Quotable:

"We are growing stronger day by day, because of the Lord.
The joy of the Lord is our strength!"
-- Michael


"When I came nine months ago,
I had been rejected back home and even in the church.

I found Paul and Eunice, who embraced me - I felt loved so much.
I got bold and started improving physically and spiritually.

Paul made me realize the potential and gifting that I have."

-- Hannah

Cooking, Eating, and Taking Pictures

Compared to last year, the past two months have been very different in a lot of ways - primarily because Jane is here in Kenya with me! Apart from the fact that communication is much easier from a mile away than from 8000, Jane's presence means that I eat a lot better than I did. My life right now includes a whole lot less Hamburger Helper and a whole lot more gourmet, delicious, meals with more than two or three ingredients. We all know that Jane is a great cook, so being here in Africa with limited ingredients and a distinct lack of Trader Joes has created a challenge for her - what can she come up with each weekend to make out of what's available? With any challenge, you have to have someone to judge the results, and that's where I will gladly volunteer my eating skills!

All this cooking has brought along with it an interest in "food blogging." The concept is pretty self-explanatory, but I learned that a big part of food blogging is providing great pictures to go along with the recipes and stories that the blogger posts. Cue the teamwork music! I've developed a bigger and bigger interest in photography over the past year, so now I have something to do while Jane cooks. Hopefully, this combination will produce some blog posts from Jane that are not only educational in their cooking instruction, but are also mouth-watering in their aesthetic appeal.

We gave all this a trial run this weekend on a few different recipes - one for homemade bagels (definitely didn't have those last year) and one for chicken/vegetable rosemary shish-ka-bobs (nope, none of those either). I was pretty much just a photographer for the bagels, but I did get to do the grilling on the shish-ka-bobs, which makes me feel useful! We rode into Kim Pace's house in Nairobi on Saturday for a cookout, and I feel very confident that Jane's creation was the envy of everyone eating plain old beef or chicken breasts.

These pictures are the start of my food-photography exploration...hopefully they will get better with time, and this is one case where my stomach will be advocating as much practice as possible!

One of the aspects of going on safari that always surprises and thrills first-time visitors to Africa is how CLOSE you can get to the animals. Its one of the reasons that pictures turn out so good - you don't have to have a $10,000 400mm lens to get a picture of a zebra's face, because the zebra is literally ten feet away from you! Animals seem to have a totally different presence when they are "up close and personal," and the experience of being mere feet away is magical in a unique way for each type. Sitting still while a herd of elephants meanders past, I am always blown away by the sound of their giant ears flapping against their bodies - like the sails of a boat flapping in the wind. Watching a lion stalk across the road three feet away from the van's bumper, I am struck by the intensity and focus of her gaze, and by the reality that it would only take a quick leap for her to be IN the van next to me. Holding my breath as wildebeest run past on both sides, I can't help but wonder what they think about the crazy "animals" that block their path and point shiny cameras at them all the time!

Many of the animals in the Masai Mara have adapted to the point where they barely seem to notice the presence of safari vehicles. They've realized that the white vans and green Land Cruisers aren't going to hunt or eat them, and they know that the humans aren't competition for their sources of food. Often times a giraffe or elephant will look at a van for a few seconds when it drives up - and then go right back to the important matter at hand: eating. Sometimes a sleeping male lion will open his eyes and glance at the strange species a few yards away, only to lazily roll over and get on with his nap. We aren't a threat or an opportunity, but simply something to be ignored. The humans, vans, and trucks have become a part of their environment.

I feel like we respond to many aspects of our culture in the same way. Something that might be startling at first, be it for good or bad reasons, becomes routine and unremarkable over time. Lions probably didn't sit passively by when the first trucks arrived in Africa, but now they don't give them a second thought. Whether the novel feature is an exciting thing (a new toy, an opportunity, a technological advance that makes life easier) or a negative influence (vulgarity in movies, compromises to "the world," immoral messages from TV shows), we become accustomed to their presence over time. Sometimes this causes us to take things for granted - think about how you respond when your internet connection is interrupted! Other times it causes us to gradually accept the things that we once found repulsive or sinful. In either case, it usually happens without our noticing, and it could end up being dangerous. If Kenya suddenly legalized hunting and all of the tourists carried rifles instead of cameras, the lions would be in trouble...

