God's People

Jan and I in her garden

My first full day in Nairobi was wonderful. To start, I woke up to a sunny 75 degree day! (sorry to all you folk back in the Midwest....). Then, I accompanied Jan to Mamlaka Hill Chapel. This is the church that she and Tim help pastor; it is a smaller sister church to Nairobi Chapel. During this visit I sat in on the first leaders meeting of 2014. There were probably about 30 church leaders present, men and women, and a majority of them in their twenties and thirties. Some are working as pastors within the church (youth, family, women, etc), one woman was working with Kenyan women who suffer from prostitution, one woman is studying community health development and is being sent as a missionary from Mamlaka to a very remote people group in Eastern Kenya. God revealed so much to me in this one afternoon!

Our meeting was opened with a time of worship- if any of you have worshiped with Kenyans (or any other African for that matter) you will understand what I'm saying when I say it rocks your world! The energy is high, the rhythm is strong, and the harmony of the voices is beautiful. After worship the head pastor opened up the devotional time with Deuteronomy chapter 8. This chapter is speaking to the Israelites about remembering God's provision to them in the past and obeying his commands. Interestingly enough, this chapter piggybacks quite well to my reading from yesterday and my comments in my first blog entry about the dangers of abundance and not needing God. What I was surprised by was that these Kenyans that I was witting with were struggling with the exact same thing! The pastor asked us to think about "who is sustaining us?". He warned us of the dangers of abundance: Pride-fulness, and losing focus of The Lord as our provider, sustainer, and strength.  How could these people who have so much less than I do still struggle with having too much? It reminded me of how similar we all are!! God's people are all sinners and no matter our circumstances, where we live, or how we were brought up, we all struggle with the same things. Somehow I find that so encouraging!

After our devotion I had the opportunity to meet with a young woman named Sylvia. Sylvia is currently training to be a missionary to Kamurio, a rural and un-reached village in East Pokot (an eastern district of Kenya). I listened to Sylvia tell me her story about becoming interested in health and disease prevention, and how as this interest blossomed God also gave her a passion for teaching the gospel. She was then given a love for this people group where there is almost no development, no access to clean drinking water, and almost no health literacy. She described to me how health is one point in the middle of a circle, but that it is connected to so many other facets: literacy, cultural beliefs, spiritual beliefs, physical needs, emotional needs, and so much more. She talked about epidemiology, immunizations, and so much more. I found myself nodding the entire time and thinking to myself, "Wow! This girl is so smart! She really gets it!". Then she went on to describe how she wanted to teach the gospel while developing community programs. I was so humbled by this encounter! This young woman has no much courage, so much passion, and so much knowledge! She is certainly seeking after God's will in her life and obeying His command to "Go and tell the nations!".

So my take-home from today was a reminder of the similarity of God's people everywhere, no matter the culture differences, and the humility we can experience by learning from these people. I ended the day with a little shopping trip with Jan to Beacon of Hope's shop at the mall and a nice home-cooked meal by Jan (complimented by some Wisconsin cheese curds and dark chocolate peanut M&Ms that I brought from home as a gift!).