Gachie center opens!

Today I had the privilege of attending a special "launching" service at Deliverance Church of Gachie in honor of the CARE for AIDS center that will officially open its doors tomorrow! We are so excited for our 6th center to kick off, and we would all love your prayers as things get up and running.

Gachie is a community on the outskirts of Nairobi with high levels of poverty and HIV/AIDS infection. It is a unique community, because it is home for a diverse group of people, with several tribes represented in near-equal levels. This tribal mixing is a rarity after the post-election violence in early 2008, which saw many people in Kenya returning to their traditional tribal homelands. It is refreshing to see this kind of diversity in a church, though, and several different tribes are well-represented at Deliverance Church, which reflects the welcoming spirit that pervades the church body and will hopefully make for a congregation that radically embraces people living with HIV/AIDS.

In addition to announcing the opening of the center at Gachie, I wanted to introduce you all to our newest CARE for AIDS's center workers. After interviewing quite a few applicants a couple of weeks ago, we settled on John and Sarah as the center workers for Gachie. John is married with three daughters, and he quickly established in his first staff meeting with the whole team on Saturday that he can be quite the joker - his impressions of Kenyan politicians had the whole room doubled over with laughter! In his introduction to the team John told us, "I have had this desire in my heart - to bring people who are down and bring them hope," and we pray that John would be strengthened in his efforts to do exactly that on a daily basis with CFA.

Sarah is also married and has two daughters of her own. She has an absolutely infection smile which, in the words of Kevin, "stretches from Kampala to Mombasa" - the whole width of Kenya! Sarah is incredibly thankful for the chance to work with this ministry, and she truly has a heart that desires to teach and encourage people living with HIV/AIDS. She told us all on Saturday, "I am so happy to be here with all of you, and though I am just meeting you, I already love all of you." We praise God for bringing Sarah - along with her enthusiasm and joy - to the CFA team!

Please join me in praying for John and Sarah, as well as the rest of the church committee and leadership team of Deliverance Church (pictured below), as they start the CFA center in Gachie this week. Pray that they would get in touch with all of the most needy people in the community, and pray that God would give them courage, strength, compassion, wisdom, and joy in every minute of their work these first months when they seek out people who truly need help. Thank you for your prayers - I look forward to soon sharing with you about how God will move through the CARE for AIDS center in Gachie!

The Gift of Dignity

Value. Purpose. Meaning.

How do you re-instill these things into a life where they have been lost? How can you take a person with no self-worth and show them that they are special, they are loved, and they are important? These are some of the challenges that face the CARE for AIDS center workers on a daily basis as they meet with clients who have lost all semblence of value, purpose, and meaning in their life.

I'm learning that rebuilding these vital parts of life isn't something that happens overnight - it's a long process. As my good friend Banks Benitez has taught me, one of the greatest gifts we can give someone is the gift of dignity, and I'm seeing more and more that this is a vital step in turning around the life of a person suffering from poverty and HIV/AIDS. Dignity isn't a simple thing to give, but one way that Joseph and Margaret (the center workers at Banana Hill Baptish Church) have found to rebuild this vital trait in their clients is through giving them the opportunity to serve other people.

Many of the clients at the center receive their ARV's (medication for HIV/AIDS) at the Karuli Health Clinic, a government-funded clinic just off the main street of Banana Hill. Karuli doesn't receive an excess of funding by any means, so the clients decided that they would show their appreciation to the clinic by spending a day cleaning up the compound and helping in any way that they could. On Wednesday morning, I met a group of about 40 clients, along with Joseph, Margaret, and Thomas (the pastor of BHBC), at the Distric Chief's office in Banana Hill. We spoke with this regional government administrator, explaining what we were doing, and then all walked the short distance to the Karuli clinic. For the next few hours, the whole group trimmed hedges, cut grass, picked weeds, washed toilets, and mopped hallways, working together to put a fresh new face on the Karuli compound.

This event meant much more than a simple volunteer workday. It amazed me to see the joy and the sense of purpose in the eyes of all our clients as they took to their work with gusto. For people who have all, at one time or another, felt like they had nothing to offer - because they were too sick, too outcast, or too poor - it meant the world to be truly helping other people. Instead of being the lowest of the low, people who could only receive help, the clients proved that they had something valuable to offer to others. They showed that they were healthy enough to work in a productive manner, and they joined together to accomplish a goal, for which they were thanked profusely by the hospital staff and doctors. Imagine what this praise and thanks would mean if just months before you thought you had nothing to offer? It is one step on the road to dignity - one building block towards a life with self-worth.

In addition to the effects this day of service had on each and every client, it also served as a clear message to the community of Banana Hill. Many of the clients wore shirts that proclaimed, "Community Strengthening Against Stigma," and they viewed this day as a chance to stand together boldly as people living with HIV/AIDS, showing the community that they were capable of being a part of the society in a valuable, constructive way. Again this shows a remarkable change - just months ago the majority of these people kept their HIV status a secret, but now they are actively campaigning to reverse the stigma that keeps so many other HIV-positive people hiding instead of seeking help.

