My blessed brother Blake Barfield has always wanted to have a Pokotian smoothie. It made his list of things that he’s got to do before he dies.
To make a Pokotian smoothie, one gets half a cup of fresh milk from the udder, then pierces the neck of the cow just enough to get blood to spurt out. This fills the other half of the glass, and now you have a bloody smothie. This drink is taken everyday by the Pokot people.
On Tuesday, I journey to West Pokot, somewhere on the border of Kenya and Uganda, to bring the Gospel, the good news. This doesn’t mean just preaching words at them they they may not understand. We will be preaching but also be constructing a well for them to have clean drinking water. (They make up 1 billion of the earth’s 6 billion that don’t have clean drinking water.) They are a nomadic people and most of their time is spent only in search of food and water. We bring the WHOLE Gospel* (A journal to come on this soon.)
And of course, I’ll get to have that Pokotian smoothie. Probably many times since that’s sometimes all they eat.
Read more about them here…so here’s where I post the wikipedia or researched site…but wait, can I access any of the internet besides the bare minimum. False, so go research yourself.
Edward did say though that the 27 hour journey here was a cakewalk compared to this journey. Its 12 hours to go about 300 km and the roads I hear are just terrible. Unlike anything we can imagine.
We leave Tuesday and return next Monday.
Keep those prayers going. Write PFP on your hand: Pray for Pokot
…..and pray that I don’t turn into a cow vampire
Sorry I won’t update for such a long time. Sorry I haven’t updated in such a while to being with. The Internet has been very slow and hasn’t even worked many times.
I won’t fail you though. Many posts to come in the near future. Don’t forget about me here.
Keep the emails and messages coming. They’re bloody good!
Baylor-go to chapel today. A friend of Edward’s is speaking in Chapel today. His name is Brian McLaren.
Thanks for your love. Thanks for your selfishness. Keep embodying Christ
Love God. Embrace Beauty. Live Life to the Fullest.-Kyle Lake
-benya
Monday, August 27, 2007
And then came the trainwreck...
(actually written last Friday)
And then came the trainwreck…
Slow breaths…Deep breaths…take it in, but keep control. You are the one who will be here for 3 months, you can’t cry in front of the team that is here for only 2 weeks. But the mud. But the trash. But the pain in the eyes, the open wounds that reveal bone. The poverty that radiates. The addiction that has taken every child, every man, captive.
And then I can’t it back as tears began to seep from the ducts.
These were thoughts that ran through my head when I finally was run over by the train. The train of oppression and poverty that most children of God suffer from here in Kenya. After 1 week here, I had finally gotten my hands dirty(both figuratively and literally.)
We visited the street children and street dwellers for the first time this morning. We brought bread, milk, and the Gospel to a sight that most have never seen. They gathered next to mounds of trash, wet, muddy and freezing and came stumbling towards us when we piled out of our van. We gave them food, bread, and a friend. We heard their stories.
Most didn’t’ make but maybe a dollar a day. They washed cars of the wealthy (because you are wealthy if you drive a car, only 15 percent do in this metropolitan city of 4 million) and pick though heaves of garbage looking for plastic to recycle. Then, if they are amongst the fortunate, they travel back to Kibera, the largest slum in Africa.
…and that was just Monday morning.
I apologize for not posting in almost a week. The internet connection here is very poor and it has been out in most of Nairobi for the past 2 or 3 days.
I also haven’t written or journaled because I didn’t know how I would handle it. Even though I’ve only spent a few hours a day of this first week in the slums and with people suffering from AIDS/HIV, they still have been the most overwhelming sights I have ever seen.
I’ve wrested with so many things in this first week, as you can read in the essay that I wrote a few days ago but just now posted.
Basically, I was struggling with the differing Christian beliefs between Africans and Americans. This faith healing thing has always been a thing that I see as a bit skeptical. I’ve read theologians who say that miracles that we think defy science could eventually be scientifically explained, we just haven’t discovered that dimension to our universe our the formula that causes that to happen.
And as said in the previous post, many polluted the act of faith healing when they put a charge on it and asked for money so they could put more velvet in their studio and buy more eyeliner to complete their clown makeup.
But that was before. That was before I saw evil….
