steal out of the common purse.  Paul counted all material, mental and social things of this world as less than nothing for the sake of knowing Christ Jesus.  Paul said he was content, with little or much, with whatever happens in life.  Christians are called to rejoice in all circumstances.  We are called to believe that we are in the will of God, that God is in control, that all that happens to us will further the kingdom of God in some way.  

We still find it hard to deal with loss.  It happened on our watch, and we built the office and the safe.  And we have responsibility for the ministry's money.  So how do we find peace? Or do we need the turmoil until we find better ways to take care of God's resources?  

We each forgive and try to encourage the other, and it is hard for either of us to receive the encouragement.  It keeps us awake at night, and both of us have lost weight (and John can hardly afford the weight loss).  We both know that God loves us, that this ministry is worth doing and these kids are more valuable than all the world, but all that doesn't yet console us.  Each of us keeps thinking it's our fault, and that's hard to shake. 

I have discovered many times that one of the answers to guilt is the passage of time.  One usually feels better in the morning, at least after sincerely changing and desiring to be a better person.  So I feel sure that a morning will come when we both feel better.  We want once again to have what John writes about, when the heart does not condemn.  

I usually don't write like this, because my life has been incredibly happy and full of joyous things.  Bad things have happened,  but I have been basically untouched.  So why does the loss of money hurt so much?  Maybe it's because my Dad was so responsible when it came to money, and I think the way he did.  

I'm also working on forgiving the people who took the money.  May they find the Lord!

GOD ANSWERS PRAYER by darlene

  Last week the whole Team of Made in the Streets sat and talked about their feelings and questions regarding the land problem.  Some had fear because of a man who brought thugs near the property, some were confused.  At the end, Irene Akinyi suggested that the best thing we could do was to ask God for help, and Jackton wondered aloud, "What extraordinary thing can we or can God do that will help us with relationships with community people?"  We all dedicated ourselves to pray for God to show us something extraordinary that will lead the community to love what we do for street kids, instead of hearing rumors.  

  Two days later some women from the church, who did not know that the Team was praying, dedicated themselves to pray and to talk with their neighbors.  And a week later, the member of Parliament who led the group in the invasion of MITS land came to visit, to see what we do and to talk.  The picture is a group of women who meet and pray together after worship on Sunday.

  God is at work!  We can't wait to see what the end of it will be.

Making Kids Happy

   Each time we return to Nairobi after a stay in the States, we have great joy in seeing the growth of the street kids who are in our program.  It is especially gratifying to see our young mothers who came from the streets and are learning to enjoy their babies and toddlers.  This time our grandchildren, who pray for street kids every day and especially for these little ones, bought gifts to send with us for the kids at the Eastleigh Center.  Here they are packing their gifts in our crates before we left the States.  

   

                                                         Darlene spent time with the young mothers and gave the

 gifts to the kids, who are Mna and Larry (their mom is Maria, the 15 year old), Mutua (his mom is Catherine, 17) and Brian (his mom is Millie, 16).  In this pic the kids are enjoying their treasures.  The other pic is Mna, who got the most wonderful little African-American baby doll.  You garage sale lovers might look for a soft vinyl African-American baby doll for us, since one of our teenage girls, a new one named Florence, who hardly ever speaks up, said wistfully to Darlene, "That is beautiful.  I have never had a doll."  Make you wanna cry!   

Of Things Missing, Fleas and Dying Engines

It only takes 30 minutes for disaster, or something close to it, to occur.  We needed to deliver empty crates to the boys' dorm leaders because some of the boys had no place to put clothes, we needed to deliver new mattresses we will use for visitors to the girls' compound (all the girls were there taking karate lessons from the Pepperdine University visitors), and we had other things we needed to take to the Learning Center.  The Team was there doing Team-building exercises with the Pepperdine University group.  So we decided to drive it all down.

