Stories from the Baobab

So this is how it starts...

2010-02-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

Today was humbling – our group had the privilege of worshipping at a Holiness Pentecostal church near Butare, Rwanda and then visited a working group that has only been enrolled in our program for a few weeks. We were invited to their first group meeting. Ever.

It was the hardest day yet. These kids have no hope. They do not even believe that they have a future. All they have are their dreams drawn on pieces of paper. They do not have enough food to fill their bellies.

We saw the home of one girl in the working group on the way. Donata is a fifteen-year-old girl whose parents died of HIV/AIDS. They left her with a leaky hut that they cannot sleep in for fear that it will collapse on them (as the other hut on their property has done). They also left her with a ten-year-old sister and an eighty-year-old aunt who is mentally unstable.

Because they care for the aunt, both daughters have dropped out of school and even though they care for the aunt, they feel unsafe when she is around. Donata tries to find work by carrying water for others in return for a small – and I mean tiny – basket of sweet potatoes. The aunt laughed at their efforts saying that even the potatoes were a gift because their work wasn’t worth the food that they got in return. This weekend, they only had enough for two meals – lunch on both Saturday lunch on Sunday.

They eat just a few times a week. Their parents left them no land on which they can farm. Donata has no way to make money. At the working group, Epiphanie asked them to raise their hands if they could not raise the equivalent of 20 cents a week. Donata (along with 2/3 of her group) raised her hand.

I was so ashamed to walk back to the bus where I had a powerbar and a few granola bars. How could I walk away from such a girl and not give her everything that I have? How could I not empty my wallet and just give her everything? As a team, we wept. What else could you do?

Epiphanie cried and she explained to us that at the beginning of her empowerment program she began to give kids food to eat to get them through until their beans could be planted or their stores were producing money to buy food. She did precisely what her heart told her she had to do and those kids are still calling her and begging her for money.

The reason that I could walk away from those children today is that I have seen kids who were worse off than Donata two years ago who are thriving today. The orphans who have looked me in the eye and said “I was hopeless and now I have hope” because of the methodology would not change a thing about it. I was able to walk away with a renewed determination to tell Donata’s story because she is just at the beginning. Two years from now, when a team visits Donata, she will be smiling and happy. She will have food to eat and will have dignity – it is a gift greater than any food that I could offer today.

She starts off without hope. And one day soon, she will smile and give thanks to God. This is just how it starts.

Hear the words from another girl in our program named Donata:

“I was hopeless. When I met the Giving Hope staff in March, I felt love and began to smile. They asked me to tell my story and gave me hope. It changed my mind, and I started believing God was bringing me good things. I remember when Jean Pierre (a ZOE staff member) said, ‘You have to believe God loves you and will give you what you need if you trust him.’ The Giving Hope staff said that I would get a house, but I didn’t believe them because others had told me that before. Now we are grateful and happy to have this home. Before Giving Hope I thought nobody could love me, and that others were bad. Giving Hope opened my eyes – I could see people giving love. Now, I am committed to giving love, especially to orphans.”

The Seeing-Eye Rabbit

2010-02-12T12:45:00.000-08:00

Apologies for not writing as often this trip. I got into the groove of Africa and just didn’t make this happen. Sorry – I’m back at it now.

I am now with the second ZOE team to Africa and this time I am in Rwanda. The team is fantastic and includes my bishop and (you need to know this for the story I am about to tell) his wife who became blind six years ago due to a virus.

The past few days have been fairly emotional. We went to the genocide museum in Kigale and saw the mass graves for 280,000 Rwandans. When we started making home visits, we came across the worst situation I have seen in Rwanda – a child-headed family who is getting kicked out of the house that they are using by their relatives. The younger sister has an open wound on her leg due to malnutrition and Epiphanie promises me that they are much better than they were three months ago – that girl could not even get out of bed and had sores all over her body. My heart broke as she shared a cup of sorgum soda with her five-year-old cousin that they adopted.

We have seen situations that are so desolate that it takes every ounce of faith not to count them hopeless. And in the face of such desperation, the staff here promises – and I believe them – that in three to six months, the kids will be food secure and will be empowered to accomplish their dreams.

We saw that today when we visited an orphan who had only been in the program 8 months. He had four younger siblings and was so pleased to be visited by our group – especially since the bishop was present.