Friday we went into a slum named South B. We handed out and posted flyers advertising the hairdressing school that City Harvest is opening in this slum for the young girls
Many move to the city from the rural areas in hope of a better life (just like most cities in third world countries). Well, they get here only to discover that there is not a great amount of jobs for the uneducated, (or the educated for that matter, Edward got a degree in finance but after that still went stages of over 40 days where he had no food). Now all of the sudden though there are bills to pay. They have to find a place to live and rent, they have to find food, and if they are to get around and try to find opportunity, they need a bus fare. This is all new to many of them, for they came from tribal communities or worked the land where they could go weeks without spending a dime.
For a man, they can go find a manual labor job, work in a factory, or be a guard to any one of the suburban neighborhoods (all are gated, walled, and have an electric fence.) For a woman though, there are very few opportunities. One can become a house maid(who lives, cooks, and cleans with the family), but the middle class or upperclass is not even a tenth of the people, so it is very hard for a girl to find a job. There is one job though that will always be in high demand: prostitution. Many girls resort to this just to have money to feed their family. Its no wonder that 1 in 5 have HIV/AIDS in the slums.
Women absolutle love to have their hair done though. Braids, cornrows, you name it, they’ll do it. So with the high demand, if girls are properly trained, they can find work somewhere doing hair or beauty therapy.
And what does it cost for a girl to be a part of this Kingdom bringing School? A little over $40 for this ½ day 3 month school that totally changes peoples lives.
Anyways, after the 361 word tangent, we were handing out flyers advertising the school. We ran across one of the ladies that leads a HIV support group. She kindly invited us back to her house.
Fortunately, her 14 or15 year old daughter did stop breast feeding when we entered their home, preventing me from feeling terribly awkward. Their home was about half the size of a college dorm room, or about the size of a small one car garage. A garage for a Cooper Mini at least.
She told her story of how her husband died of AIDS back in 1990, and she had miraculously lived to this day. She most likely became positive because or the husband. She lost her job as a businesswoman and has since been a potato fryer. She sets up here fire and kettle on the street and sells French fries. Of course word travels fast in a slum, where the space inbetween homes is smaller than a dormitory hall. With the great stigma here many refuse to buy from her if they she has HIV. They believe that they could get the disease by eating her fries. She daily denies her self though and prays and meets with others who are in the support group that she leads. Not to mention the other 4 people that live with her She still lives though and radiates hope and life in an area that smells of evil.
Praying for her was such a difficult yet beautiful thing. To think of the pain that she has gone through brought tears that rain-ex couldn’t handle. But the joy, she was truly embodying Resurrection, even though her time may be limited, amongst those who have unjustly suffered from such a terrible disease.
What was this strange thing that blanketed this area.
It only got harder from here. Gladys, the kind grandmotherly support group leader, led me to another one of the support group members.
It was only 75 or 80 outside, but the place that we entered was like a pit of the slum. It consumed all the heat. It must’ve been around 90 degrees when I entered Jacquelyn’s home. Flys and mosquitos were more of a front door than the thin clothe as we entered. They swarmed around the pots and pans that hadn’t been washed in quite sometime. The home was ¼ smaller than the last house, making it smaller than a garage. Maybe a motorcycle garage. it had 2 beds for the 5 children and dying mother.
And then I saw her. Jacquelyn. She slowly emerged from under the tattered sheets that covered both her and her bed. I thought she 50 by her frailty but also thought she was 20 by her size. She was proably 40. Puss had dried under her left eye, and it looked as if a new trickle was starting. A piece of gauze covered her right eye. It was held to her skin by dry puss.
This blanket started to cover up the light.
Then she told her story. It was much like Gladys’s, she had contracted the disease by her husband and the husband had died many years ago. The guide from the church, as well as Glady’s were telling me how thankful she was and how God had truly blessed her by letting her have an eye operation. She had developed eye cancer behind her eye and it had given her an immense amount of pain. She had one operation, but it did no good. 4 months ago though the doctor finally removed her eye. She and the church were so thankful, because she could now SMILE. I saw behind the gauze when a wind gusted in enough to blow her gauze out of place….I think I could’ve done a better job taking her eye out. The sight was so hard to see.
She was so thankful though. She lay there, with her children outside playing, possibly looking through different piles of trash for some food, with the heaviest burden I’ve ever witnessed, but she was rejoicing because she could still smile.
Light was gone, darkness had set in. This WAS truly evil.
