Wednesday, October 22, 2008

READ CRAIG HANSON'S TRIP JOURNAL

Here is the link for Craig Hanson's Kenya Mission Trip Journal. It is great reading with lots of great insights and pictures (there are 3 pages)

http://kenyatrip.tumblr.com/page/3

Ned

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

POVERTY NOW HAS A NAME (Day 9)

As I fly home from Kenya, passing over Paris and watching “Almost Famous” on my little 4 x 5 in-flight movie screen, an incredible wave of emotion floods through me…a wave that leaves me knowing the last 8 days has changed my life forever.



Poverty is no longer a set of statistics, no longer a face without a name, no longer something I have seen but not really understood. The last days have changed my understanding of Poverty.

Poverty now has a home. Poverty now has a family. This week, I met Poverty in person.


Poverty is the first wife of three and the co-wife of 21 co-children. Poverty has a broad smile and hardened hands…and her name is Karin.

Poverty is his fields by daybreak. Poverty works all day. Poverty is not lazy. Poverty does not get to rest…and his name is John.

Poverty leads worship at her church. Poverty has a beautiful African voice and her tongue praises the same God as mine...and her name is Eunice.

Poverty pastors a church. Poverty knows the love of Jesus, but Poverty needs to see the love of Jesus demonstrated by His people. …and his name is Peter.

Poverty carries water 4 kilometers and grows pineapple in fields of rock. Poverty helps others in her community…and her name is Helen.

Kager did not choose Poverty…Poverty chose Kager.

I have met Poverty. I have worshiped with Poverty. I have prayed for Poverty. I have hugged Poverty. Poverty has looked across the dirt floor of her house, looked deep into my eyes, and asked “How can you help me?”

As our wheels touch down at Heathrow, I know something profound has occurred in my life. While this leg of my journey is over, I know another journey is just beginning.

A journey that will take me many times to Kager. A journey that will take a lifetime. A journey that will require greater sacrifice.

My life has been changed forever.

Poverty now has a name…and her name is Kager.

Ned

CONFRONTATION AT JOMO KENYATTA (Day 8)

After the boys dropped me off at Jomo Kenyatta (Nairobi airport), I had a couple of hours to kill until my flight left for Heathrow. I cruised every single African sculpture shop (there must be 20) and saw a lot of carved elephants and Masii warriors, but nothing that caught my eye. My travel tradition is to buy a snowglobe for Rebekah (yes, they have snowglobes in Kenya) and a sloppy t-shirt for Alexa (Java Nairobi Coffee / Red / Small). I sat in the Java Coffee House and watched a meaningless football (soccer) match on TV and drank my last two Crests (bitter lemon drink made by Coca Cola of Kenya).

I decided to wander down toward my gate and was making my way down the crowded concourse when I heard an English-accented voice say behind me, “Jesus is King?” I turned around and expected to find a smiling face, but instead found a man with his wife and baby – and he wasn’t smiling. He approached me and fired away at me, “Your t-shirt says ‘Jesus is King’ as if it is some sort of fact, but it's no fact at all.” He continued railing on me, pressing me to provide him the facts of my t-shirt’s claim.

Needless to say, I was a little taken aback by his attack. But I felt God whispering to me and reminding me what I had taught on earlier in the week at Kager, “Show this man My love.” I told him Jesus was my King, and that I accepted this claim as a matter of faith, not because it was a proven fact. Unconvinced and still armed, he continued his assault and asked me if I was going to try to convert him. All I could do was smile and tell him “Man, God is the only one changes a man’s heart.”

And with that he smiled and put out his hand and said, “It’s good to meet you brother, my name’s Errol Jacobs and I’m a pastor from England.” And I smiled, too (and let out a small sigh of relief). We went on to have a great discussion about missions (they had served as missionaries in upstate New York) and they invited me to come speak at their church if I ever made it to Essex, England.