He showed us his water tank that sifted rain water into good and bad – drinking water and water for the garden. He showed us his contraption to wash his hands when he leaves his outhouse so that he does not have to touch anything. He showed us his 3 large rabbits, 10 baby rabbits, corn, cabbage, carrots, and the old house where he used to live.

But the true grace occurred as we were leaving. The group was about ready to circle up and pray when the 20 year old orphan (who looks 15 from malnourishment) walks out of his house with one of his 3 adult rabbits by the ears and two large heads of cabbage. He walks over to the bishop and Mrs. Bledsoe and offers them to us as a gift.

This child gave us 33% of his adult rabbits because he was grateful for all that he has received through Giving Hope.

Here in Rwanda, many of the children are taught to beg from mzungus (yes they still call rich people and white people mzungus in Rwanda, too). They open up their hand and ask for a little bit of money, or water, or anything that you have.

This child, though, opened up his hand and offered us a tithe of his harvest. He had 10 baby rabbits and so he gave us one adult rabbit.

In the bus on the way out of this village, Greg Jenks (ZOE’s Executive Director) was joking about taking it home with him to North Carolina. Mrs. Bledsoe offered to use it as a seeing eye rabbit in order to get it past customs.

The truth of the situation is that this rabbit is exactly that. It teaches us how to see missions in a completely different light. It taught me to see that when we do missions right, the people do not merely stick out their hand asking for a little something to eat but rather we empower them to hold out their hand and offer what they have to somebody else.

That rabbit taught me to see my work in a whole new way.

[I also need to add that this story would not be complete if I did not tell about the other things that the orphans gave our group today. A different orphan gave us another rabbit and a chicken and a working group of orphans offered us a few kilos of beans from their harvest that day and 10 ears of roasted corn. I was walking back to the bus with a rabbit in one hand and an ear of corn in the other. Greg was walking back with an ear of corn in one hand and a chicken in the other. They were so proud that they could not wait to share God’s bounty. And the people of God said “Amen”.]

A Return to Blessings Bakery

2010-02-02T07:37:00.000-08:00

The curse and the blessing of working for ZOE Ministry is that I almost never speak to the same people twice. Like bishops, seminary professors, and any other clergy that do not serve a local church, I have preached the same sermon at least fifteen times. It is always Acts 3:1-10 where Peter and John are walking up to the temple at the hour of prayer, they look a lame man in the eyes and say “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”

I then tell the story of Davis and Sqberio – two bakers at the blessings bakery. Last summer when I ate their wonderful sweet bread, Davis told how he got 3 dollars a day to bake bread at Blessings Bakery (a group business). Instead of using that money for himself, he gave his friend half of his salary to train him to be the second baker. Simon Peter is Davis’ spiritual ancestor, helping his friend to not just to beg day after day, but teaching him to walk on his own.

At this point, thousands of people have heard this sermon over the past eight months. Two of them took me up on my offer to travel to Machungalu, Kenya and taste the bread themselves.

As we walked up to the bakery, I felt nervous. What if I had over exaggerated the significance of the bakery? What if, in my exuberance to preach the gospel, I had missed something significant in the story? What if the bread wasn’t good anymore? According to some, I tend to have a flair for the dramatic when I preach and part of me was afraid that reality would not live up to the imagination.

I was nervous for nothing.

Now, the bread wasn’t quite as good as it was last time (mostly because we were over two hours late to meet with them), but the power of their story touched everyone who heard it. Davis has taught Sqberio both how to save and spend his money. Davis helped Sqberio open up a bank account and Davis taught Sqberio how to buy and keep a goat that can provide both milk and fertilizer.

I asked why he did it, why he gave up half of his salary for his friend. His answer was simple: “We love each other as orphans.”

We found out that day that four members in the group are positive for HIV. Reegan says that losing a fellow group member to AIDS is harder than losing their parents because they love each other so much. That love can be seen in Sqberio’s goat. It is a love big enough for Davis to give him half of his salary. It is that love that makes Blessings Bakery worth the trip.

Moses and the Masses

2010-02-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

Sunday began and ended with worship.

We started out at the large Methodist church off the main road in Maua. They have three services - one in English, one in Swahili, and one in the local language Ki-Meru. I was asked to preach one of the services. You would imagine that I would be asked to preach at the English service - and I did preach in English with no translator - but I preached the Swahili service with probably 500 Kenyans. In English. With no translator. And no microphone.