When they asked me to start praying over, I had no idea where to start. I sat there and I thought SCREW science, differing theology, philosophical views skeptism. I WANT TO BELIEVE THAT GOD CAN BRING A MIRACLE RIGHT NOW MORE THAN ANYTHING. I WANT FAITH HEALING TO WORK. WHO CARES IF IT SCREWS UP EVERYTHING THAT HAS STARTED TO HELP ME MAKE SENSE OF MATTERS….I WANT GOD TO HEAL THIS WOMAN MORE THAN ANYTHING.
It was truly an unforgettable experience.
(and sorry for the inappropriate language….this was very much an inappropriate language.
After reliving that for the 30th time I have no words to continue with…
Pray. Believe. Live.
bc
And then came the trainwreck…
Slow breaths…Deep breaths…take it in, but keep control. You are the one who will be here for 3 months, you can’t cry in front of the team that is here for only 2 weeks. But the mud. But the trash. But the pain in the eyes, the open wounds that reveal bone. The poverty that radiates. The addiction that has taken every child, every man, captive.
And then I can’t it back as tears began to seep from the ducts.
These were thoughts that ran through my head when I finally was run over by the train. The train of oppression and poverty that most children of God suffer from here in Kenya. After 1 week here, I had finally gotten my hands dirty(both figuratively and literally.)
We visited the street children and street dwellers for the first time this morning. We brought bread, milk, and the Gospel to a sight that most have never seen. They gathered next to mounds of trash, wet, muddy and freezing and came stumbling towards us when we piled out of our van. We gave them food, bread, and a friend. We heard their stories.
Most didn’t’ make but maybe a dollar a day. They washed cars of the wealthy (because you are wealthy if you drive a car, only 15 percent do in this metropolitan city of 4 million) and pick though heaves of garbage looking for plastic to recycle. Then, if they are amongst the fortunate, they travel back to Kibera, the largest slum in Africa.
…and that was just Monday morning.
I apologize for not posting in almost a week. The internet connection here is very poor and it has been out in most of Nairobi for the past 2 or 3 days.
I also haven’t written or journaled because I didn’t know how I would handle it. Even though I’ve only spent a few hours a day of this first week in the slums and with people suffering from AIDS/HIV, they still have been the most overwhelming sights I have ever seen.
I’ve wrested with so many things in this first week, as you can read in the essay that I wrote a few days ago but just now posted.
Basically, I was struggling with the differing Christian beliefs between Africans and Americans. This faith healing thing has always been a thing that I see as a bit skeptical. I’ve read theologians who say that miracles that we think defy science could eventually be scientifically explained, we just haven’t discovered that dimension to our universe our the formula that causes that to happen.
And as said in the previous post, many polluted the act of faith healing when they put a charge on it and asked for money so they could put more velvet in their studio and buy more eyeliner to complete their clown makeup.
But that was before. That was before I saw evil….
Friday we went into a slum named South B. We handed out and posted flyers advertising the hairdressing school that City Harvest is opening in this slum for the young girls
Many move to the city from the rural areas in hope of a better life (just like most cities in third world countries). Well, they get here only to discover that there is not a great amount of jobs for the uneducated, (or the educated for that matter, Edward got a degree in finance but after that still went stages of over 40 days where he had no food). Now all of the sudden though there are bills to pay. They have to find a place to live and rent, they have to find food, and if they are to get around and try to find opportunity, they need a bus fare. This is all new to many of them, for they came from tribal communities or worked the land where they could go weeks without spending a dime.
For a man, they can go find a manual labor job, work in a factory, or be a guard to any one of the suburban neighborhoods (all are gated, walled, and have an electric fence.) For a woman though, there are very few opportunities. One can become a house maid(who lives, cooks, and cleans with the family), but the middle class or upperclass is not even a tenth of the people, so it is very hard for a girl to find a job. There is one job though that will always be in high demand: prostitution. Many girls resort to this just to have money to feed their family. Its no wonder that 1 in 5 have HIV/AIDS in the slums.
Women absolutle love to have their hair done though. Braids, cornrows, you name it, they’ll do it. So with the high demand, if girls are properly trained, they can find work somewhere doing hair or beauty therapy.
And what does it cost for a girl to be a part of this Kingdom bringing School? A little over $40 for this ½ day 3 month school that totally changes peoples lives.
Anyways, after the 361 word tangent, we were handing out flyers advertising the school. We ran across one of the ladies that leads a HIV support group. She kindly invited us back to her house.
