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!

Memories

Sorry it has been a while since I've written anything here. Lots happens to me, and I have a lot of thoughts and ideas, but I'm not so good about sharing them on the blog.

My heart and mind are on my mom-by-marriage this Christmas time, since she reached 90 in November, started losing weight that month and died on Christmas Eve. I feel sorrow together with Darlene, great relief that my prayer that she might go Home is answered, and really good about the life and relationship we have had.

In-law relations should and can be filled with joy and with building one another up. After all, the spouse of one's child has been CHOSEN, loved, wanted. One's own child, who is smart and beautiful and good and wise, has chosen him or her. Let's be glad for in-laws everywhere, and let us praise God for them. GO, IN-LAWS!

We share rich memories with Dorothy Wright - making a life together with Darlene and her parents helping in so many ways when we were young, working together with street kids in Nairobi as we began to teach kids Bible and English and Math, taking trips together as we went back and forth from US to Kenya. We rode the elephant in Northeast India, we walked all around the old wall of Jerusalem, we stood at Nikos Kazantkasis' burial plot in Heraklion on Crete, we saw the sights of old Athens and picked up pieces of marble, we looked for gold on the riverbanks of California, we listened to the waltz music by the Danube on our Vienna trip, and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing the animals on the Mara in Kenya. We also sat knee to knee with street kids who were scratching the body lice, and we went out together to visit street kids where they slept at the "bases" in the alleyways of Eastleigh. And not once did my mom-by-marriage complain or back off from any unpleasant task.

We've been looking at old pictures on Christmas eve and Christmas day and today, and the memories are sweet as a Swiss chocolate bar, as gentle as the hands of Jesus, as uplifting as the church singing "Here I am to Worship".

So...give thanks for your in-laws today, give them a hug and ask God to give them richly everything they need. They make your life better.

Inafaa, Haifai

"It works; it doesn't work."

I am sitting at the Java House in Nairobi, where they have wi-fi!! When I am home, Quickbooks won't work on my laptop. It decides that it wants to register AGAIN, and apparently it doesn't like my internet connection at home, because it gives me a phone number in the USA instead of registering again. But when I am sitting here at Java, it works! And it doesn't say anything about registering. And apparently the Quickbooks support people don't know what to do about that, because they do not respond to my emails (except to write me asking me to contact them and say I am satisfied with the service!!!). Also, when I call them from Nairobi, they apparently don't like my sometimes bad phone connection, because they give up quick and tell me they have to go. Oh, well. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. (Did I mention that my Quickbooks program on the other laptop refused to register online, and they didn't give me a code to use when I called, so in a few days QB will quit on me. It's a little hard to get that code one needs to keep QB running.) I'm saying all this so that those to whom I have to report financial information will please forgive me for being late.

On the other hand, I can't get my Go Daddy email to come up when I am at Java House, but at home on my slow connection with the cell phone company it comes up and works. So "it works' it doesn't work"

Life is full of little twists that can raise stress levels and irritate us. I've been working on staying conscious of the Biblical command to "Rejoice in the Lord always." If we are willing to obey all that is written in Scripture, then this is our daily job - to rejoice! And of course we have much to rejoice about - forgiven sin, the Spirit within, fellowshipping with friends.

The Lord has set up life very well. Whether it works or doesn't, rejoice!

Proud of Mauryn

Sorry I haven't written for a long time; I'm sure you really miss it and will hang on every word. I do appreciate anyone who reads what I write. This is a picture of Tim and Susie Neel from Midland, Texas (the Golf Course Road Church) along with our own George Mwenda, formerly from the streets. He has been with us for 2 1/2 years now and is studying computers in the skills training program. He is wearing a shirt they brought with them. The Golf Course Road Church sponsors a major World Bible School program in Kenya that is managed by our own Mauryn Mbuvi.

Mauryn is married to Francis Mbuvi, who is the administrator at Made in the Streets. They have two children, Jonathan and Jeremy.

We met Mauryn soon after our arrival in Kenya in 1992. Berkeley Hackett introduced us to her and let us know that she had no way to pay for school fees. She was in the 9th grade at the time. We paid her school fees at the boarding school in Western Kenya, and she became a member of the teenage teaching team we developed to go out to village churches and teach children on weekends. In 1993 we made 25 trips to various places in the country, and our teenagers became excellent teachers. We met Francis on the streets in 1994, and he soon became one of the teachers as well.

After Mauryn completed high school, we asked her what she wanted to do. Since I was director of the computer college (KCITI), she chose to study computers at home in Eastleigh. She completed that program in two years, and we once again asked what she wanted. By that time she wanted to work in the hotel industry; we helped her enrol in Utalii College in Nairobi which teaches catering, cooking and hotel management. After completing that, she got an internship in a hotel near Mombasa on the Kenyan coast. But after about two months there was severe ethnic fighting in the Mombasa area, many people were killed, and the tourists stopped coming. Many hotels closed for the season, and Mauryn was forced to return to Nairobi.

By that time I was involved with the World Bible School program, led by John DeFore, a member at Golf Course Road. GCR was also our sponsor for the three years 1998 to 2000. So I asked Mauryn to be my secretary and handle the WBS records and letters. She took over my office in our building behind KCITI. The street ministry was growing fast; Darlene and I were working with 9 young men and 2 young women. All the young men treated Mauryn like a sister, until one day in a Team meeting Darlene said to them, "Have any of you noticed Mauryn?" They all laughed, but a few days later we noticed some of them begin to stop in at the office, talking to Mauryn. In 1998, Darlene and I moved to an apartment down the street from KCITI, and we rented an extra apartment for the WBS office and for visitors to stay in. Again, we noticed that now and then young men would stop by and visit with Mauryn a few minutes. But it was Francis who made her laugh, and who brought flowers. We moved into our own building nearby in August, 1999.

It was not long until Mauryn was handling the relationship with Golf Course Road and developing the WBS ministry further and further. To shorten the story, she now manages more than 20 men who gather names for WBS and who work in churches around the country. And even greater, some of those men had great compassion for homeless children in the countryside, many of whose parents died from HIV infection. Golf Course Road has responded with compassion and support, and Mauryn and her team now operate several orphanages in various parts of the country. It is a great ministry that has marvelous potential. As I write this, Mauryn is on a trip to visit orphanages in Western Kenya with Tim and Susie. Last night, we had Francis over for dinner.

This family lives in our hearts.

Visiting Granny

Generation to generation our values are shaped. And the great-grandparents and the great-grandchildren must actually see one another for those values to be indelibly stamped on our hearts and minds and spirits. So we take the granddaughters over to see "Granny" as much as possible.

Dorothy Wright had mutual love and respect and fun with her husband. After she was alone, she traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, each year for 6 months to teach English reading and conversation to preachers, young people and street kids. She had such fun doing this valuable ministry. And one of the neatest things is that Darlene and her Mom did ministry together, sharing the joys and pains of the lives and needs of street kids.

Now she sits quiet, no wrinkles on her face, sleeping most of the time, not speaking and seldom opening her eyes, and she will be 90 years old soon. But she still makes noises in her throat when a great-granddaughter says "I love you, Granny."

She also has a malignancy growing on her face. So Darlene sat with her for the whole process of surgery for it. Not to remove it completely, but to limit its growth and remove the sight of it. She slept through the surgery and it is healing great.

Generation to generation we love one another, and we keep the values alive - love and fun in life and service in Christ's name and devotion to one another. Blessed be the Lord who gives us this life, and even better is coming.