The pastor assured me that 95% of the people would be able to understand me, but I felt really bad for those 5% that couldn't. Oh well. I preached on Philippians 2:1-13 and had an amazing time. I have preached to larger crowds, but it is so difficult to know that my message translates effectively. Fortunately, the gospel is the same in Kenya as in North Carolina and Texas.

Preaching that morning to an almost entirely African population gave me a renewed sense of awe for Moses. Moses is an orphan in our program that I have written about regularly in this blog. He is the one who lives on top of the mountain and is tutoring Robert (whose house I built last summer). Sunday night, he spoke through skype to a camp of Sr. High youth in Bridgeport, TX and to Crosswalk - a worship service of Lovers Lane UMC in Dallas.

Moses spoke to hundreds of people about his life, his farm, his parents who both died from HIV/AIDS and his step-mother who now carries the disease. He was great with the youth at the camp, but I was transformed by his prayer that began worship with Crosswalk.

Moses prayed that they have the rains that they need. From a farmer in Kenya, good rains mean that you have food to eat and sell. It means that you have enough food to to feed your family and enough money to send your family to school. It means that you have life. I hope that they got that in Dallas, just like I hope they understood my sermon in Maua.

I am convinced, though, that even if we were not quite understood because we come from different places, our intent was clear. We are bonded by a common Gospel. From Dallas to Maua, the Holy Spirit can connect. I know that Moses and the masses of Americans who heard him knew that he was pouring his soul into his prayer. Somehow, the Holy Spirit can make us understood in languages and cultures that we never knew. At least, that is what I read in Acts 2.

A Surprising Source for Biblical Theodicy

2010-01-30T19:25:00.000-08:00

Working definition for this post:
Theodicy is the technical term for the branch of Christian thought that seeks to understand the nature of a good God when confronted with evil in the world.

I don't know why I was surprised; seminary taught me that reading scripture with the poor can change how we ourselves read scripture. Nevertheless, I was still shocked to hear an AIDS orphan explain how he understands God to be working in his life in spite of his parent's deaths. I know that these kids have faith - I have seen it in action. I had just never thought to ask how any of them can call God good when all of their parents have died from a dreaded pandemic that has left 3/10 children in this area orphans.

We were sitting under a large tree (not a baobab tree, unfortunately) listening to songs and dances performed by the Champions working group. This is the group that has Purity the farmer (She is the one that built a house for her mentally challenged older brother). They were great at their performance. The songs and the dances are normally used in their presentation to the community raising awareness for HIV/AIDS. They even had some of the younger kids out that were just adorable.

After the dances, the Champions group had a master of ceremonies that told us of the rules that their group has set as standards for their behavior. For example, one of the rules is that they don't date within the group so that they are able to all look after each other equally. He then went on to explain why they are grateful for the Giving Hope project and grateful that we came to join them for their presentation.

He said that all of their parents had died and that none of them would choose for their parents to die. None of them wanted that burden. None of them wanted that pain. And yet, he said, God did not desert us. Just as when Jesus ascended into heaven, God did not leave his people alone. Jesus sent down the Holy Spirit to be with his people. In the same way, God gave us ZOE Giving Hope so that we would not be alone. He said that God did not leave them, but gave them a way to live.

Never have I been more humbled than to think that he sees ZOE as God fulfilling his promise to not leave his children alone. That, my friends, is theodicy.

Greetings to the Gathered Orphans

2010-01-30T00:06:00.000-08:00

I promised them that I would be back. The last post on this blog was about the gathering of working group leaders at the Maua chapel. I told them that I would come back in January, that I would bring others with me to hear their story and be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

By the grace of God, I am back. (Hence the update on my blog).

And so as I type this, I am sitting in the back of the same chapel watching Moses - the one who lives on top of the mountain (see blog post about him from last summer below) - stand in front of his peers and listen to Reegan brag about how well he and his group have done. Moses has taken Robert - the child whose house I built last summer - under his wing and taught him how to farm. Evidently, Robert has been doing so well that he now has a cow. Last summer, all he had was a little baby goat named Mara and he was so proud of that goat. I can't wait to go and visit the same farm where I spent two days last summer and see this new cow. A cow means that he has bumped up to a whole new level. A cow means that Robert is doing well thanks to Moses and the support of Giving Hope.

