I received an email from one of the pastors we will be working with in Kenya. He has a difficult ministry - he works with the poorest of the poor in Kenya. Read the following to get an idea of the work that he is doing in one of the slums in Nairobi, Kenya. Pray for him in this task. Pray for us to figure out ways to effectively help serve with him.
Greetings in His precious name. I thought that it would be better this time to go through a week in Kibera with you rather than write a regular letter. Monday: Visited a family with five kids. One is sponsored by our church in school. The whole family used to attend a middle class church half an hours walk from Kibera. The walk was too long for the kids and they discovered our church and began attending. The mother followed soon. Husband finally joined after some months. The father is a tinsmith repairing kerosene stoves as a way of making a living. Family real destitute as both parents are HIV+ though in denial. The husband claims sickness a result of the flooding of his former room that is next to the Nairobi dam. MTW medical team came across him in June 2003 when bedridden and forsaken by his siblings as thought that about to die. To the family, that was a tangible expression of love. We pray together and commit the welfare of the family into the hands of the Lord. P.S. Celestine, their 14 year old daughter will start attending a boarding school as she has great aptitude for academics. She will be with two other girls from the church who will join her this Friday. As a church, we prayed for the trio on Sunday with great joy in what the Lord is doing. A ministry to reach girls at risk has begun and we hope through this to have many complete school and not become mothers at the ages of 14-16.
Tuesday: Heavy rains that have been pounding the Kibera slum have continued relentlessly. They are too early as we usually expect them in April. We praise God as he is sovereign and not the meteorological dept. They were caught offguard but insist that they did not relay the information to the public. Children from school are running helter skelter to their rooms before the ditches become raging torrents that sweep all before them. Together with the other workers from the church, we have to take a long detour as the stick bridge is impassable. It is risky to cross even though the detour means adding fifteen minutes to our walk across. Two interns from the USA [Kimberley and Heather] are with us. They will be here six months and one year respectively ministering in all aspects of the church outreach. Having been caught unexpectedly in the rain, they have invested in gum boots that are a match for the mud and water. Their good shoes are in their backpacks and will be worn once we get into the car. All of us are drenched to the skin as we cannot wait for the rain to subside as the stream will become more swollen. The smell of marijuana hangs in the air as we pass one room close to the stream. It will be thrown into the water if policemen are sighted. As we walk along happily conversing, thoughts keep crossing my mind if this is all worthwhile: having my wife go through all these while she could be in the house taking care of our two boys and working with computers and accounts; why is that I have to put the two interns through all these things in Kibera as they are from a well off society that has no idea of what a slum is like. Will they fit in their culture once they go back? Is it worth it as one has broken a relationship because of her changed priorities in life? is it worth it when my wife will this evening have to take medicine to control mild asthma that was discovered recently and which is worsened by the dirt and conditions In Kibera? is it worth it when every Monday my two year old suffers from diarrhea because of the call to minister in the slum. P.S. Our two interns had in the morning been to see Joan who was in the last stages of full blown AIDS. They had cleaned her room, washed her clothes and in all ways shown her love in spite of the impending death. What will happen to the kids is at the forefront of our conversation as Joan had been deserted by her closest relatives once they knew she was dying and feared the costs of medicine and care. Some would come and burn her soiled clothes right before her eyes. Joan had told her neighbors that the church was her true family and it would care for her kids when she was gone. God finally called her home the following week after a great testimony of his power to change lives even in one's twilight hours. The church buried her and will continue to take care of her kids until they are independent. Joel, her eldest son is in his second year of welding apprenticeship.The burden of orphan care is too enormous for the extended family to shoulder and so the church must creatively find ways to help. We have become the household of faith for them as shown by various responses by the members.
Wednesday: Today, talked with two young high school boys that the church is helping about soccer boots belonging to the church that they had stolen and sold. after a long discussion and some apologies, decision made that will have to clear the ditch outside the church every Saturday until the end of the year. If they refuse, we will stop payment of their school fees. How to punish without destroying them is still something I need to learn as the slum kids are a tough lot. Kindness is to them a weakness.
Thursday: Today is my day off. Means that will not go into Kibera and will have to work on family issues. Will answer those pending emails and organize my study. Will take my son Isaac to clinic because he has a running stomach since Sunday which is worse than usual. My wife today has also run out of her asthma medicine and so must get some. She jokes that her immunity and that of the kids has really grown strong since beginning to work with me in Kibera February 2003.
Friday : our day prayer as the Kibera team. A time of rejoicing, planning ahead and relaxation and joy in each others company.
Sunday: This Lord's day, we have changed some aspects so that all of our people can be together for study. We will have our first English service at 9 followed by Bible study and then the Swahili service. Most of our people will be here from nine to twelve thirty as they leave early in the week and come late. The sermon is on forgiveness and made practical to the context in which we minister.
Please continue to pray for the work here. It is hard work but good work.
Imbumi
It's letters like this that make me really chomp at the bit...sometimes even wondering why God still has me here when there is so much to be done there.
Posted by: Andrew | February 06, 2004 at 11:52 AM
thank you so much for your regular updates/contributions on your website - i look forward to your insights - it helps me focus my prayers for you and your co-workers and the people of Kenya - particularily find it helpful to hear the testimonies/diaries of the day to day, minute by minute realities of life there, and the demands/calls upon the workers.I thank God for continuing to give them compassion, patience, love, joy, peace, kindness...
Posted by: lynn mosher | February 06, 2004 at 10:08 PM