What are you getting used to?

Competition

I realized quickly after graduating from college that one of the big things missing from life was competition. Intramural sports were one of the most fun parts of Vanderbilt for me - especially during my senior year, when I was only taking a couple of classes, I think I spent more time on the intramural fields than in class! I absolutely loved getting outside with a bunch of friends and playing soccer/frisbee/football/whatever, and there are few feelings better than falling into bed exhausted after running around in the grass all day.

I could definitely feel the lack of competition last year in Kenya. Even though we had some heated ping-pong matches, it doesn't have quite the same feel as a good team game outside. A few weeks ago, though, I found the answer! There is a guy named John who got to Kenya about a month ago to work with Kim Pace's Blue Sky Ministries - he's from Georgia and happens to be a big ultimate frisbee player. We asked around and found a group of westerners who play ultimate every Sunday afternoon at one of the International Schools in Nairobi, and we've joined in the last two Sundays. It's a great atmosphere - intense enough that it's a challenge and I can really get into it, but not so intense that a mistake ruins your day. There is a great mix of people from different places and with different experience levels, but pretty much everyone has played "organized" frisbee before and is at least decent.

Having not played a sport like this (lots of running, sprinting, and diving on the ground) in a year or so, my body was definitely feeling it after last Sunday! Between super sore muscles and all kinds of scrapes, I was totally exhausted on Sunday night - and most of Monday and Tuesday too - but it was a beautiful feeling. It feels SO good to get out and run around till I'm about to fall over, and I've found that I definitely need that adrenalin rush of diving in the end zone for a catch...there's just no substitute for winning!

So this Monday morning, sitting at my desk sore and stiff again, I'm thanking God for providing answers to needs that we might not even know we have. Sometimes it's the little things, like a frisbee game, that can show us He cares about us and knows what will make us happy or give us something new to get excited about.

Thanks Lord!

Donkeys and Cameras

When people think of Kenyan animals, things like lions, elephants, and cheetahs usually come to mind. Probably the most common big animal we see around here, though, is the good old donkey. Donkey attached to wooden carts are one of the most common forms of transportation for products or crops, and you can find them grazing on the sides of the road all the time. One of our former vision trip participants, Ellen, really likes the donkeys - in fact, she might like them more than the lions! While in Limuru last March, Ellen got the chance to RIDE on a donkey cart owned by one of the CARE for AIDS clients' husbands, George. She later decided to give a gift to George's family - a gift in the form of another donkey!

Justin emailed me a few weeks ago with the novel task of buying a donkey with the money that Ellen donated - as you can imagine, I got some help from Kevin, as I would have no idea where to start in this process. Kevin negotiated with some donkey salesman and found a great, hardworking donkey to pull George's cart. On the day they were going to purchase the animal, I gave him my camera to take pictures of George, his wife Jane, and their new donkey "Georgeking."

This leads into a second topic of discussion - Kenyans taking pictures. For some reason, Kenyans HATE looking happy in pictures. I can't figure out why...maybe they want to look serious, or maybe they think smiling is a sign of weakness? This is an added difficulty when you are trying to take pictures of happy people who's lives have changed to show donors - they can be smiling and talking and laughing, but the minute the camera comes out they look like they are contemplating the best way to kill somebody! You can view this picture of George, Jane, Kevin, and the donkey as a great example...

Along with this anti-happy-picture attitude, I've found that Kenyans really do love to pose for pictures. This seems somewhat contradictory, but whenever I let anyone borrow my camera it comes back with all sorts of glamour shots. Maybe this is one of those things that I just won't understand - they refuse to smile when someone asks them to pose for a picture, but they go crazy when they have the camera for themselves! Here's what I found after Kevin had my camera for an afternoon last week...enjoy:

Prayer Requests

I know that many of you are praying regularly for CARE for AIDS and for me as I live and work in Kenya, and your faithfulness means so much to me. Here are a few new things that I would love for you to join me in praying for...