It is hard to imagine the wonders that will be revealed this week and the lives that will be touched. We have already had a few people tear up. We have already said hello to old friends. I am merely glad to have fulfilled my promise - glad to have friends who are doing so well.

So until tomorrow, when I write about the group projects I will visit this afternoon, keep us in your prayers. Pray for Robert and his new cow. Pray for Lucy and her seamstress shop. Pray for Reegan and the staff in Kenya. Pray for the team - especially those who are experiencing Africa and the faith of these orphans for the first time. Maybe they, too, can be so changed that they have no choice but to come back.

A Goodbye to the Gathered Orphans

2009-07-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

I got some Kenyan tea Saturday morning. As I received the tea on behalf of our team, I gazed at the group of around 100 orphans. I expected Africa to be more like one of those commercials that we see every year around Christmas time where the face is unfamiliar except for the unmistakable look of suffering. This moment did not feel like that at all. I knew some of them and that made all the difference.

I know Janice – the seamstress whose shop is in the same marketplace as Naftali the barber. We visited her shop twice. The first time, we went to talk to her and Naftali as they showed off their businesses. The second time, we went to have Jim Albright’s hair cut. He went from shoulder length hair to a number four buzz cut in a matter of thirty minutes. The nearby school was getting out as we drove to the barbershop and so we had forty kids in a tight knot sitting in front of Janice’s shop. I remember Janice and the auntie of the group laughing as we tried to entertain the kids through song and dance.

I know Moses, who I have talked about in previous blogs.

I know Abraham whose picture is highlighted on the front of our webpage – www.zoeministry.org. When he saw his picture online, he said “Oh, my nursery is so much bigger than that now.”

I know Eunice, another seamstress who cries when remembering the horrific trauma in her life and yet is able to smile when she talks about Giving Hope.

I know Purity the farmer, who has built her older and mentally handicapped brother a house because he comes of age this December and will no longer be able to live in the same house as her.

I know these kids and that changes the whole dynamic. They aren’t strangers, but friends – fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. They were a group of orphans, but these people had names and a story. And they all promised to work hard so that when I come back in January, I can see the progress that they have made.

It was such an honor to see friends instead of hopeless orphans. After a day at the game park and a 30 hour trip home, I am excited about bath and a bed. But I am also excited about going back. Leaving is better when you have promised to return. When I go back, I will return to friends.

Force X Distance = Work

2009-07-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

I got a physics lesson yesterday from an African orphan’s sermon today. It wasn’t intended to be a sermon, but the word of God sometimes ekes out of the faithful without them knowing it. We were at a home dedication and had already heard a couple good sermons when the secretary of the working group got up to speak. He wasn’t standing in front of his own house, but the house of a fellow working group member. As he stood, touching the new house and staring at the tiny shack holding out the rain by leaves and sticks, he told us the physics definition that work equals force times distance.

When he started in on the physics, I really wondered where he was going with it. This is a smart kid, a poet who currently attends university in Nairobi. He wrote a poem about Giving Hope that called Giving Hope “my mother and my father.” When talking to him, his intelligence is clearly evident.

Pushing against the doorsill of the new house, he said something close to this:

“In physics, no matter how hard I push on this house, it will not move and is therefore not work. If there are no fruits of the labor then there is no work being done. But if I move something a long way, then I have done a lot of work. Here, you can see that Giving Hope has done a lot of work because Faith (the girl who received the house today) has gone from that shack to this glorious house. You can see the distance between those two things. Giving hope has brought us all a long distance and so they have done a lot of work.”

The amazing ministry that God has sent me to work with this year is amazing in that it allows me to see a ton of fruit. When I come back to Maua, Kenya in January, I might be able to go and see Robert – the orphan whose house my team built. He is going to be pair up with Moses (see previous post) to see how to utilize his land to raise as much food as possible. A year ago, there was nothing on the land and now I could see the remnants of the maize that he recently harvested. It is highly plausible that, in January, Robert’s land will have the same look as Moses’ – overflowing with God’s bounty. I am blessed to be in a ministry that allows me to work and see so much fruit.