I am so proud of each of the clients who spent their day serving the Karuli health clinic and fighting stigma! Praise God for their courage, their confidence, and their mutual encouragement. Praise God for Joseph and Margaret, and their tireless work to see the lives of these people changed. Praise God for the value, purpose, and meaning that is slowly growing in the lives of these people.

Praise God for dignity.

Community-based Empowerment

One of the biggest questions that has been raised about the CARE for AIDS model concerns continuity in the success of clients after they finish their nine-month time with the center. Over the past year, our center workers have come up with several ways to address this concern and insure that clients don't simply fall off the map, into their old ways of life, after their time with CFA is finished.

A big step in accomplishing this goal was taken when Rosemary and Humphrey, the workers at the Imani center, started registering their clients as a "support group" with the Ministry of Gender and Social Services. This is a designation that they took with them after finishing with the center in December, and it means that they will continue meeting together once a month - the women in one group, and the men in another. Imani Baptist has agreed to let them continue using the church building to meet, and in this way Rosemary and Humphrey can keep a watchful eye on the group without taking too much time away from working with their new clients. This is key in helping all of the former clients to maintain the sense of community and fellowship that they developed during from the CFA center, and it provides a great chance for them to encourage and love one another on a consistent basis

Additionally, HIV/AIDS support groups are eligible to receive help from the government through occasional initiatives launched by government bodies. The support group of former Imani clients applied for a government-sponsored project that subsidizes the building of commercial fish ponds, and just this past week they were granted the project. One of the clients donated some land that her family owned, and they secured a gift of a thousand young fish to start breeding after the pond was completed. The group elected a secretary and a treasurer to keep things organized, and they started contributing small amounts of money toward the project costs.

Yesterday I visited the sight of the fish pond, and I was amazed by what I saw! About 20 clients were helping to dig the pond (about 50 by 100 feet, and 5 feet deep), and a few more clients, who were too old to dig, were preparing some vegetables for all of them to eat. They had used their combined financial contributions to pay for some additional laborers and the food, and they were keeping careful records of attendance and payment. I was so impressed with the joy and enthusiasm that all of the former clients displayed in undertaking their work - I talked to several of them who were so excited about the prospect of generating an income through this endeavor, and especially about the fact that they were working together with people that they knew and trusted. For people like Grace Ndutu, the group's treasurer, who had previously been stigmatized and afraid to go out among people to work, this is a huge encouragement! I also met with the government representative for the project, Vincent, who insured me that the group was doing a great job and they would soon receive plastic sheeting and water to fill the pond.

It's so exciting to see economic empowerment like this that really works! I am incredibly proud of the industriousness and persistence of these clients, and I am praying for success in this venture and in future ventures that are still on the drawing board.

"Though I have fallen, I will rise"

This morning I went with Rosemary, the physical counselor from the Imani CFA center, to visit one of our clients named Peter Kimani. We drove down some tiny dirt roads and pulled into the compound, made up of a few tin and wood buildings, where Peter lives with his parents, sisters, nieces, and nephews. After speaking with his parents for a few minutes, Rosemary and I sat down in the small room where Peter lives for about an hour, getting an intimate look into the struggles and joys that have made up his life thus far.

In 2002, Peter was a truck driver with a wife and two children. That year, though, he discovered he was HIV-positive, and over the next few years his health deteriorated rapidly. His wife and kids left him, and by 2005 he was completely bedridden, living in a small, dark wooden room at his parents’ house. For over three years, Peter did not move from his bed under his own power. At first, his parents and other family members were supportive, but over time they grew tired of taking care of him. He remembers that in his third year of being bedridden, the door to his dark room would remain closed for the entire day, except for the times when a family member would drop off a plate of food for him. Before he was totally stuck in bed, Peter raised chickens and found a lot of joy from taking care of them. Once he could no longer get out of bed to feed them, though, Peter killed and ate all of the chickens, a move of resignation which hurt him deeply.

In 2009, a newly-recruited client at the Imani CARE for AIDS center, Judy Waithera, told Rosemary and Humphrey about Peter and his condition. They visited him and decided to take him on as a client, even though he couldn’t move from his bed. At the beginning of her visits with Peter, Rosemary recalls the horrible state of his living conditions. Everything was extremely dirty, Peter’s bed was never cleaned of his own excrement, and his body was covered in sores from staying in bed all the time. His family was struggling with the drought, and he would oftentimes only eat once in a day, which made his ARV’s ineffective. At this point his whole body was in pain, to the point where he did not even want someone to shake his hand because it hurt so badly.