1. Expansion - CARE for AIDS is planning to open several new centers in the next couple of months, along with a completely new region on the Northern side of Nairobi. This involves a lot of planning and personnel decisions, and I'm praying that God will bless us with discernment and wisdom as we seek to maintain our standards and passion across a wider area of the country.
2. The Administrative Team in Limuru - all of these guys, who I spend the majority of my working time with, have big things going on in their lives. Duncan and Steve are planning weddings, Kevin is preparing to move to a new community, and Robert is dealing with sickness and difficulties in his immediate family.
   
3. Spiritual Change - when it comes to preaching the gospel to our clients, it is sometimes a frustrating realization that there is only so much that we can do. The spiritual counselors in each center faithfully describe the truth of the gospel and teach scriptural lessons to the clients for nine months, but there comes a point when the Holy Spirit must move their hearts to make a decision - we can't do it for them. For an America who wants statistics and numbers, I can get frustrated when people don't choose to believe, but I need faith to be content in the fact that we are planting a seed, just as we are called to do.
   

The first group of clients from the center at Kamirithu Assemblies of God is finishing its 9-month time with CFA at the end of this month, so please pray especially for each of the 76 men and women that make up this group! Pray that God would work within their souls over this final month, that they would joyfully take with them all that they have learned, and that they would help to recruit more people who need the CARE for AIDS services over the following months.

Thanks again for your commitment!

"For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
and his ears are attentive to their prayer,"
--1 Peter 3:12

New Faces

I am excited to share with you all about the newest CARE for AIDS center, which will be opening officially at the end of this month! The center is located in an area called Kangemi, which is right on the Nairobi Highway on the outskirts of the city. Kangemi is a huge slum - I drove through it with Duncan a few days ago and was amazed at the extent to which the tightly-packed, corrugated tin dwellings reached. From the highway you can only see a small section, but the area extends for several kilometers, down a large valley and up the other side.


Last week I was able to sit down with Pastor Chege of the Full Gospel Church of Kenya - Kangemi and hear about his heart for ministering to people living with HIV/AIDS. I also got to spend some time with our newest center workers, Esther and David, who are in training right now. David lost both his brother and sister-in-law to HIV, and he is now caring for their child as his own, which gives him a strong personal connection to the situation in which people living with HIV find themselves. David has been working as a night guard while taking courses on spiritual leadership. Esther has a very close friend who has been living with HIV/AIDS for a number of years now, and she has been trying to find a way to use the lessons she has learned caring for her friend to help more needy individuals. She is married with two children in primary school. Both David and Esther are overjoyed with the prospect of doing this sort of work full time, and they both expressed that they were ready to start on the very day when we met!

Over the next month David and Esther will be spending time with our "older" workers, learning what to expect and how to deal with the many difficult situations they will face in the course of their job. Then they will begin the process of recruiting a group of clients after the official "launching" ceremony in the Sunday service at FGCK Kangemi on September 26. Please pray that God will guide each step of this process and bring just the right clients to the center over the next couple of months!

The Lion King

Many people who go on missions trips or visit other parts of the world talk about how they "fell in love with the culture" or "fell in love with the people" or "fell in love with the atmosphere." While all those passions are great and totally justified (I might have even said some of them), there's one other, not so meaningful, maybe not so spiritual, thing that I've fallen in love with in Kenya:

Lions

Yep, the good ole King of the Jungle. There is something about these animals that captivates my mind like nothing else. Whenever I've found myself around them on a safari, I feel like I could sit there and watch them for days on end and not get bored. The combination of power and beauty in a lioness is unbelievable...then a MALE lion, well, throw out the beauty and you've got straight power. Sitting mere feet away looking into a full-maned lion's yellow eyes, you get the distinct feeling that he knows he could rip you apart without breaking a sweat, but its not worth his effort for something as puny as a human. That'll get the adrenalin going for sure!