Staring back and forth from the shack to the house, I understood Robert’s analogy. The distance that most of these kids go in the program is as shocking as going from Faith’s 5X5 shack to her new two bedroom house. Now that is the Holy Spirit at work.

quick update

2009-07-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

I have been informed of some confusion regarding today's post, thinking that I merely reposted from a previous day's writings.

I talk about Moses twice in these blogs - the first time was a few days ago when I mentioned the kids that went to the bio-intensive farm. I had not yet met Moses at that point, but was only reporting what I had heard from other teams. This time, I actually met Moses, saw his flower garden and thought it was worth writing about. It truly is that beautiful from on top of the mountain.

There will be one more post tomorrow (posting around 1:00 AM EST) about the house dedications that we did today. I might post another one tomorrow night about the orphan group meeting I am going to tomorrow, but it depends on how much time I have since tomorrow afternoon we get to go out in the vans for our safari. I'll post pics when I am able to have faster internet than dial-up (that probably means when I get back to the States on Monday).

Later.

Moses on the Mountain and other Lessons in Humility

2009-07-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

The van drivers can’t have been happy with us. The roads on the way to Moses’ house looked impassable. At the first steep hill, the drivers asked us to get out and walk because the vans could not make it with all of our weight. The second hill wasn’t steep, but the road shouldn’t actually be called a road and the vans were not built for this sort of adventure. While the drivers can’t have been happy, we were thrilled at the top. On one side of the mountain was a vista of palm-tree covered mountains with tea farms all the way down to the valley. On the other side of the mountain, the flat plains of Meru national park extended to the horizon.

The glory of God was revealed on that mountaintop. It just so happened that the orphan who lived there was named Moses – Moses with the green thumb. A year ago, a group from Tennessee came to Maua and took a few Giving Hope orphans to a biointensive farm. They did the same this year with 18 orphans (see previous post) and I am so excited to see their progress next year because Moses had taken the lessons and run with them.

Moses stood on the top of his mountain, thrilled to have 18 Mzungus (see previous post) staring at his Kale in three stages – three weeks, six weeks, and those ready to harvest. He even had a nursery for the baby kale before he would transplant it into the rest of the field. In addition to the Kale, Moses had just planted 2000 tomato plants and 1800 so far had survived the drought. He also had a field of corn with kale planted in-between the rows. Moses and his green thumb had even planted a flower garden around his house merely because the flowers were beautiful and he took pride in his house. The glory of God was revealed through Moses.

The way down the mountain was not nearly as treacherous as the way up – mostly because a lot of us closed our eyes on the way down. We decided that we also ought to look at an orphan who just came into the program so that we can judge the amazing improvement in the lives of the orphans. So we went to meet Alex.

Alex is 18 years old without a house. He has some land, but not even a shack to call his own. For now, he stays with his 17-year-old best friend who is also an orphan in the Giving Hope program. He does not yet have an income generating activity and has not yet harvested his land although they are working it every other day. The two boys alternate working on each other’s land so that they have support every day they work. Alex survives by staying with his best friend who is also in his working group and eating the maize and beans that are on his friend’s property. His friend has been in the program for one year.

Alex would be in a desperate place if it were not for the support of his orphan friend. When I asked why he was taken in, his friend answered simply that “Alex is my friend.” Such a simple answer in a complicated world. As I gazed at God’s bounty on top of a mountain and saw a poor orphan give what little he has so that his friend may have a place to stay, I marveled at the glory of God through the simple acts of the faithful and was humbled.

Manna from Heaven

2009-07-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

Manna from heaven

Pockets of doughy bliss bubbled in a pan of oil as the baker kept a careful eye to ensure perfection. The bread wasn’t sweet in an artificial manner as Cinnibon might make it, covering every inch with cinnamon and sugar. Rather, the sweetness seemed to be intrinsic to the bread. Something wholesome was in the bread because it signifies something greater than itself.

Manna worked this way. I have no clue what Manna tasted like. Manna would have to be sensational to taste like the bread from the bakery we went to today. Manna could also have been the worst form of food. Its significance, though, goes beyond its taste. Manna worked to signify the faithfulness of God. The Israelites were to live in the desert relying that God would provide the daily bread. All leftover manna would rot on every day except after the sixth day to provide food for the Sabbath. The manna lying on the desert was more than food – it was proof that the love of God can break into a dreary and dry world.

