One Minute in Church

Join us for one minute of our church experience in Churo (Kenya). (Turn off Google Ads for more of the picture.)

Wordless Wednesday

The Other Shadrack

After meeting some of the folks in Africa, I have some new heroes. One is Shadrack, the guy I told you about who teaches 91 kids under a tree. I wrote a post about him over at the SPS blog.

One of the Devo Girls

Yesterday I had the joy of serving as a guest lecturer for a group of D.Min. women about women in church history. One of the people I profiled was Elizabeth of Hungary.

The daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary and Gertrude (murdered at 38), she was reared in Wartburg Castle in Thuringia (central Germany). She came from a long line of Christ-followers, and at age 14 she married Louis II, King of Thuringia. But he died in a crusade, leaving her with three children at age twenty.

Still, she used her wealth to help the poor and ill, and she built a home for lepers. During times of famine, she opened soup kitchens and sold her jewels to provide for needy. She was so generous that her brother-in-law tried to seize her estate so she wouldn't give it all away. She died of exhaustion at 24.

I especially love a quote from her that endures. It's hard to argue with her logic:

Here, before my eyes, is my God and my King, the mild and merciful Jesus, crowned with sharp thorns; shall I, who am only a vile creature, remain before him crowned with pearls, gold and precious stones, and by my crown mock his?

Wordless Wednesday

In Amboseli

How many living things you have made, O LORD!
You have exhibited great skill in making all of them;
the earth is full of the living things you have made.
Psalm 104:24 (NET)

Memories of Kenya

You can speed up, slow down, or pause using the buttons in the lower left of the pictures.

Putting Things in Perspective

Seeing the degree of poverty helped us put into perspective that even if neither of us is ever employed again, between the church, our families, and the government, we will still have clean water and food--more than I can say for most of the people I just met.

One brother told of how God stopped him from eating concrete mix as a kid. He had not eaten for six days and found powder he thought might quell his hunger pangs, so he mixed it with water and prepared to eat it when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. He hid the mix under the bed and opened the door to find a man with some groceries. When the boy returned and removed the mixture, he found it hardened. (He later heard on the radio that two children had died from eating concrete mix.) At that point, he realized God had His hand on his life!

My friend, Leani, wrote yesterday from South Africa, and her email included mention of a church there that holds a monthly service where everyone who owns more than one shirt is to bring anything they own in excess of one and give it to somebody with none.

We take a team to Mexico about once a year. And I have to say Africa made Mexico look rich. And it made America look decadent.

With the Maasai

At Jospeh's boma, we hung out together...













(That's a weaver bird nest hanging off the acacia tree.)

They made us gifts...













Then we traveled to the Imbirikani Girls' School where we spoke and spent the night (they constructed our beds and turned on water as we arrived!). It's a high school for Maasai girls, most of whom already have husbands and children. But it gives them a chance to get an education, which will improve the economics of the entire family.

The students provided an amazing assembly full of dancing and poetry to welcome us. They spoke openly about how they are saying "no" to female genital mutilation and seeking a better future for themselves.

What the school doesn't need is Westerners telling them how to run their programs and providing oversight. They have good administration, teachers, and solidly committed students.

What they do need: publicity so they can attract more students, a library, woman-led teams to come teach business and theological seminars (in Kenya, Bible literacy is part of the government education system), and publicity to help them raise funds (it's running at a $100,000/year deficit; having more students will help this).

This is where Sheila (right, below) begged me for a sponsor. She is the oldest of four kids, and the school secretary told me she's a star student. But her siblings need an education, so unless she finds someone to cover her tuition, she will have to drop out next year so her single-mom parent can afford the tuition for the least educated of her children. Sheila longs to one day be a surgeon.

More Images

Yay!

Right before I left for Kenya, I learned I was one of the winners of the Cecil Murphey Publicity Scholarship! Recipients each receive a publicity campaign valued at $4,500, which in my case will be directed toward my forthcoming work, Frappe with Philippians. Cecil Murphey is the coauthor of 90 Minutes in Heaven.

Kenya Highlights I

My hubby got up for the day at 11:30 PM last night. I made it all the way until 2 AM. I was ready to use the phone at 5. Glad I looked at the clock!

Before I forget ... In case you're interested, a couple of months ago AusJenny interviewed me about coauthoring, and her piece ran today over on her blog.