Jane and I went out to the Masai Mara a couple of weeks ago with a CFA trip from Dogwood Church in Atlanta, and we were blessed with a couple of awesome lion encounters. The first occurred at dusk on our first day, when we came upon a big herd of wildebeest and zebra and were told that hunting lions had been spotted nearby. We watched as a young cub stalked through the grass and made a half-hearted run at a few straggling wildebeest - apparently it was just practice, though, because he seemed to go back to his mother and get a lesson (along with some playful swatting). Next, a lioness made a second attempt at a group of zebra, but she seemed to realize pretty quickly that it wasn't going to turn out well and broke off her run.

Wildebeest and zebra seem to have dangerously short memories, though, because a few minutes later another lioness began stalking through the grass toward the back of the herd. We watched as she stretched out her body low to the ground, eyes up and ears flat back against her head. She moved with infinite patience, slowly taking a step whenever all eyes were on other places. After getting within about 30 meters of the wildebeest, she sprang out of the grass and the herd took off like a rocket. One large wildebeest got separated from the group and squared off against the charging lion, face to face. Now, the wildebeest probably has a couple of hundred pounds on the lion, along with some nasty curved horns, so the lion can only kill it by jumping from behind. Both animals seemed to know this, so they spent the next minute or so winding back and forth in a tense circle - the lion trying to sprint around behind the wildebeest and the wildebeest always keeping the lion in front of his horns. It was amazing to watch the lion in "attack mode," with her tail high behind her, crouching low the ground, bounding to one side and then the other. Unfortunately (for the lion) she eventually slipped in the mud and the wildebeest was able to run away to the safety of the herd.

On the second morning, we came upon a different, but still fascinating scene. A pride of lions had killed a wildebeest sometime that morning, and we found arrived while the males were eating their fill. A pride of lions always has one "dominant" male, but if that leader has a brother, he will allow the brother to tag along with the pride, helping to defend them from challenging outside males (although he's not allowed to mate with the females). The dominant lion will always eat first, followed by a "beta male," then the females and cubs. This pride has two males, and each of them were eating on different parts of the wildebeest carcass. The smaller male was swinging around a long string of flesh and chewing on the meat, while the larger male chowed down on the stomach (or some other internal organs). It was one of those sights that kind-of makes you feel sick, but is awesomely "real" at the same time - definitely not the Disney-movie picture of a lion, but amazing nonetheless!

The Hole in Our Gospel

I'm in the midst right now of reading The Hole in Our Gospel, a book by Richard Stearns, the current President of World Vision. The bulk of the book thus far has put forth what should be a powerful wake-up call to the people sitting in American church pews each Sunday - the people who have the resources and the calling to change the lives of the world's poorest people but aren't living up to their potential. If you're reading this blog, then you probably have a better perspective on international missions than most of those people, but I would still recommend the book to anyone. If you read it and don't feel convicted about the awesome potential that you have to help other people around the world, then pass it on to someone you know who has extra "stuff" laying around!

In proposing his challenge to the American church, Stearns spends a portion of the book describing the reality of poverty in the developing world - especially trying to answer the question, "why are all these people so poor?" One reason, which comes from an annual conference for the Clinton Global Initiative, struck me as especially relevant to the people that CARE for AIDS is seeking to help:

"For most of the poorest people in the world, their hard work doesn't matter. They are trapped within social, cultural, political, and economic systems that do not reward their labor. The result of this entrenched futility is devastating to the human spirit. A person, no matter how gifted or determined, cannot escape the trap in which he finds himself. He has lost the one thing that every person needs to thrive: hope - hope that he will somehow overcome his curcumstance, that tomorrow can be better than today, and that his children might someday have a better life than his. Such people discover that they are in an economic and social prison from which there is no escape - unless something happens to change their circumstances and to restore the link between their effort and their reward. (Stearns, 119)"

Many of the clients that we work with have been severely hampered by the systems that surround them, leaving them completely lacking in hope. Hearing from their society that they are worthless, denied education and healthcare, facing a total lack of market for their skills or products, and suffering from a hand-to-mouth existence that leaves no time or energy for personal development - it is easy to see how hope can vanish.

Amazingly, it doesn't take much to restore hope and connect a person's effort with his results. By educating and encouraging the clients, we are able to show them that they have value and are worth just as much as someone who is HIV-negative. By equipping them with skills and teaching them to use them efficiently, we are empowering them to make a profit for themselves - a profit that turns into a lifestyle improvement - an improvement that over the course of time turns into a transformation.