Nestled into the kitchen of the local church, the bakery is run by a working group of orphans. Two orphans bake the bread while others are paid 10 shillings for every bag of bread that they sell. The profits go to the bakers, the sellers, and the group as a whole. If this were the whole story, the ability of previously stigmatized and abandoned children to work together for the glory of God is itself a fantastic witness. But the story about the bakers is, like manna, proof that the love of God can break into this dry and dreary world.

There were not always two bakers. Davis came first, joining the Giving Hope program and helping his working group to develop this bakery as their group IGA – income generating activity. As the primary baker, he was making three US Dollars a day. For an income generating activity for these kids, that is not an insignificant amount of money. The surprising thing is that he took his three dollars and cut it in half.

Before Giving Hope, Davis befriended a fellow orphan. When he got in giving hope and got his job as the group baker gaining three dollars a day, Davis gave half of his daily fee to his friend while his friend was training and learning the art of baking. Davis was earning three dollars a day and voluntarily gave away half of his salary. Once he was trained up, he went to his working group and recommended that they hire him as another baker for the group.

The bread was not merely good. The bread symbolized self-sacrifice and true discipleship. Like the bread that hung on a cross, it is a gift to all who partake. It is a bit of heaven on earth...

Boy did this manna taste good.

Building on a Hopeful Future

2009-07-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

While food security is the first issue of concerns for orphans when they enter the Giving Hope program, for some of the orphans the lack of adequate housing is of an immediate concern. Such is the case for Robert, a 19 year old boy taking care of a fifteen year old brother, a ten year old sister, and a nephew that can’t be more than 8 or 9. They were living in a shack smaller than the hotel room I am staying in while we are building him a new house.

Well, let me be clear: Mzungus (see previous post for definition) aren’t needed in Africa to build houses. We are building him a house, but flying the manpower over from the United States to build his house is not the most cost-efficient thing in the world. We are needed to show God’s love.

Our group is building two houses so our group split up into two teams – team cheetah and team lion.

Monday, the first day, we mostly hammered and sawed. When we arrived, the foundation of the house was already laid and the frame of the house was up. Our job was to place wooden boards all the way around the house. The problem is that the wood here isn’t actually straight. The top and the bottom might touch, but the middle would have a gaping hole because the wood bends so much. After we put up the wide boards, we began to put up smaller boards over the cracks. We left the first day with the tin roof on (done by the professional artisan rather than us) and the walls mostly done.

Robert the first day was quiet and shy. We set aside thirty minutes in the day to talk to Robert and hear his story. As we sat on the mountain overlooking the valley below, he was a little embarrassed about talking about his life. According to the Social Worker, Robert had barely left his house, not wanting to miss any aspect of his housebuilding. To us, Robert was painfully shy. Of course, I might be too if a bunch of foreigners came and asked me questions like, “What were you eating when your parents died.” And I would be especially shy if I could only point to the few banana trees on my property as a primary source of nutrition for a few years.

Yesterday, we “painted” the house. I use quotation marks because the painting was more like smearing motor oil over wood than it was true paint. The main job of the paint is to keep the insects off it so that the wood does not rot. Motor oil, I think, might actually do the trick. As we left after the second day of building this house, all but the upper corners of this house were painted and done. (Due to the lack of proper scaffolding, they wouldn’t let Mzungus try to reach those places.)

Robert the second day was still shy, but with a little more confidence around a team full of Mzungus. During lunchtime, a group of kids from the neighboring school had come to stop and stare at the white people building a house in their community. Robert saw them, ran up to talk to them and then they all laughed. As I went over to take their picture, Robert came back and we asked the social worker to inquire as to the joke that Robert told the kids. Evidently, Robert had told them that if they stay there, white people will come to take their picture.

I find that bit of humor to be a glimpse into the man that Robert can be with a source of income, housing, and the love of God in his heart.

This is my sixth house to build on a mission trip (although it is the first outside of Juarez Mexico) and yet I find this to be a new experience. I know that Robert is being taught about the love of God and about tithing. I know that he has a group of peers to interact with. I know that there are people paid to make sure that Robert and his brothers and sister are going to have enough to eat. Housing, while crucial for Robert, is only one part of what makes up the transition from a stigmatized and isolated orphan to someone who has hope.

Exponential Expansion...