Okay, back to Kenya. For the beauty shots, come back on Wordless Wednesday. For now, here are some mental snapshots: Awakening in Nairobi to the Islamic call to prayer; the smell of burning hemp; sleeping on an island and opening my eyes to a sunrise; seeing yellow weaver birds steal sugar from our bowl; tasting Stony (ginger ale on steroids); braking for a flange of baboons running across the road; hanging out for the day at a Maasai boma; meeting new heroes--including a teacher with one outdoor class of 91 kids (with no school building and zero supplies) who goes on to conduct after-school literacy classes for adults, and Moses, who has supported his four AIDS-orphaned siblings since he was 16 by driving a car; getting treated like a hero for simply showing up; rocking down with an African church choir; learning the difference between Maasai and Pokot; doing stuff I swore I'd never do again like riding in a small plane, giving impromptu speeches, and being separated from my family in a foreign country; the smell of mosquito repellant mixed with SPF 30 lotion; hearing exotic bird sounds; seeing a family of giraffes near the road; having a smart student beg me to find her a sponsor so she can stay in school and become a surgeon (I think she needs about $50/month); interacting with monkeys on hotel grounds; experiencing hospitality that would put a Southerner to shame; turning a white washcloth brown from the dust on my face; tasting crocodile and ostrich; sleeping under a mosquito net; crossing rough waters in a little boat with no life preservers; watching our team van get un-stuck by men with machetes and a government vehicle with a winch; asking "Where is OSHA?"; seeing the snows of Kilimanjaro; having our vehicle chased for more than a mile by children who want us to stay; having to stop for lions in the road.

I've included above another shot of, Joseph, the Maasai evangelist. He set it up for us to show the "Jesus" film one night at a boma, and you have to imagine this... They're shepherds. They have sheep ba-a-ahing as we watch. One even runs out of somebody's home and into the crowd. Without electricity, stars glow against a black sky (the movie runs on a battery-powered data projector). Then we get to the part of the film where angels appear to shepherds abiding in their fields keeping watch over their flocks by night...and amazement ripples through the crowd.

(Picture below compliments of the Jamisons' newsletter.)

Home Safely!

If you read my last post, um, make that sleeping horizonally. After hours and hours sitting I have a date with my own bed and pillow, and though it's not quite 4 PM in Dallas, I'm headed in to get some sleep.

But we had a fantastic trip. Amazing, moving, life-changing stuff. And we even made it home with all our bags, though we nearly missed our flight getting out of Kenya because the police gunned down some car jackers and that sort of caused a traffic jam on the way to the airport.

Here's a shot of our team in Maasailand. The guy in purple is our brother Joseph, who is the evangelist to the Maasai. His family killed a sheep while we watched and cooked it to celebrate our arrival. Kenyan hospitality rocks.

I can now say I know what it's like to land on an unpaved airstrip.

More soon. G'night!

Dallas or Bust

Our flight departs Amsterdam around 3 AM Dallas time, and we are set to land back at DFW at around 1:15 PM. Figure two hours getting through customs and grabbing our bags. Then it's home to sleep vertically!

Back in Nairobi

Back in Nairobi, we plan to do some shopping. I also hope to do some research for our friend Celestin as I prepare to help him write his story. He's from Rwanda, and six of his family members were killed during the season of unrest. He did his dissertation on reconciliation and serves Africans, helping them work through issues of forgiveness and reconciliation. He received some of his education in Nairobi, so I'll be trying to at least get some photos of his school.

My family may check out the National Museums or the Giraffe Foundation to learn more about Kenya's natural and cultural history.

At 10 PM (about 3 Dallas time), we are scheduled to board flights to Paris (arrival at 5 AM to us) and then another flight to Amsterdam. (One of those times spent in great cities where you see only the inside of an airline terminal!)

Team Time

Today is the day set aside for meeting with the wonderful nationals who direct the seven ministries we want to serve. I'm slated to speak on women's leadership issues, and I plan to talk about having a male/female teamwork model based on the apostle Paul's list of coworkers in Romans 16.

Tonight we have a late-afternoon flight back to Nairobi.

Training Time

Today's a big day. The schedule includes an all-day training seminar where we forget our structured Western "three-point outlines" and focus instead on telling stories to make our points.

At dinner we are scheduled to meet with a group of national leaders who have banded together to offer pastoral training, girls' education, job training for widows, and orphanages. These folks have traveled a good distance to meet with us (tomorrow), and they're the ones we want to help. They are doing the ministry on the ground, and we want to serve them by offering administrative support.

Also, tonight--if the locals want us to --we plan to show the Jesus Film.

Deep Interior

Today's schedule has us in the deep interior visiting the site of future works--the Amaya Valley primary school and a future orphan home. We've been told that families have signed up about eighty children to attend this yet-to-be-built school--that's how badly they want their kids to have access to education.

We'll be playing some of it by ear, as the site has no road. It could be a hot, dusty hike. Please pray that the van works well on the part that does have a road--it's a long way to the nearest town!