Over the past year in the center, though, Peter has improved on many fronts. The center workers counseled his parents extensively, instilling in them a new passion to help Peter. Physically, the nutrition from the weekly food supplement he receives, along with physical therapy from Rosemary and Humphrey and his parents’ efforts to take him outside daily, have left him in much better shape. He has almost no pain in his body now, and he is able to sit up and talk with people on his own, an activity that brings a certain dignity along with it. He has also received a wheelchair from another NGO, and he goes outside each day in the chair to get a change of scenery, which is great for his psychological health. The sanitation in his living area changed dramatically as Rosemary provided supplies and training on cleanliness, and he was provided with clean clothes through the center.

To help with this transformation, Rosemary worked extensively with Judy, training her to be Peter’s caretaker. Over the last year, Judy has visited Peter once a week, washing him, cleaning his bedding, and spending time with him. Peter is extremely thankful for this fellowship, in addition to the visits from the CFA staff, and he has received a new sense of hope from this sense of community. This hope is a significant part of major spiritual growth that has occured in Peter over the last year – he is so thankful for the visitors and fellowship, and he says that the CFA staff are the first people to love him and share Christ with him since he got sick. They show him God has not forsaken him, and they inspire him to a sense of optimism about the future.

Peter is faithfully believing and hoping that he will be able to walk again this year, and he also wants to start keeping chickens again as soon as possible, now that he can move outside in his wheelchair. His face lights up in a huge smile while he tells me about his goals for the next year, and I truly believe that he will do everything in his power to reach them!

Please join me in praying for Peter - that his health would continue to improve, that he would find the means to start a project like poultry keeping, that his family would have patience and love in helping him, that his faith would grow even stronger, and that he would find joy and peace each day.

Before we prayed with Peter and left the house, he insisted that we read a few Bible verses with him. The first verse he requested, and the one that speaks so powerfully from someone in his situation, is Micah 7:7-8. It reads:

But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord,
I wait for God my Savior;
My God will hear me.

Do not gloat over me, my enemy!
Though I have fallen, I will rise.
Though I sit in darkness,
The Lord will be my light.

Mt. Kenya

Climbing Mt. Kenya last week was, without a doubt, one of the most incredible experiences of my life. It's hard to even know where to begin in describing it, but I'll try to give a short play-by-play to start...

On Wednesday morning, Joe, Phil, Adrian, and I drove into Nairobi to meet up with Clayton. We loaded up all of our bags into his sweet Land Rover Defender, jumped in the back, and drove about 3 hours to the start of the Sirimon route in Mt. Kenya National Park. Five porters were waiting on us at the gate - I've never hiked with porters before, but it was AWESOME! We only had to carry a day pack and water during our hikes, and the porters carried all of our extra clothes, food, and supplies in front of us. In this way, we set off for about a four-hour hike through an incredible forest and out above the treeline to our first night at the Old Moses hut. We spent each of the next four nights in various "huts," which are wooden buildings with bunkrooms inside, along with a separate building for the porters to cook and sleep in. The huts were pretty comfortable, and it was so nice to have a place to hang out after each long day of hiking.

The value of the huts and the porters increased exponentially because of the weather during our trip. February is "supposed" to be a dry month in Kenya, and Clayton told us before the trip that there was very little chance of rain...he was wrong. It ended up raining for at least a couple hours of our hikes each day, which meant that most of the trip we were all in some stage of wetness. We were SO thankful that each day's hike ended at a hut, and not at a tent, as it provided a much-needed place to get dry and warm.

Getting back to the play-by-play: After reaching Old Moses on Wednesday, we relaxed around the camp, ate dinner, and then enjoyed the beautiful views out over the plains surrounding the mountain before hitting the beds. We woke up early the next morning to an unbelievable sunrise, and then set off for a full day of hiking. Most of the morning was spent walking up the mountain in glorious sunshine, stopping at streams and cliffs to rest, explore, and take pictures. After a great lunch on a huge stone outcropping, though, the clouds rolled in with a vengeance and we started hearing thunder all around. The next few hours held an intense hike in the cold rain, and we were all absolutely overjoyed when we made it to Shipton's hut in the middle of the afternoon and crawled into our sleeping bags to warm up! Just a few minutes later, though, the rain stopped and we were treated to some of the most unbelievable scenery of anywhere I have ever slept - the sun came out over the green valley that we had just hiked up on one side, and over the intimidating peaks of Mt. Kenya on the other side. This was the first good look we had of the peaks, and we all stood in awe of the snow-covered, jagged rocks that rose up in front of us into the blue sky. After soaking up the sun as long as we could, doing our best to dry out our boots and clothes, and eating a great dinner of beef pasta, we hit the bed at about 7:30pm to get some rest before our summit attempt the following day.