2009-07-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

"If you give a Giving HOpe kid a dollar, he makes it into ten. If you give any other kid a dollar, they go and buy sweets" - Jerry Savuto

The orphans were unusually quiet yesterday afternoon. Normally surrounded by the cacophony of daily life in Maua, fourteen orphans were sitting nervously on a small hill waiting for the last four to show. Each had a small suitcase or bag that would contain all the would need for the next four days as they headed for training at a bio-agricultural farm. Each is a representative from their working group and will learn for four days, earn a certificate, and then return to train all the other orphans in their working group.

Out of the fourteen orphans, I only recognized two. One was the secretary for the group who is a well spoken young man and a beautiful poet. He wrote a poem about Giving Hope that was performed by his thirty-member working group. The other orphan I recognized was a seamstress dressed in a beautiful turqoise suit that she had made. The day before, we had visited her shop and her home. Her smile when she recognized us as we walked up was only contrasted by my memory of her tears the day before as she remembered the pain in her past. While nothing can make up for the pain in her past, she is going to learn how to transform her small plot of land into a lush means of support for herself an her son. The next four days will not just transform her live and teach her how to be more successful, but the impact will be exponentially expanded as all those in her group learn when she gets back.

This is, in fact, the most amazing thing about Giving Hope. It is not a dollar-for-dollar enterprise. Jerry Savuto, a missionary from the General Board of Global Ministries from Grapevine Texas, talks about how proud she is of the Giving HOpe kids. She even joked that Dickens (See previous post) might out-earn all of us. When you give anything to these kids, they seem to make it worth exponentially more.

This group of orphans is going to the farm because a group from America took a few kids there last year and it was so successful that they are taking more this year. This group went back to visit one of those kids this year to see how he was doing. Moses, according to the team, has transformed his plot of land into a litttle piece of paradise. Moses turned his few days of learning into a lifetime of food and happiness. He even made a flower garden modeled after the flower garden at the farm. This orphan has the time to care for flowers merely because they are beautiful. Moses took what was given and then used it to exponentially grow what he had. As I stood looking at these orphans on the hill, I allowed myself to dream about the future that these kids may have. I allowed myself to dream their dreams and I told them that I would return. I know that I am coming back in January and when I introduced myself, I told them that I would see how they put what they learned to use. In that moment, I was transformed from a one-time visitor to someone that will be part of their future. I told them that I would be back and I cannot wait to see how they will take what is given and make it into something more.

That is such a Godly act. God takes the world of pain and redeems it. God takes our meager offerings and brings about good. God takes ourselves - as sinful and pathetic as we are - and allows us to offer hope to the hopeless. God can use our gifts and change the world.

The Smell of Success

2009-07-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

I have never been so happy to step in the excrement from a cow. A cow is significant here. A cow means wealth and security. It means daily milk - a regular source of income and food. After I looked down at the evidence of success on the bottom of my shoe, I looked up to find a man who had recently been a boy. This man had four cows. Wealth unimaginable to the man who was a boy three years ago, before ZOE Ministry and the Giving Hope project began in Kenya. Dickens is one remarkable young man.

Dickens earned the money for his four cows from his business of selling ballast – rock for construction. He used to work back-breaking manual labor for 200 Kenyan Shillings a month - less than 3 US Dollars. When he joined the Giving Hope project, Dickens requested money from his group to begin buying and selling rock. Last fall when bossman came to visit, he was selling six truck-loads a week. When we saw him yesterday, he was doing nineteen truckloads that week and employing twenty men to break apart the rock at the quarry. Quite a long way for an orphaned street kid taking care of two brothers.

As I stared at these cows, I wondered what the orphans thought of us. In Kenya, white people are called muzungus. We are told that it has no real negative connotation, just a description. Today as we drove away from one of the orphans houses, a new kid from the neighborhood walked alongside the van and when he saw that we were white he started yelling, “Muzungus! Mazungus!” I wondered what they all thought of us coming from America to stare at four cows and a construction project.

Dickens is used to showing off his enterprise by now. Not only do many groups who come to Maua Methodist Hospital visit his home, but Dickens also shows off his business to orphans who are just now beginning the Giving Hope project. They will all be going back to their groups and dreaming of how they can be the next Dickens. Each of them will be working so that when mazungus come to visit, they too can step in the excrement from a cow.