As we parted ways, the words of Romans 1:16 came to my mind, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone that believes.” It was a good reminder of how God arranges divine appointments, even in faraway airports. I really appreciated the way Errol had put my faith to the test -- and I was glad I had passed the test.

Ned

Monday, October 20, 2008

JOINING THE RIVER (Day 8)

The last two days have served as real confirmation that God has called us to the Kager village for a reason and a purpose – that this week we joined a River called Kager. A River that’s been flowing for hundreds of years -- long before we arrived. A River that God is guiding – and He’s guided us to join it. A River of faith, hope and love – and the greatest of these is love.



Tuesday afternoon we had the opportunity to meet with the headmaster of the Daypsring Academy (the local private primary school) and all of the teachers of the God Kado Primary School (the local public school for grades 1 to 8). Our discussions were wide ranging, engaging and thought provoking – they made me realize that regardless of location, good education is always undermined by the presence of hunger, broken families, undisciplined children and hopelessness. It is very evident in talking to the children, parents and community in Kager, that a very high value is placed on education in Kenya. In Kager, they face even greater challenges: poor facilities (no electricity, leaking roofs), inadequate staff (if they are paid at all, teachers make just over US$ 200 / month), increasing orphan rates (due to parents dying from HIV/AIDS) and lack of basic resources (chalk, textbooks).



Before the Tuesday night church service, John, Craig and I had the opportunity to meet and dialogue with the local church leaders of the Kager Vision Centre. We shared with them what we had learned the last 3 days as we lived with and talked to the people in Kager. We shared with them our vision for the Jubilee Village Project and the essential nature of their leadership and involvement in leading the church-centered transformation of their community. We agreed the community’s greatest needs / opportunities centered on bringing electricity to the village, improving water supply and irrigation, increasing farming output and securing food supply, educating the children and building new micro-enterprises. It was a very humbling moment as they invited us to become part of their community and called us their friends and partners. Bishop Christopher closed our evening together, reminding us we have to trust God to provide and guide our next steps.

That evening we joined about 100 people from the village in a night of celebration of praise. John and Craig were able to share words of encouragement with the people (with John reminding them that one of the fruits of the Spirit is “patience”) and I taught from Romans 12 and was able to invite people to receive Christ. It was so cool for us to be able to look out and see the smiling faces of people in whose homes we had visited and in whose fields we had walked and talked. Three days ago they were strangers – now they were friends.

As we said our good-byes to the Kayando family and other villagers who had stopped by to give us their good wishes, it was a nice feeling to know this is not the last time we will be in Kager. Unlike many mission trips where no one ever seems to return, I am convinced we are just getting started. We are leaving Kager much richer men – richer in knowledge, but more importantly, richer in friendship. We came to Kager and to Kenya with the goals of learning and building lasting relationships – and with God’s grace and provision, we have succeeded in doing this.

John 15:16 says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.” Our parting prayer is that the seeds of fellowship and love we planted this week in Kager will grow and bear much fruit in the years to come.

Glory be to God.

Ned

Sunday, October 19, 2008

DAILY VILLAGE LIFE (Day 7)

We are staying at the house of Christopher and Gladys Kayando, and it is probably one of the nicest equipped houses in the community:

• 3 bedrooms with a family room, dining area and kitchen (probably under 1,000 sq ft in total)
• Diesel generator that they use sparingly to light the house (my guess is they have used it more since we have been here)
• Three types of stoves: a gas powered stove that sits on top of a propane gas cylinder, a charcoal “jiko” stove, a traditional outdoor 3-rock stove
• Large 5,000 liter tanks to catch rain water, reducing the daily grind of going to the water bore hole
• Two hole latrine with bathing stall (we had our own “guest” hole)




We definitely lived the “easy life” while we were in Kager, as Carolyne (David’s wife) and Gladys (Christopher’s wife) cooked all of our meals, made sure we had warm water to wash ourselves each morning and took great care of us.