Our alarms went off at 2:15am on Friday, and we rolled out of bed to a freezing, but clear night sky. We all bundled up in our somewhat-dry boots and our warmest clothes, grabbed our headlamps, and started up the mountain. As soon as we walked outside, we all stopped to pray together and take in the awe-inspiring scene - the silhouette of the mountain in front of a sky bursting with stars, with the Southern Cross hovering just over the peak, made all of us feel small and humbled. It was too cold to stay still for long, though, and we started off on the three and a half hour climb to Point Lenana, at 16,355 ft. First we walked through rocks and mud, and then an hour or so into the climb we started finding patches of snow. Before too long we were kick-stepping our way through six or eight inches of snow, and the snow began falling harder and harder. It was intense - we couldn't see very far in the darkness, but our headlamps illuminated the giant drop-offs just feet away from the slippery path and we all took each step with caution. Eventually we started to see the sky grow lighter to the East, and we made the final climb up onto the summit just before the sun rose. Amazingly, the snow stopped and the sky cleared just enough for the sun to pop out on the horizon, and we were treated to an unbelievable view as the scene before us was revealed.

The vista from the top of Mt. Kenya was truly one of the most unbelievable scenes I have ever laid eyes on. The snowy slopes stretched out before us, with the other peaks of the mountain climbing dramatically into the fog. Further out, we could see valleys and lakes on all sides - absolutely breathtaking! We all took pictures and celebrated together before starting our descent, pausing to thank God for an unbelievable morning. As we made our way back down the mountain, we were blessed with blue skies and warm sun, which prompted us to deviate from the path a bit to a beautiful, oval-shaped, glacial pool that goes by the name of Simba Tarn. Without thinking too long about it, we all stripped down and dove into the icy water, quickly screaming and climbing out on the snow-covered boulders, laughing histerically as a big group of Russian climbers looked on in utter confusion! It was probably the coldest thing I have ever experienced - but also one of the most amazing feelings...talk about really feeling alive!

We took our time over the next couple of days to climb back down the mountain, enjoying both sunny skies and pouring rain. Thankfully, through all of the difficult conditions and challenging hikes, everyone on the trip had an unbelievable attitude and found ways to make it all fun. At one point we were running through water that was about 6 inches deep in the driving rain, splashing around and singing "American Pie" as loud as we could - that was the kind of situation that could be utterly miserable, but I enjoyed every second of it! Another time we all worked together to lure in a Rock Hyrax (kind of an overgrown guinea pig) close enough to touch it...hilarious! It was such a blessing to share the whole experience with this group of guys - I feel like we all really got to know each other on a deeper level, and none of us were sick of each other by the end. It was also a blessing to have a few days away from all of our work, which can get draining after a while, and we all came back refreshed and rejuvenated.

There are so many stories that came from this trip - I can't even begin to recount them all now! Praise God for encouraging friendships, for his beautiful creation, for the gift of adventure, and for safety and health. Thank you all for your prayers during the past week - I really appreciate them and I wish I could share everything that they accomplished in all of the detail that it deserves!

ps - there will be many more pictures up on facebook soon if you want to check them out!

Preparing for Adventure

Tomorrow morning, I am leaving with 4 other guys to climb Mt. Kenya, and I would love all of your prayers for the next few days! We will be starting up the mountain on Wednesday morning, summiting on Friday, and finishing our hike on Sunday. Mt. Kenya is the second-highest mountain in Africa (behind Kilimanjaro) and is the only place in Kenya with glaciers - sounds awesome to me!

I'm so excited about this trip - not only is it an awesome adventure, but I think it's going to be a great time to spend with some unbelievable guys. The group is made up of Joe (a Furman alumni from Ohio), Adrian (a Zimbabwean who works for a Christian tourism company in Limuru), Phil (a professional hunter from Zimbabwe), Clayton (an American who has grown up in Kenya and will be our guide), and me. I have loved getting to know all of these guys over the past few months, and I know God is going to bless us with great fellowship and some sweet stories!

Please pray for safety, relaxation, great weather, unexpected excitement, and growth in friendships this week - thank you so much! Can't wait to share what happens...

A Special Sunday

Sunday was a beautiful day. Not just beautiful because the sky was a brilliant blue, the temperature was a perfect 70-something, and the birds were chirping all around me, but beautiful because of the way God found me on a porch in Kenya.

For church on Sunday, a group of about 10 friends (from 5 countries no less) decided to worship together on our own at the Global Connections house, and after making some tea and slowly waking up, we all met out on the porch. It was about 10am and absolutely gorgeous, so we spent most of the next hour lounging around listening to worship music off of a computer and singing together. There weren't any words on a screen or fancy bands, but none of us were tired of the music when we finally ran out of songs to request. After a few minutes of praying together, I shared some of what God has been teaching me lately about hope and about seeing the big picture (see one of last week's posts if you missed it). That led into an amazing discussion where everyone present talked about their thoughts on the subjects of hope and perspective, shared the parts of it where they struggled, and asked for help and accountability with various things. We put on a couple more songs and prayed on our own for a few minutes, then finished with a rousing rendition of David Crowder's "O Praise Him" to close off the "service."