If they got that far, then they will certainly have food to eat. They will have a community of other orphans for mutual support. Like Janice – a seamstress with her own shop now – or like Naftali – a barber who cuts thirty people’s hair every day - they will be able to look around and praise God for the grace that allows orphans to own their own shops and feed their siblings.

If you came here, you too might be able to glory in the smell of success. When it means siblings staying in school, food on the table, and a future with hope, such a smell truly is beautiful.

Wonderful Words

2009-07-17T23:38:00.000-07:00

"Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by his blood."

These words invoking the presence of the Holy Spirit are not just for the bread and wine. The goal of communion is not merely to transform the substance of the bread into something magical or special, but to transform us into the living and breathing body of Christ. The purpose of the bread is to convey grace so that we are made like Christ in a world that is unlike Christ. The bread's purpose is to - through the chrch - transform the world.

When we took communion last night, we had just arrived in Maua, settled into our rooms and eaten dinner. We were supposed to arrive hours earlier, but the trip had its unexpected delays. We waited at a rest stop for some baggage. Two people are still hoping that theirs will arrive. We also were stopped by a political rally, an accident on the side of the road, and four wild elephants across an electrc fence. (Our guide says that the electric fence would throw them back if they decided to attack us. While I wasn't prepared to test that theory, a local decided to enrage the elephant by throwing a stick at it. Fortunately, the elephants decided to wander off rather than squish some missionaries.)

While I promised in the first post to talk mainly about the orphans in the Giving Hope program, it is rather difficult since I have yet to meet any orphans. That will change today. Today, we are beginning our process of participating in the lives of the Kenyan orphans. We start with an orientation to the program at 8:30 (all times local) and then we will find out how Reagan - our program coordinator in Kenya - will divide us to go into the countryside to meet orphans in our program.

I truly do not know what to expect. Greg Jenks - the Executive Direcor of ZOE (I call him bossman) - tells me that my life is going to change the moment that I encounter these young people. He predicts an indwelling of the Holy Spirit such that my already existing passion may increase a hunred-fold. I would be lying if I said that didn't scare me. I have heard stories about what people ae liable to do once the Holy Spirit gives them direction. Moses walked straight into the courtroom of the Pharaoh. David decided he could fight Goliath. The Zebedee brothers dropped their nets - their livelihood - to follow Christ. Paul lost his sight so that he could see the truth of the gospel.

I am scared because I know that there was something in that bread and that cup last night. Last night was my first time to officiate at communion, just having ben commissioned by the UMC this summer. Until last night, I had never said the crucial words above. I had never been the one up front calling for the bread and the wine to be transformed. I have communion countless times, but last night I was struck by the power of the grace of God that allows even me to aid in the conveyance of God's grace. I am scared because the words of invocation should not be taken lightly. I felt the Holy Spirit was present in this place last night. If God can change Hawaiian bread and grape juice, God might just be able to change me too. For that, I give thanks in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit...

Amen.

The world is complicated.

2009-07-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

A girl barely survives the Rwandan genocide after she was beaten by a club full of nails. At 15 she is orphaned with her siblings when she comes across an abandoned baby. She takes care of the child.

A girl of 20 takes care of 7 siblings after they were orphaned. That 7 becomes 8 after her little sister is raped and gives birth to a child. With a little help from ZOE Ministry, she is not only taking care of her 8 family members but with her group members takes care of 45 other children through a piggery, a cassava plantation, and a restaurant.

In a world gone awry, how can self-sacrificial love like that exist? This love is evidence that these stories exist within a larger story, one that encompasses our lives and provides a means of redemption. Such stories are witnesses to good in a hateful world – to God in forsaken places.

I leave for Africa on Wednesday with ZOE Ministry to sit and hear the stories of AIDS orphans. In Africa, there is a particular tree called the Baobab tree known for its wide branches so that many can gather and hear the stories that are told under its branches. This blog is titled “Stories from the Baobab” because I hope that this will provide the space to tell these stories. Some of the stories that I will tell do not yet have a redemptive ending. They will be full of sadness and pain, hurt and anger.

All stories, however, are located within a larger story. As Christians, our triumphs and tragedies are brought into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. That is the point of baptism; it connects us to a particular Jew 2,000 years ago that brought the kingdom of God near. Jesus may not make the world less complicated, but he does make it worth living. That is the story that we all must tell…