Living in the rural African village is hard – without the modern conveniences of running water, electricity and refrigeration, much of the day is spent each day doing the very same routine:

• Getting water from a borehole well, a pond or from any rainwater captured the night before (some have to walk up to 3 kilometers many times a day as there are only two wells in the community)
• Gathering firewood or buying charcoal at the local market (or from a neighborhood that makes and sells charcoal for income)
• Boiling water (although a large percentage of the people do not practice this as it is so fuel and time intensive)
• Getting corn ground at a local posho mill to make the day’s “ugali” (a cornmeal mush eaten at every meal)
• Walking to the market (the nearest one is about 4 kilometers) to buy fresh vegetables, meat and other goods (very little food is stored due to lack of refrigeration and lots of rodents and bugs)
• Ironing the day’s clothes with a coal-powered iron (the Kenyan people take great pride in their appearance)
• Milking the goats or a cow (most own goats, few own cows) for the day's milk
• Taking livestock to get water and graze (often at the same pond where they got the day’s water)
• Tending and watering crops, which is usually done early in the morning or in late afternoon



By the end of just four short days in the village, I had gained an unbelievable appreciation for a few of my favorite modern conveniences:

• Instantaneous hot water
• Ice cubes and a cold drink
• A toilet to sit on
• Internet connection (I didn’t miss TV at all)
• Smooth asphalt roads
• A big thick quilted mattress

Having said all of this, though, it is clear that we were sheltered from the life that many people live every day in Kager: hungry, sick from malaria and typhoid, orphaned and widowed from the HIV/AIDS scourge. As we made our home visits, we encountered these situations and they were heartbreaking – but they confirmed why God has called us to the village of Kager.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

A BIG DAM WASTE (Day 7)

Standing atop the high rock ridge that bisects the Kager community, I can look to the north and see the largest body of water in the area (about the size of a really large retention pond in a large US subdivision). It appears to be a man-made dam that has formed a pond, about 2-3 kilometers from Kager. No one in Kager knows much about it, so we decided we would take the pickup and check it out.



We drove to the next village, Ngulu, which is just up the road from Kager. After asking a couple of locals, we finally found someone to direct us down a dirt path where we were told we would find the dam at the end of the path. We could tell from the deep tracks in the path that some large equipment had been down the same path some months earlier. Finally, about a half mile later, we broke into a cleared area with the pond before us.

It was obviously man-made, a large earthen dam at one end and small berms on two opposite sides. It lay in the middle of a very small valley and a very small creek flowed into it from the east. Some cattle were drinking from the east shore and several women were doing their laundry nearby, a small boy was filling his jerry can from the pond.

As we walked around the pond, a man and his friends came to meet us. He introduced himself as Ernest Tiko Olik, a local farmer with two wives and four children. He shared he was one of two men recently trained from the local Homa Bay district at the Polytechnical Agricultural School at Mombasa. He shared with us the dam was called the Otit Dam (otit is a type of firefly) and it had been built less than 5 months ago as a joint project between the Kenyan government and an anti-poverty NGO (whose name escapes me).

We shared with him our surprise to see no fields being irrigated from the pond, that the dam’s earth walls were beginning to erode because nothing had been planted on them, and that livestock had open access to the pond and it was already showing the ill-effects of contamination. Ernest explained to us there had been little invitation for the local community to be involved with the project, and the one farm that was to serve as a model farm had given up on demonstrating the use of irrigation from the pond. He shared that most people in the community don’t understand how the pond is expected to be used and managed. There had been no training of the community as to how it could benefit them.

Ernest thought intentions behind the pond were good, but it had failed to bring about the intended benefits due to almost no communication, low community involvement and poor execution. It was clear that unless something changes in the near future, the pond would soon be fully contaminated by livestock and would eventually just erode away, too.

Unfortunately, Kenya is littered with projects of this type – ones that are started but not finished, ones that are done to the community, not with the community. Lots of time and lots of money spent, but in the end, no real long-term transformation.