It didn't really end there, though, as all ten of us made our way into the kitchen and whipped up an amazing brunch with everything we could find. Scrambled eggs, pancakes, reheated sausages, and fried potato cakes (from our leftover hoe-down mashed potatoes) made for an awesome meal, and we all laughed, talked, and ate continuously for another hour or so. Kenyans call this part of community "swallowship," the very necessary companion to fellowship!

All in all it was an unbelievable morning, and later in the day we got into a great discussion about what "church" should really look like. Most of us attend a church in Nairobi somewhat regularly, but we all agreed that this morning of worship, fellowship, prayer, digging into the word, and sharing our thoughts was the most spiritually challenging and encouraging Sunday morning that we'd had in recent memory. We started looking into the book of Acts and some of Paul's letters to the early Christian church, trying to figure out if this kind of "house meeting" was what the early church really looked like. I love my church back in America, and we all agreed that there are some advantageous things to big corporate worship - learning from people at different stages in life, combining resources to help people in need, widening the network of believers that we can encourage and welcome new people into - but we also all agreed that we were more built up and strengthened through this type of meeting in our current life situations. Getting to worship together and talk face to face with the people that we see every day is so valuable because it promotes accountability and follow-up in a special way, and having the opportunity to discuss each point of the "message" together was really cool, but I don't think any of us were convinced that a meeting like this should replace the role of "church" as we've always seen it in our lives.

I think we're all still pondering that question. What should church look like to a bunch of Christian missionaries and aid workers from all over the world who have found themselves dropped into the same place? Should we spend our Sunday mornings together on a porch with tea, a laptop, and our Bibles, or should we get up and make our way into town with a couple hundred Kenyans and a few other wazungu? Should it be both? I know some of you reading this are a lot wiser than me, so I'd love your thoughts if you have a second. Regardless of what we end up doing in the future, though, I am so thankful for how blessed I was yesterday. I'm thankful for friends that truly care about spending time together with God, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to worship in community, whatever it looks like!

High School Visitors

As a follow-up to my last post, I'd first like to report that I survived my visit from the high school crowd and got to see God do some really cool things with them in the short time that we had together. On Thursday, I drove into town with Duncan and picked up the leader of the group, Mike Titus, who also happens to be one of the CFA board members. We made our way to the airport, where we hung out for a while and picked up the team of 11 juniors and seniors - and ALL of their bags. Turns out they had brought a bunch of missions supplies, so we had our car and two vans packed FULL of stuff for the trip back to Limuru! We made it back to the house at about 11:30pm, ate a great dinner that Jane and Kevin prepared for us, and then waited for the group to get tired...which took until 2am. I was amazed at how much energy they all had, especially after being on planes for the previous two days!

We eventually managed to get some sleep, and after breakfast on Friday we split the team into two groups and took each one to a center - one to Banana Hill Baptist Church and the other to Kamirithu Assemblies of God. I went with the KAG group, and I was thrilled with how excited all of the kids were to see the center. They all took turns sitting in with our spiritual counselor, Paul, and our physical counselor, Eunice, and they did an awesome job of talking to the clients, asking them questions, and praying for them. While they weren't in the sessions with the clients, they got the added bonus of playing with a group of kids that were at the church for a kindergarten program - so much fun!

After about an hour of observing the center, I went with three of the team members and Paul to see how home visits work. We walked around the densely-populated, hilly Kamirithu area for about an hour and a half, stopping in two of the clients' homes to talk and pray with them, hear their stories, and try to encourage them. It was so amazing, as it always is, to see the joy that this brought both to our clients and to these high school girls. One of the clients, Margaret, kept talking about how happy she was to have visitors all the way from America and practically begged us to let her make tea for us while we visited!

Later in the afternoon we took the team into the city so that they could prepare for the next steps in their 2-week trip, so it was a short visit, but I am so thankful for what I got to be a part of during that time. I was so impressed by the genuine love that these kids demonstrated toward our clients, and I believe that they all got a new understanding of the HIV/AIDS crisis and how we are called as Christians to respond to it. Furthermore, this was the first American group to visit our newest center at KAG, so it was a bit of a test for Paul and Eunice. They passed with flying colors, though, and I'm incredibly thankful for the amazing job that they did of welcoming the visitors, engaging them in their work, and explaining to them all that they do. We really are blessed with exceptional people on our staff, and all the praise for that goes to God!

Please continue to pray for this group from Landmark Christian School as they spend the next week or so in Kenya, traveling around to schools and churches, performing dramas and musical evangelism. Pray that God would move through them and give them an experience that impacts both the team and all of the people they meet in a profound, lasting way!

Quick Prayer Request

Tonight is going to be a crazy night. I just know it.

