(Editorial comment: You are welcome to post comments to these entries, and I'll print them and pass them to the team.)
There were 227 kids today at VBS. That's a new record! It is awesome to greet the children in the morning. They walk for miles in the rain to come sing, pray, play, make crafts, make & eat snacks and most of all, learn about the love that Jesus has for them.
Here are a few notes from team members:
Ayeola
Hey Monifa, How are you? What’s going on at home? I’ll try and call tomorrow maybe, because we’ll be in a town called Eldoret. Did Mom and Dad get my e-mail? Talk to you later.
George
Our VBS material has had us teach about King David and Esther. How appropriate as we teach 90 orphans and a host of very poor children that our lessons have been about a humble shepherd who became king and an orphan who became queen. These children who love the Lord may someday be leaders in Kenya. We are casting the vision and praying that God would raise up a generation of godly leaders.
Nate and Sara
We have spent some great quality time with our boy, Hillary, and his house brothers. Today they showed us their garden (and even gave us carrots!), the cows, the showers, and the new washing machine. Each night, we read them bedtime stories. We are having so much fun!
Karin
Thank you for your prayers for all of us. God is definitely in this place and has blessed us through these beautiful people. Time is going quickly and we only have 2 more days of Vacation Bible School. We had 277 today! Oh how these children reflect the love of Jesus. I wish you could see them!.
We are all in good spirits, in spite of the cold weather. Tomorrow, we get to sleep in before church, and then we’ll spend the afternoon in town.
Thank you again for your prayers.
-- The CA Kenya 2006 Team
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1 comment:
Karin!
It is great to hear that God is revealing himself all around you! I am praying for you. I'm attaching a quote that I read recently, that clarified some things about "ministry"/ working with the poor for me. Wanted to pass it along. Hope you find it enriching. May you continue to encounter and recognize the heart and face of God in our Kenyan brothers and sisters, in smiles and sunsets. Mungu Akubariki Sana Rafiki Yangu.
SarahD
“Radical servanthood does not make sense unless we introduce a new level of understanding and see it as the way to encounter God himself. To be humble and persecuted cannot be desired unless we can find God in humility and persecution. When we begin to see God himself, the source of all our comfort and consolation, in the center of servanthood, compassion becomes much more than doing good for unfortunate people. Radical servanthood, as the encounter with the compassionate God, takes us beyond the distinctions between wealth and poverty, success and failure, fortune and bad luck. Radical servanthood is not an enterprise in which we try to surround ourselves with as much misery as possible, but a joyful way of life in which our eyes are opened to the vision of the true God who chose the way of servanthood to make himself known. The poor are called blessed not because poverty is good, but because theirs is the kingdom of heaven; the mourners are called blessed not because mourning is good, but because they shall be comforted.
Here we are touching the profound spiritual truth that service is an expression of the search for God and not just of the desire to bring about individual or social change. This is open to all sorts of misunderstanding, but its truth is confirmed in the lives of those for whom service is a constant and uninterrupted concern. As long as the help we offer to others is motivated primarily by the changes we may accomplish, our service cannot last long. When results do not appear, when success is absent, when we are no longer liked or praised for what we do, we lose the strength and motivation to continue. We see nothing but sad, poor, sick, or miserable people who, even after our many attempts to offer help, remain sad, poor, sick, and miserable, then the only reasonable response is to move away in order to prevent ourselves from becoming cynical or depressed. Radical servanthood challenges us, while attempting persistently to overcome poverty, hunger, illness, and any other form of human misery, to reveal the gentle presence of our compassionate God in the midst of our broken world.” -Henri Nouwen, Compassion
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