Fortunately, her 14 or15 year old daughter did stop breast feeding when we entered their home, preventing me from feeling terribly awkward. Their home was about half the size of a college dorm room, or about the size of a small one car garage. A garage for a Cooper Mini at least.
She told her story of how her husband died of AIDS back in 1990, and she had miraculously lived to this day. She most likely became positive because or the husband. She lost her job as a businesswoman and has since been a potato fryer. She sets up here fire and kettle on the street and sells French fries. Of course word travels fast in a slum, where the space inbetween homes is smaller than a dormitory hall. With the great stigma here many refuse to buy from her if they she has HIV. They believe that they could get the disease by eating her fries. She daily denies her self though and prays and meets with others who are in the support group that she leads. Not to mention the other 4 people that live with her She still lives though and radiates hope and life in an area that smells of evil.
Praying for her was such a difficult yet beautiful thing. To think of the pain that she has gone through brought tears that rain-ex couldn’t handle. But the joy, she was truly embodying Resurrection, even though her time may be limited, amongst those who have unjustly suffered from such a terrible disease.
What was this strange thing that blanketed this area.
It only got harder from here. Gladys, the kind grandmotherly support group leader, led me to another one of the support group members.
It was only 75 or 80 outside, but the place that we entered was like a pit of the slum. It consumed all the heat. It must’ve been around 90 degrees when I entered Jacquelyn’s home. Flys and mosquitos were more of a front door than the thin clothe as we entered. They swarmed around the pots and pans that hadn’t been washed in quite sometime. The home was ¼ smaller than the last house, making it smaller than a garage. Maybe a motorcycle garage. it had 2 beds for the 5 children and dying mother.
And then I saw her. Jacquelyn. She slowly emerged from under the tattered sheets that covered both her and her bed. I thought she 50 by her frailty but also thought she was 20 by her size. She was proably 40. Puss had dried under her left eye, and it looked as if a new trickle was starting. A piece of gauze covered her right eye. It was held to her skin by dry puss.
This blanket started to cover up the light.
Then she told her story. It was much like Gladys’s, she had contracted the disease by her husband and the husband had died many years ago. The guide from the church, as well as Glady’s were telling me how thankful she was and how God had truly blessed her by letting her have an eye operation. She had developed eye cancer behind her eye and it had given her an immense amount of pain. She had one operation, but it did no good. 4 months ago though the doctor finally removed her eye. She and the church were so thankful, because she could now SMILE. I saw behind the gauze when a wind gusted in enough to blow her gauze out of place….I think I could’ve done a better job taking her eye out. The sight was so hard to see.
She was so thankful though. She lay there, with her children outside playing, possibly looking through different piles of trash for some food, with the heaviest burden I’ve ever witnessed, but she was rejoicing because she could still smile.
Light was gone, darkness had set in. This WAS truly evil.
When they asked me to start praying over, I had no idea where to start. I sat there and I thought SCREW science, differing theology, philosophical views skeptism. I WANT TO BELIEVE THAT GOD CAN BRING A MIRACLE RIGHT NOW MORE THAN ANYTHING. I WANT FAITH HEALING TO WORK. WHO CARES IF IT SCREWS UP EVERYTHING THAT HAS STARTED TO HELP ME MAKE SENSE OF MATTERS….I WANT GOD TO HEAL THIS WOMAN MORE THAN ANYTHING.
It was truly an unforgettable experience.
(and sorry for the inappropriate language….this was very much an inappropriate language.
After reliving that for the 30th time I have no words to continue with…
Pray. Believe. Live.
bc
Think Outside the Box
(written last Wednesday)
The description of this blog says that it will contain more than just a narrative. I know that I have left so much out( a 4.5 hour church service, gymnast in Kibera, eating Ethiopian goat) but the following entry is a reflection and a bit of insight. I don’t think if I was sitting at home right now I would agree it, but things are different over here.
I’ve been having some problems with some of the theology being taught around this place(imagine that). The greatest example of corse is the prosperity gospel: that if you have faith and confess to Jesus then your car is on the way(since only 15 percent of people own a car). They even want nice cars after that. Not that this isn’t a problem in America as well though. In fact the Christian radio is played quite frequently here and some of the messages aren’t necessarily the most Love sounding things(just not a huge fan of claiming a holy war on someone because of a misunderstanding). So I’m sure some of misguided concepts come from the west.