Later in the afternoon, Duncan and I, along with two vans, are going to the airport to pick up a team of 12 high school kids (8 girls and 4 boys) and two leaders. They are coming in from Landmark Christian School in Atlanta and spending a couple of weeks traveling around Kenya performing evangelical dramas and conducting outreach programs, but their first day and night will be spent in Limuru checking out CARE for AIDS. The leader of the team, Mike Titus, is one of the CFA board members, and all of the students will hopefully get a better idea of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa through sitting in on our centers and tagging along on some home visits tomorrow.

Tonight, though, all 14 people from the team are having dinner at the house and staying here, which is where the impending craziness comes in! I think this will be the most people we have ever hosted at the CFA house, and I have no idea what to expect from a whole group of 15-18 year olds, but I think it will be exciting. That being said, I would love your prayers that everything goes smoothly - from flights to meals to showers, and everything else that's a little more complicated in this part of the world. Please also pray that all of these kids would have a great experience tomorrow and that God would touch their hearts in some way. Finally, pray that they will be an encouragement to our clients and that God would use their smiles, prayers, handshakes, and words of encouragement in a mighty way in the lives of these people who really need some love!

"Community Strengthening Against Stigma"

This past Sunday held a momentous occasion for the CARE for AIDS center at Banana Hill Baptist Church, of which I was blessed to be an observer. Over the last seven months, all of the clients at the CFA center have been learning about HIV/AIDS and growing into a place of better physical health, fuller spiritual understanding, and greater ability to provide for themselves and their families. One part of this process is fighting the damaging effects of stigma, or discrimination and false assumptions towards people living with HIV/AIDS.

Stigma is a huge problem in Kenya, and many people simply don't understand the reality of the disease or what it means for a person to be HIV-positive. Ironically, people will greet and hug a person with Tuberculosis (a very infectious airborne disease) but will refuse to go near a person with HIV, which cannot be transmitted by touch or close proximity. The government of Kenya has supported a campaign over the last decade based on the slogan "AIDS kills," which has helped to create a mindset in which it is assumed that someone with AIDS has only a short time to live. Because of this ignorance, and many other factors, most of our clients lost their jobs, were abandoned by their families, and were forsaken by most of their acquaintances after finding out their status. One of the goals of CFA is to use the avenue of the church to fight this misunderstanding and create a community of believers that will welcome and support people living with HIV/AIDS, thus fighting the damaging effects of stigma from the pulpit and through the congregation.

Banana Hill Baptist held a special service on Sunday, in which our center workers Joseph and Margaret talked to the congregation about HIV/AIDS, stigma, and especially the progress and growth they have seen in the CFA clients at the center. After their talk, about 25 clients came to the front of the church and publicly disclosed their status, locking arms and asserting that, while they were all HIV-positive, they were committed to living a productive, healthy life that is glorifying to God. It was amazing to see the reaction of the church, as all of the members of the congregation stood and clapped for the clients and joined them in singing a song and holding hands together. An HIV awareness group had provided red t-shirts for all of the clients that read "Interacting & Integrating - Community Strengthening Against Stigma," and I really felt that everyone at the service on Sunday believed that they could play a small part in fighting stigma in Kenya.

It was so encouraging to see this major step for so many of our clients. We are all incredibly proud of the boldness and the faith that they displayed, and we aplaud their courage in the face of so much past persecution and hardship. Please pray with me that all of these clients would grow even more in their faith and in their ability to live a satisfying life, and pray that so many others who are painfully hiding would one day grow to take a step like this one.

Song of the South

On most nights there isn't too much happening around Limuru, so a little bit of creativity goes a long way in creating fun times. A few months ago I discovered that some of my South African and Zimbabwean friends had an odd, new-found love of country music, and it didn't take long before we started planning a good ole-fashioned hoe-down in honor of all things Southern! Over Christmas I started planning recipes with mom and brought back my cowboy boots, and last Saturday a few of us went on a shopping excursion into Nairobi to do some grocery shopping. We found most of the things we needed (or alternatives that we thought would substitute) and Saturday saw about five of us in the kitchen for most of the afternoon preparing a country feast.

For dinner we were able to pull together cheeseburgers, creamed corn, mashed potatoes (southern style, of course), and peach cobbler, along with a couple gallons of real sweet tea! We were planning for about 12 people at dinner, but we ended up making about 12 pounds of mashed potatoes...it didn't seem like too much at the beginning, but as time went on we realized we had a LOT of mashed potatoes - more than two whole pans worth, one of which is still in the fridge! After some experimenting and guestimating, plus a lot of dancing around in the kitchen, all of the food turned out great. It was so fun to have people from the UK, Zimbabwe, and South Africa trying creamed corn and cobbler for the first time, and I was happy that they all loved it! The one exception was sweet tea - it turns out British people just don't like their tea cold and sweet...