Once we finish there, it's back to Baringo for the night.

The Lord's Day

Today we worship with Pokot Africans who share our faith in Christ. Our team consists of twelve people, and our new African friends will be thrilled if all of us speak to them. Obviously they don't look at their watches and ask, "What till will this be over?"

Today's destination: Churo. You can check out some of the work we hope to help develop in this region by going here.

Travel Day

Today's another travel day. We board a flight back to Nairobi and then change planes. We are set to land in the East Pokot region, spending the night at Lake Baringo. The lake is surrounded by volcanic ranges.

Our time on this trip is divided fairly evenly between two people groups--the Maasai and the Pokot. The Maasai value being very slender. The Pokot value looking well fed!

Girl Time

The grown-ups today consider what we can do to help with education. And today is also our girl's chance to shine. She is not at all thrilled about public speaking, but she has the chance to share with students at a Maasai girls' high school--for students in grades nine through eleven--answering their questions about what it's like to live in our part of the world.


A few weeks ago we ran around town with a camera and our daughter's friend, Kathryn, taking shots of them decked out in dress-code duds in front of their middle school, eating ice cream at Sonic, standing in front of their respective homes, playing their instruments--slice of life stuff. We had that made into an 8X10 laminated photo book for our girl to use at this school.

When we're finished, if all goes as planned we'll head back to Serena, inside the game reserve.

Masai Boma-Namelok

What time is it where you are? We're eight hours ahead of Central Daylight Time. So most of our friends are starting their days while we're well into ours in Kenya!

Today's agenda includes teaching time and visiting the site of a future orphanage. That's the Western version. It'll actually consist mostly of meeting under a tree with children who don't yet go to school (but want to) and some of the women for about two hours. In the states when we plan a trip, we want to know the agenda. The more African approach is not the event but the presence--who will we be with? So the schedule is for some "with" time at this location.

Then we're slated to show the "Jesus" film at night. It'll be my first time to hear it in Swahili! Last I heard we were scheduled to rough it a bit by spending the night in a girls' high school. But one holds plans loosely in this part of the world. Actually, we must do that everywhere, huh? We're just more conscious of it in Africa.

The Maasai people live in compounds called Boma. So the location is the Masai Boma, Namelok.

Amboseli

Our team of 12 includes four teen girls. Glad they have each other!

After nine hours in Nairobi, we depart on another short flight for the 160-mile trip from Nairobi to Amboseli, where we are set for a day of rest and time-zone recovery at Serena Lodge in the Amboseli National Park. The park spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. It’s considered one of the best wildlife-viewing places in the world and is famous for being the best place in Africa to get close to free-ranging elephants. It also affords spectacular views of the highest free-standing mountain in the world, Mt. Kilimanjaro. Gearing up for a very full day tomorrow...

Lots of Flying

One of my former students, Leani, lives in South Africa. When we learned we'd be in Africa this summer, I emailed her and asked how far she'd be from Kenya. I laugh now at my own geographical ignorance. She gently let me know that she'd have to take an eight-hour flight (that's how long it takes from N.Y. City to L.A.!) if she wanted to come up to meet me. Saying I'd be in Nairobi to someone in South Africa is like telling someone in Washington, D.C., that I'll be over in London!

We spend July 8 back in the air--this time from Amsterdam to Nairobi, arriving around 8 PM Nairobi time. Once in Nairobi we're booked at the Mayfield Guest House (a ministry of AIM--Africa Inland Mission). Then we get up early for another flight into the interior. Our bodies will be adjusting to the eight-hour time difference! Pray that my hubby doesn't get a migraine. A big trigger is air pressure changes and alterations in sleep patterns...

Today's the Day!

We're Kenya-bound today! To find Kenya on a map of Africa, look for where the east coast of Africa meets the equator. Right where the two come together, you see a little orange/brown country just to the left of the words "Indian Ocean." That's it!

We have bags packed, malaria pills swallowed, immunizations received, and our 33-pound limit of stuff.

We're slated for a 3:05 PM departure (Central Daylight Time) for the nine-hour flight to Amsterdam (Netherlands) on Royal Dutch/KLM airlines. They have us scheduled to land around 7 AM Amsterdam time (midnight where we come from). Amsterdam's day begins as our bodies say our days should end. We get out and stretch our legs, have a three-hour layover, then board another flight--this one taking eight hours--to Nairobi.

For the days ahead, I've pre-written blog entries according to the agenda we plan to follow so you can follow our daily progress, but who knows how closely what shows up here will reflect what actually happens! I probably won't have Internet access.

Please pray for health, safety, rest, flexibility, team unity, and insight into which needs we can actually help meet. We have so much to learn! Thank you for partnering with us.