No water, No worries

Part of the reality of living in Kenya is that things aren't always available when they're "supposed" to be. This morning, for example, I went downstairs and we had no propane to fuel our stovetop. After that, I went into the office and we had no internet. A couple of hours later I went to the ATM and it had no money.

All of this is on top of the fact that I'm currently on day 5 of having no water in my house. Yep, that means no showers, no sinks, and no flush toilets. On the other hand, it does mean that I get to have the cultural experience of frequent trips to the "long drop" in our backyard...

I've learned through trial and error that there are a few ways to respond to these kinds of challenges. One is the "frustration route." This involves a lot of inside-my-head yelling: "how dare Kenya refuse me these things!" It also involves a very unpleasant demeanor, a negative focus on how greasy my hair is, a short temper, and a general lack of productivity. I learned pretty early on that the "frustration route" is pretty counter-productive. That's not to say that I don't get frustrated when I have to drive around and find another ATM, but it is to say that I've found some alternative ways of looking at things.

One option is to view these things as a test of patience. Now, patience has never been my strong suite, but I think God is slowly showing me how valuable it is, and I'd like to think that I'm making baby steps toward the ability to brush off these challenges.

Another option is to take these challenges as an opportunity to identify more with the people all around me. There are so many people here in Kenya who NEVER have running water. They have to walk to a well or a stream, sometimes several times a day, to get the water they need for cooking and cleaning. A large portion of the population here has NEVER used the internet - they don't need email and ESPN.com to get through their day, and maybe there's something to learn from that. Probably 99% of the population of Kenya has NEVER had money available in an ATM - what if I had to buy food to eat each night out of the money I'd made that very day? These are ideas and questions that might not cross my mind were it not for the occasional lack of things I deem vital.

The final option is to praise God for the hardship. Granted, it isn't the kind of hardship that I see facing the people of this country every day, but it's harder than normal for a privileged American like me. Note that I said praise God FOR the hardship - maybe that sounds strange? I've been convicted that God would only put these challenges in my life if he knew that I could pass through them with my eyes still on Him, and therefore I should be thankful that He trusts me to face them. I should praise Him for the reminders that I'm not in control and for the evidence that there is more to life than my comfort.

Above all of this, I should praise Him because He is God. He is my Father, my Lord, my Savior, and my Creator regardless of what He is giving me in a certain moment. So many times we praise God for His blessings - if each and every blessing is taken out of the picture, can we still give Him glory for the simple fact of his being, for the reality of his character?

Praise God. (period, full stop, end of story...that's all we should need)

"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."
- Philippians 4:12

Onyango News

One of the coolest things about spending this much time in Kenya, living in a house with a Kenyan, working every day with a bunch of Kenyans - in general being part of an ethnic demographic that makes up less than 1% of the population - has been the opportunity to build very close relationships with the Kenyans I spend a lot of time with. One of those friends is Cornel Onyango, the CFA Director who currently lives in Kisumu and manages all of our work in the Western part of Kenya. Cornel is married to a beautiful wife named Irene, and they had their third child this past summer. On May 17th I received this in an email from Cornel:

"For today I have very good news. At 10:30 pm, that is Sunday night, we got a baby girl. She is called Sherry Linda (Mama Nick). Nick, we did not want to tell you this - I even asked you for the spelling of your mum's name in a very clever way. I hope i got it right or did i forget it? If he was a boy he was to be Nick. All is still a plus for me, i love your mum."

Wow! Cornel's two-year old son is named Justin (after Justin Miller), and I am so honored to think that Cornel would want to name one of his children after me. It has been so fun for both my mom and I to know that there is a little baby girl here in Kenya whose name will always recall a memory of our family, even if I've been gone from this country for years. The baby is about 3 1/2 months old now, and she seems to be doing great (although Jane says that she's the biggest baby she has ever seen)! Here's a picture of Sherry Linda Onyango:

Also, when Justin and I went to Kisumu last week, we had a big dinner for all of the staff at Cornel's house, where he surprised us with a big, cold pitcher of SWEET TEA!