After our big dinner, we cleared all of the furniture out of the living room and got ready for some dancin'. I taught the whole group a few line dances to classics like "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Boot Scootin' Boogy," plus a little "Honkytonk Badonkadonk" in honor of mom. It was most people's first time line dancing, but we had a blast and everyone was laughing and getting the hang of it in no time. Then a few of the more adventurous friends stuck around for some swing dancing lessons before heading out to the porch to relax for the rest of the night. All in all it was a great day, and it renewed my (probably obnoxious and overstated) pride in the South. Many thanks to my wonderful southern family for teaching me the value of good food, sweet tea, and good manners!

CFA Prayer Requests

After getting some great reports at yesterday's staff meeting, I wanted to share with all of you a few prayer requests and praises from our center workers. First of all, we are so thankful that one of the clients at the Kamirithu center, Sylvia Njoki, made a decision to accept Christ for the first time this week! We are also thankful for the birth of two baby girls to clients at Kamirithu this month. While they haven't been tested yet to determine their HIV status, each of the births were carried out in the safest way possible, and we are optimistic that both girls will grow up HIV-negative. At the same time, though, there are two more pregnant clients in the center who are preparing to give birth in the coming months, so please pray that God would protect both the mothers and the babies in those families. This group of clients is new to the center, so they are in a pivotal time right now trying to absorb all kinds of new information and encouragement. Please pray that Eunice and Paul, the two CFA workers at Kamirithu, would have the wisdom, patience, and empathy to meet each client right where they are and show the love in Christ to them in the way that each needs it most.

Our clients at the Banana center are nearing the end of their 9 months with CARE for AIDS, which prompts a whole new set of prayer needs. We are all extremely excited to see the way that this group is embracing several different economic empowerment programs. Some of the clients are currently saving money with a microfinancing organization with plans of soon receiving a loan, and others have started small-scale agricultural projects like rabbit-raising and goat-keeping. Just this past week, several clients were granted a proposal by an organization called NALIB, which will help them to build a fish pond and start raising fish to sell in the market. All of these income-generating activities are so meaningful for people who haven't been able to support themselves, and we are all incredibly proud of the way our clients have sought out the things that they can do well and really worked hard in pursuit of them. Please pray that all of the clients at Banana would find a perfect way to provide for themselves and pray that Margaret and Joseph would know exactly how to help them in it.

Finally, please join with me in praying for Rosemary and Humphrey at our Imani center. They are in the process of recruiting the third group of clients for the center and have started meeting with a group of about 30 new people. Pray that God would put the people in their path who really need help, and pray that they would have strength and persistence to carry out this difficult process.

Thank you so much for your continued prayers for me and for all of these things happening here in Kenya!

The BIG Picture

"Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed." - 1 Peter 1:13

This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible, and it's one that has meant different things to me at different times in my life. Right now, it tells me that there is a big picture at work in the world, and in my life, and in your life - a big picture that's a whole lot more important than the little snapshots we tend to fixate on. Let me explain...

Hope is a concept that I've thought a lot about lately. I talk about how I "hope" that Vandy will get to the Sweet 16; I talk about how CARE for AIDS gives "hope" to people who have lost it; I talk about how I "hope" that God will reveal his plan for my future to me. In each one of those things I am "setting my hope" on something outside of myself - Kevin Stallings, Rosemary Wanjiku, and God, respectively. This verse tells me to set my hope on Christ - but not only on Christ himself, but on the grace that I will receive when He is revealed. I'm not sure exactly when Peter is talking about here - when Christ is revealed to the world (see Revelation) or when He is revealed to me as I stand before him after leaving this world - but I'm convinced that God wants me to anchor my hope in an event and a savior, both of which are a whole lot more important than what's happening right now.

Thus the Big Picture - not just my daily life, or even the scope of my life, but the ENTIRETY of my life in eternity. I've wondered and been asked at times how the CFA clients and workers can have so much hope, and I'm convinced it must be because they see their life here as only a tiny part of the big picture. When they are tying their hope to the eternity they will spend with a revealed Christ, it's not really worth getting upset about missing their matatu or eating bad food.

I notice (and I think you would too) that a hundred times a day we have a chance to look at an event in the small picture or in the big picture. Do we choose to react with anger at the temporary, or joy in the eternal? Do we choose the route that gives us pleasure now, or honor for eternity? Do we choose the things that won't count for anything on the day that Christ is revealed, or the things that will count for everything?

ps - I'm pretty small in this shot, but the bigger picture is a whole lot more interesting than my part, isn't it?

Waterfall Jumping

On Sunday I set off from Limuru with Joe, Adrian, Phil, and Bethany in search of a place called "Fourteen Falls" that we had read about in a magazine. The first adventure was getting there - we drove to a town called Thika, about an hour away, and then started asking people on the side of the road how to get to Fourteen Falls. Finally we found a tiny dirt road and a broken-down sign pointing the way, and after paying a few bucks each at an impromptu entrance barricade, we parked in a dirt lot and looked out on the majesty of Fourteen Falls!