The Old, Old Story

Americans are obsessed with new stuff. I used to love International Coffee's Cafe Vienna, until they "updated" the flavor. So I switched the "French Vanilla." But they did the same thing with that! Somehow we seem to think that "new and improved" is always better. If you don't believe me, walk down the aisle in your grocery store and count then number of times you see "new!" written in bold on the front of a product.

Yet much of the world thinks differently. They like ancient. New passes away; old has proved itself. Great literature, for example, draws on existing stories. (Think of what Steinbeck did with the Cain and Abel story in East of Eden. Or Melville with Jonah in Moby-Dick.)

I confronted this "new is better" mentality again today when I read a story in the news about how a researcher found writing that describes the idea of a Jewish messiah dying and rising. And this writing pre-dates Jesus. So a few scholars conclude, "This will shake the foundations of Christianity because it proves that the idea of a suffering Savior was not new when Jesus came along!"

Huh?

I find this logic particularly interesting in light of C.S. Lewis's experience. Lewis was a master of Norse mythology. And he confided to his Roman Catholic friend and fellow Inkling, J. R. R. Tolkien, that he had trouble believing Christianity was true because the idea of a savior dying and coming back to life was not a new concept. Christianity, Lewis argued, was not credible because it was not an original idea.

But Tolkien countered by asking "What if...?" What if God planted an ideal in every culture, including the myths of ancient times. Then the Lord of History turned the best myth into reality in a flesh-and-blood person. The myth of a dying/rising savior exists because it's the best of all possible imaginations. And then--voila!--the best imagination morphs into reality in the person of Jesus Christ.

Lewis would later say that somewhere between leaving the tavern a skeptic and arriving home that night, he believed.

Recently I re-read Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. And on the page that follows her dedication she includes this quote: "It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out." It's from Heraclitus the Ephesian, who lived 535-475 BC. And it sounds much like words written about five centuries later by a resident of the same Greek city named John. (He wrote The Gospel of John, the Books of 1, 2, and 3 John, and the Revelation.) Three times within four chapters of his final work John describes the Almighty as "the one who was and who is and who is to come." It's in the Bible. But it wasn't a new phrase. It had already been around for at least five centuries.

No, the wording was not new. In fact John probably borrowed something even more significant from his city's well-known philosopher. Heraclitus was famous for teaching that the logos {word} was the fundamental order of all. And John begins his gospel with, "In the beginning was the logos and the logos was with God, and the logos was God...and the logos became flesh and dwelled among us..." His point? The fundamental order of all is fulfilled through the God-man, Jesus Christ.

I don't think John was trying to be original. He was drawing on what was known. Still, he took it a step further to show what they'd missed. Paul did something similar when he showed up in Athens, saw an altar dedicated "to an unknown God" and told the Athenians, "Let me tell you about this unknown God you worship. He made the entire world!"

So first-century Jews dreamed of a suffering savior--a deliverer who understood their pain yet could rise victorious above it.

Is that such a surprise? No, the surprise is that the dream came true in a living, breathing person who could walk on water, raise the dead, turn water to wine.

Skeptics are going to have to come up with something stronger than what they've found to shake the foundations of the faith. Something closer to, say, a body wrapped in grave clothes, lying in a tomb.

Happy 4th, Y'all!

Tonight my family along with my sis and hers spontaneously hopped in our cars and drove about one mile to see the Sunnyvale, Texas, fireworks display. I stayed in the car to avoid mosquitoes (and so I could sing the national anthem while I watched without anyone telling me to shut up!). When we got home, my daughter figured out how to play it on her violin. (Sounded good, too!) Don't you love the phrase, "the land of the free and the home of the brave"?

My favorite fireworks displays ever:
1. Washington National Monument 1976, bicencennial
2. Lake Tahoe, synchronized to music
3. Our honeymoon in Disneyworld over the lagoon during the Main Street Electrical Parade

What are your fave fireworks memories?

Wordless Wednesday

New Fiction Resource

If you love redemptive stories, here's an FYI for you--today marks the premiere of Christian Fiction Online Magazine. Under the guidance of editor Michelle Sutton, the presentation is professional and filled with more content than you can hope to fully explore.

You'll find some top names in CBA publishing represented in articles and columns; an author interview; book reviews; and devotionals. Joyce Hart of the Hartline agent has a column. Allen Arnold of Thomas Nelson appears in the Publishers Corner, and there are articles on ACFW Happenings, publicity, writing how-tos, short stories, print-on-demand info, and my own agent, Chip MacGregor, giving his two cents--always entertaining and enlightening.

Here's the link.

What to Do about the Price of Gas

My sister's father-in-law sent me a link to this. What do you think?