That night after dinner, we had the opportunity to discuss with the Kager church leaders the vision for the Jubilee Village Project – that it be church-centered, holistic and sustainable. That we had no interest in building another Otit Dam -- that without the church leading the Kager community in its own transformation, we would be destined to fail. It was a great night of sharing our hearts and seeing the Kager church leaders “get it” – that we are there to help and support them, not tell them what needs to be done.

Together, we were all reminded of what the Bible teaches of the Body having many gifts and its members having many roles – how awesome it is going to be to see how God uses all of us to accomplish His plans for the village of Kager

To God be the Glory.

Ned

Friday, October 17, 2008

THE XX FACTOR (Day 6)

During my home visits on Monday, I met one of the true strengths of the village – I will call it the XX Factor – the hard-working and enterprising women of the Kager community. Assisted by David K. during my home visits, I was able to make an appreciative inquiry of many women in the village by asking a few simple questions:

Can you tell me about your family?
What makes up your daily and weekly routine?
What gives you joy?
What are your biggest challenges?
How could the Jubilee Village Project best help you?

During my visits, I learned of the prevalence of polygamy in the region. This has resulted in very large families which give rise to economic and housing hardships. Below are some of what I learned from my home visits and profiles of a few of the wonderful people I was blessed to meet.


Kerina
“My name is Kerina and I have one daughter that lives alone with me. The joy of my life is seeing the fruits of my hard work and to be productive. As a farmer, I raise maize, ground nuts and beans. My typical day is working in my fields from 6 to 11, coming home for lunch and housework from 11 to 5, returning to my fields from 5 to 7 and then having dinner after that. Farming is the backbone of Kager, so any help in farming will lift up the entire village. I gather water 7 times a day and my work is very hard. My joints are sore very often and I sometimes have headaches from carrying loads on my head. We can be helped by having access to better seeds, fertilizers and equipment. Although I have access to an ox, I do not have a plough, so I have to do all my field work by hand.”


Rose
“My husband is a pastor and we have nine children. Because he is a pastor and has no income, we rely on two ways of making income: creating and selling charcoal from sticks and making and weaving sissel ropes. I am part of a woman’s merry-go-round where 15 of us put in 100 schillings each week and one of us gets to take home 1,500 each week – I have two positions on this merry-go-round and it helps me save money for clothes and other things for my family. I am a good business person and if I had access to more money, I could grow my income. Today, I buy oranges from other villagers and resell them in the city of Kisii (Rose walks to Kisii which is 28 kilometers away). While at Kisii, I buy sweet potatoes and cabbages and bring them back to sell them at a profit to other villagers. If I were able to get a loan for 5,000 schillings ($77), I would be able to buy more oranges and pineapples to sell them in Kisii and make my trips more profitable.”




Karin and Eunice
“Our names are Eunice and Karin and we are the first and second (of three) wives of our family. Together, we have 21 children and are primarily farmers while our husband works in the city. We raise pineapples, but we have a need to be educated to know how to grow them much better. We have a huge need for water as our nearest well is over 30 minutes away. We must make three trips a day and we do all we can do to capture rain water, but in the dry season we are desperate. We farm many pineapples, but we know with more water and farming equipment we could be growing much more. We are also not able to send all of our children to school because we can not afford the fees. We are interested to know how Jubilee can help the poorest people get their children to school.”


Jen (and Elida)
“I work with 2 other women and we grow and sell pineapple, watermelon and butternut (squash) in the city (Kisumu) where we get much better prices. We borrowed 10,000 schillings from the Kenya Women’s Trust Fund for the first time this last season. We had to provide 1,000 schillings down payment and pay back 12,000 at end of the season (the effective interest rate on the loan was close to 40%). After paying for the produce, paying the pickup transportation fees and paying the loan back, we were able to make about 2,000 schillings ($31) each. It would be great if we could get more training on how to grow crops and also be able to get bigger loans so we could buy and sell more and different goods.”