We rounded the corner at the Learning Center to drive to the shops for the crates, and the ground we usually drove over was all plowed.  And Darlene said, "where's our container?"  I looked and couldn't believe it -- someone has stolen our container!!! -- John Wambu and I own a piece of land near the Learning Center and I have a container parked on it.  But it was gone, and the fence was gone, and it was all plowed.  Now there has been a dispute over this piece of land because a neighbor behind it wants highway frontage property, and we are there on the very valuable piece of land.  When we drove through the Learning Center property to get to the shops, we found the container.  It had been moved down by the Learning Center on the frontage road, and there were the fence posts.  That's the first step.

We went on to the shops and went in the auto mechanics area to get the crates.  We noticed that our dog Beauty was missing also.  Then as I went back to get the flashlight -- did I mention the electricity was out? -- Darlene noticed something stinging on her legs.  When I went into the container there, she ran back out to the light to find little black seeds all over her legs.  When they didn't brush off, she then concluded they were fleas.  By the time I put some things in the container and got the crates out, I could feel stuff crawling around on me too.  When I got outside, I found little black fleas all over my shirt, and pants, and shoes.  So...we delivered the crates to the team and said, "Did no one see the container moving around?"  Of course they did, and you can read about it in the MITS blog at  www.madeinthestreets.blogspot.com  

We got back in the car and drove home, with Darlene opening the gate and motioning me to go on and get my fleas taken care of.  When I turned the corner to head for the house, the car died.  And it wouldn't go any further.  Maybe it didn't like us getting fleas in the car, maybe it's tired, maybe the fuel pump went out -- I don't know yet.  

We ran in the garage and got our clothes off and got the bug spray and whammied the fleas and picked all of them off ourselves.  We wanted to take a shower, but did I mention that the electricity was off.  Did I mention that we didn't have water in the afternoon either because someone digging at the boys' place had busted a water main from our well and so they had to turn the water off?  A little later the electricity came back, and we had water, and we got the shower and felt much much better.  We feel really grateful to be here facing the little struggles of life while we work on the really great things of life with street kids. 

The evening ended really wonderful, even though the day is filled with plenty of trouble of its own.  Go to that MITS blog and read about it.  I feel pretty sure that we will all feel better tomorrow morning too.

Touching the Important in Bible Study

I love it when something brings my heart back to what is important.  I am teaching a Sunday morning Bible class, currently on Ephesians, and we are in chapter 5.  So I prepared a worksheet on Ephesians 5:19-33, a passage where the relationship of husband and wife is compared to that of Christ and the church.  I took a look at the Greek text as well as several English and Swahili translations, and it always amazes me how much the translations lose by using logical and meaning-filled words instead of staying with the graphic and image-producing Biblical language.

  Just one small example -- the language used to describe Christians' relationship to one another and that of wife to husband.  The Biblical image is that of arranging things where they belong, putting that which is highly regarded in the prominent place.  It's like stacking papers, putting the most important document on top.  Or like God's creation, where he puts everything in order in the universe and sets one of his creatures on top. Or like putting fruits and vegetables in a bowl, where you put the tomatoes on top so they won't get mashed.  We do that for one another, and wives do that for their husbands.  That is so much richer than "submit" or the Swahili "stahi" (which almost no one uses in normal speech).  And it puts wives in charge of their relationship, where they ought to be, since marriage is a voluntary involvement.  

  My study led me to 1 Peter 3:1-8, where I found what I think is the most wonderful statement of the marriage relationship.  Peter, who traveled with his wife on his mission journeys, says that a husband is to treat his wife with HONOR as she shares with him in the inheritance of LIFE!  That is just great!  Another rich graphic image is that he says to treat her as the "weaker vessel."  We often dislike both of those words -- "Am I weak?", she asks as she arm wrestles him into submission.  "Am I just a vessel, like a tool?"  But if we see his image as he states it, it is rich and good.  Husband and wife are both vessels, and she is the fragile beauty.  It's like having a stainless steel kettle for heating water on one hand and a slender glass tea steeper on the other, or a pottery plate up beside the fine china.  Which one do you take most care with, which one do you protect most, which one do you cherish and put in a special place?  That is the task of the husband, to make a place for the beauty he has found and won with love. 

  And so I went into the kitchen and found Darlene and hugged her for a long time and told her I have remembered why I love her so much.