Daily Life

Hello, dear friends.

I think that sometimes what I say can seem overly dramatic. Part of the reason is that I try to share what I think is interesting, different, or unusual about our lives. Another part is that I share the prayer needs, and they tend to be a little more on the edge than our moment to moment living.

Actually, we are quite boring. Seasons of life determine our days. The last several weeks have been the season of unpacking (finally!!!! after 3 years!!!) the boxes in our house onto the shelves and dressers that came in our crate. A lot of time at home.

A lot of our time since being back has been spent in construction. Putting in the rain catchment system (Praise the wonderful name of Jesus!) took months. This is Africa. It required that David stay around the house so that he could go out several times a day to check progress and make sure that the decisions made were good ones.

Right now, David is dealing with trying to get our on-demand gas hot water heaters to work. They came in the crate and we are thrilled to have them but now we have to work out the kinks because nothing, yet nothing, can work easily the first time. That is a prayer request. It would be horribly disappointing to have finally gotten these heaters and not be able to make them work.

I will admit that homeschool has suffered lately. I feel guilty, but try not to. Chloe is very young for her grade and we have decided to repeat 6th grade next year, so we have some wiggle room. I keep her doing bits and pieces, but have focused on other things since her schooling is not so urgent.

These sound like little things, but nothing is simple here. Everything takes a great deal of time and energy. There is little multitasking in Africa. It means that we have not focused as much on ministry. This is not something we like. David is often, in fact, brought down spiritually and emotionally when he is tied to the house. So, I could ask for prayer there, too, that we quickly come to a place where we are released from our house. David likes to say that the more stuff you have the more it drains your time and energy. And yet, a lot of this is necessary to our home being a relaxing place to re-energize.

I am not complaining. Really. I just want to give a window into our daily lives. It is what it is. And, frankly, it is not that exciting. We often go to bed before 9pm. How's that for being party animals?

We look forward to the day - prayerfully soon - when our time will be focused on ministry. We are doing ministry now, but not in the way we would like. I sometimes ask myself why we bother to do so much to our house when we already live in luxurious circumstances compared to our Christian brothers and sisters. Would it not be better to be content?

I come to the answer that we have repeated to ourselves many times: we are in it for the long haul. We need to do what is necessary to keep us here. If spending time on this now helps us to stay the course for many years to come, it is what we should do. There are others who would be more content to do without a hot shower. We have dear friends, in fact, who lived that way for years and saw it as only a minor inconvenience. Perhaps we are spoiled.

But we are all different. I, for instance, need color. I paint my walls - the living room is blue, the kitchen red... It rejuvenates me, whereas staring at extra glossy cream walls (that is the norm here) drains the life out of me. I need books and sewing and crafty things. I need to be silly and fun and different.

Am I getting too far off the ministry subject for this blog? Not sure, but welcome to my world. These are the things we think about as we live here. How best to balance our time. What our priorities should be. How to make it for the long haul.

These are matters for prayer as you think of us. Some missionaries think that prayer letters and requests should only be for ministry. I think that we need prayer as much or more than our ministry. We can be the weak link in the chain, and we fight against that. We are humans with feet of clay and we patch up the cracks daily.

But don't think that there is not joy. Our house is full of laughter. We make fun of ourselves and life as much as we can. I can't imagine taking myself or life too seriously. I am much too much of a fool to be given such importance. I hope that the people who see us on a daily basis think of us as people of laughter. That would be a very high compliment. Unfortunately, you tend to see my serious side!

We love you and we thank God for your interest in our lives. And most especially for your prayers.

Blessings.

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Battling Circumsion

In my last entry I left you hanging as to our last ministry vision idea. It is a daunting task, as I will explain.

This vision is the most important and in some ways the most dangerous. The Kuria do male and female circumcision during the month of April. Most tribes have an initiation process into adulthood. These almost always involve witchcraft of some kind and often include a sexual initiation. We are not sure of all that is involved with the Kuria's tradition but we know one thing - it is more evil than most.

Whereas some witchcraft is usually involved, we feel that the Kuria traditions are much more tied to Satanic rituals. I will tell you why we think that. The Kuria people have different clans and not every clan circumcises every year. The leaders of each clan come together at a certain place at a river. They place food offerings on the ground and then turn and leave for a little while. When they return, whoever's food was eaten are the clans that can circumcise.

Then the highest ranking boy from each clan comes to that sacred place in the river. They go under the water and when they come up they have been circumcised. The pastor who was telling us about this truly believes that this happens. He is a strong man of God that we highly respect. I am not sure what to believe, except that I believe Satan has the power to do it.

There is another story, one even more scary. A female government official who was not Kuria came to this region and began trying to enforce the laws against female circumcision. One night the spirits came while she was sleeping and circumcised her. She left immediately. Was this Satan or was she drugged and attacked? I cannot say. I just know that it is evil.

Our plan is to create an initiation process that glorifies the Lord. It would be a time when the boys or girls are gathered together and taken through a time that signifies the entrance into adulthood. This would include some physical tasks as well as teaching Biblical principles about being a man or woman of God.

Our process would start with bringing this to our pastors, gathering together other evangelical pastors, and bringing in teachers from places where it has been done successfully. We would then look at our particular people group and make a plan that would be the most meaningful.

This is risky business because it is where Satan reigns over these people. Breaking this could be a huge breakthrough in reaching the Mara area.

Please continue to pray for us. Bathe this in prayer. We have not yet taken these ideas to our pastors, but hope to do so soon.

Blessings.

Vision

Well, it has certainly been a time lately! We have had some great praises - our crate arrived! That has made us quite busy, but in a wonderful way. We have put together shelves and finally starting unpacking boxes! We even have an armoire and hung up clothes! It's amazing! There are quite a few stories of how Africa works - or doesn't - with all this, but I won't bore you with that.

We had a great meeting with the Eastern clusters. During that time, God began to show me a vision for our ministry and I want to share that with you so that you can be praying with us.

One thing we have not done is worked on a people group world view. This is done by surveying random people as you drive through the area and ask questions about their life and beliefs. Examples of questions might be: Do you believe in a single god or many? Who do you worship? What is love to you? What does friendship mean to you? These questions can give us important insight as to how we communicate the gospel.

Another idea that I feel God is leading us to is providing clay water pots that clean water for drinking to some of the people in the neighborhoods around our two town churches. These pots are made by local people in Kenya. As water seeps from the original pot to a second pot it is cleaned enough to be drinkable. This project would communicate the love and concern of our Baptist churches to the community and create a more known presence. Baptist are almost unheard of in this area and we need to communicate who we are and why we are here. Of course, an important part of this project would be deciding who would receive the pots. We would probably focus on older people and ones who are taking care of orphaned family members.

The last idea that God has led me to is the most important and, in some ways, the most intimidating. I will tackle that one in my next entry as it is a long explanation.

Please be in prayer for us as we approach our pastors with these ideas. If they agree then we will begin to make plans to proceed. Pray for our wisdom in all these decisions and that God will use our every action to His glory.

Blessings.