We parked at the top of the waterfalls, overlooking a shallow river that was about 100 yards wide, dotted with rocks throughout. Just past the parking area the river dropped off about 35 feet in a long line of waterfalls - 14 to be exact - punctuated by big rock outcroppings and falling into small pools and a hodgepodge of jagged boulders below. Upon arriving we were approached by a whole group of "friendly" Kenyan guys who offered to guide us across the river, around the falls, or anywhere else we wanted to go - for a small fee. We declined at first, and all of the guys took off down a path to swim under the falls from the bottom. We climbed out over the slippery rocks and swam against the current, making our way under, around and behind the waterfalls. The water felt fantastic in the hot sun...even though it might not have been the most pristine river and there was a good amount of trash on the banks, we looked past these details and had a blast swimming all over the place!

Next we were ready for a little more adventure, so we got one of the Kenyans to lead us over to the other side of the river, where we spent some time jumping off of a cliff about 20 feet above the water into a big, still (and deep) pool. It was a really cool place - we could do flips and big jumps off of the cliff and then climb back up the rocks, all to the amusement of the crowds of Kenyans watching. Apparently most wazungu who show up there are content to sit on the banks and pay the Kenyans to jump off of the falls! After spending a while here, we moved on - via a slippery and precarious walk through the river - to the "big jump," a tiny little outcropping back in the middle of the falls where the water was about 35 feet below the ledge. It was awesome! One of our new Kenyan friends jumped first to show us the deep part, and then we took turns screaming and throwing ourselves down the rushing waterfall. We landed in a strong current, so we helped each other onto the rocks for a break and then swam out through a narrow tunnel, climbing back up the rocks. At this point we had Kenyans, Indians, and other wazungu watching us, so I guess we made for quite the spectacle!

Overall it was a great day, and it was one of those things that you would never visit or see if you were just in Kenya for a few weeks of vacation. Sure, it's not Victoria Falls, but we were all really blessed by our beautiful day at Fourteen Falls and had an awesome time laughing, screaming, and getting wet together. I'm so thankful for a group of friends who will go out on a limb in search of adventure, and I'm especially thankful for adventures that work out even better than expected!

Great Beginnings

As I mentioned in my last post, Duncan and I took a quick, two-day trip out to Kisumu last week to check on things and meet with our other Director, Cornel. CARE for AIDS started the process of opening a second region in Western Kenya back in November, and over the last few months we developed a partnership with Central Baptist Church in Kisumu. After interviewing all kinds of applicants, we hired a Regional Coordinator (Geoffrey) and two center workers (Lazarus and Elisabeth). In December, Cornel and his family moved to Kisumu to really get things going, and the whole team held a launching ceremony at Central Baptist during the first week of January. During the last month, Lazarus and Elisabeth successfully recruited a full group of clients, and Duncan and I timed our trip to coincide with their first full seminar.

This trip really made the growth of CFA in Kisumu seem real. We arrived in time for this first seminar and found a full group of 75 clients along with the CFA staff, all excited and ready to go. Duncan and Cornel, along with the pastor of Central Baptist, spent the morning telling the clients more about what to expect over the next nine months while they come to the center, attend seminars, and receive our workers for home visits. We've learned that it's important to give the clients proper expectations and a good idea of what the future holds, and everyone did a great job of this last Thursday. After the seminar we took the staff out for a celebratory meal of fish and ugali by Lake Victoria, and it was an absolute blessing to see the joy on all of their faces. Lazarus, Elisabeth, and Geoffrey are almost bursting with anticipation as they prepare for the first week of center days and home visits, and Cornel is extremely proud to be finally providing the services of CFA to the area where he grew up.

I want to give you all this update so that you can first thank God with me for the way that he has brought this progress about. I am so thankful for the way He brought just the right workers together, and I'm thankful for the success he has given them in finding clients. I'm thankful for the way that the pastor of Central Baptist and the congregation as a whole is standing behind this ministry, and I'm thankful for the heart of service that I see in them.

I also want you to pray with me for the future. I know that our workers have a lot of learning ahead of them - their job is an incredibly challenging one, and they truly need divine wisdom and strength to walk with this group of clients for the next nine months. Please pray that the clients themselves would feel the love of Christ through CARE for AIDS - pray that they would find a new hope in life, and that they would be inspired to find ways to provide for themselves and their families. Please also pray for the Nyalenda area in Kisumu where we are working. It boasts one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in all of Kenya, which is having a devastating effect on the community. Our workers recruited 75 clients in less than a month, which is remarkably fast, but they also had to turn away about a hundred additional HIV-positive people who live too far away for this center. Pray that all of those people would find help now if they need it urgently, and pray that God would provide the funding for CFA to open another center in Kisumu soon so we can reach a greater portion of the population. On behalf of our clients, our staff, and the people of Kenya, I thank you for praying with us!