Everyday we drive to work though I see countless posters and signs for Christian miracle and healing conferences and cents.
The miracles thing is an interesting concept. Yes I believe in miracles, but it seems as if they are advertised as if they are so rampant. The healing thing is also something that I find questionable. Granted, the miracles preached that repeat so often is the trash that comes on at 1 in the morning on cable asking for your money so some guy with a fat toupee and a botoxed face can get another grandmother Cadillac. He says if you send him one dollar he’ll multiplied it by 10 and so on. So with that disgusting image I find it a little harder to believe everything that people say is miraculous.
And at first, with my wrestling, confused, emerging, freed, frustrated, postmodern thinking mind I find it even more difficult to believe in such phenomenon as sight being restored just like that. Sure it can happen today but I call that miracle lasik eye surgery.
Rob Bell says many people usually think theology is heretical if they’ve never heard it before…So I think I was part of that many.
O the wisdom though that comes from Pastor Edward-it is so refreshing, so loving, and so open.
After hearing stories of how he has been healed before and how he has seen people that he feels are possessed by evil forces, I really started to wrestle with these concepts and actually started questioning his doctrine as well. What a dangerous thing that is that we constantly do. If somebody has one questionable thought or does one thing that we personally don’t approve of, we discredit everything they say and count them as “just another one of them.” O how destructive that is.
We had this conversation as we drove through the rain in Nairobi as we sat in traffic for 1.5 hours and as I enhaled a million parts per million of carbon monoxide from the mutatuas(public vans and buses) which have absolutely no filter or regulator, so I want to blame my sin of being judgmental on the conditions. It of course though was just me stuck and not thinking progressively.
Edward’s wisdom quickly gave deliverance though. He could tell that I was struggling to grasp and to believe his stories of miracles and of healing. He went on to say that he could understand why it would be hard to believe such things and to even see such things in America. With all that we are blessed with, he said, its almost as if there isn’t any room for miracles and healing. Maybe we’re embodying Christ and truly performing a miracle when a boy that has been diagnosed with leukemia receives proper care and can live on to become a doctor and perform the same kind of miracles. Maybe it is a miracle from God when someone who makes millions denies themselves and their family to live simply amongst the poor and give away all that they earn.
He continued on with saying that many here in Africa don’t have access to medical care and insurance or even a daily meal. Edward revealed that he had gone 40 days without eating before not just from fasting(which he used to do annually) but also because he didn’t have food growing up.(Talk about a success story-he goes from having nothing to attending Oxford). He said there wasn’t anyone around that had the resources that could bring such blessings… With no food, and no medical professionals, God did and does the healing.
Again, the wisdom and love that this man has is phenomenal.
I sat to the left with Edward and started processing and wrestling with his understanding.
So it was my progressive, questioning, usually skeptical thinking mind that possibly brought me into this, but it also helped me accept this(of course with the great help of Edward’s wisdom)
Here is what I came up with. We have put God in a box. He is whatever we interpret him as and sometimes only that. We have defined him by our own culture, our own traditions, and sometimes our own agenda.
There is no box for God. He probably doesn’t even live by our same dimensions.
Speaking dimensionally, it was my friend John Thornton who passed on this teaching to me. He said a teacher was teaching theology and had a dry erase marker in their hand. The teacher said that it is almost like we are trying to define a three-dimensional, in a two dimensional world. (There is a book that deals with this concept, I believe it is called
Flatland, but I’ll find that out.)
So when we look at the marker from one angle, it is a square, but if we look at it from another angle, it is a circle.
Relating this to theology, when we ask if God has given us free will or as predestined everything to already happen, so is it predestination or free-will? yep.
Perhaps when we speak of the way God is and the way He works amongst different cultures, countries, and time periods, He is a lot of times different. He transcends these boxes, these narrow theological beliefs, and these agendas that are developed by our two dimensional minds.
And it also depends how you are defining miracles. Edward said it is any extra-ordinary thing that happens in any extra-ordinary situation.
So do such extravagant miracles actually happen? I believe they do now. And I hope to continually tear away the cardboard that is storing my God.
And when I see the 14 signs for Christian healing tomorrow, I will have much less frustration and anger, and maybe perhaps a instead comforth
Finally, here is an insight that my brother Christopher Mack shared with me about this dilemma that I have been having. It has truly been such a beautiful encouragement
Our beloved Grandfather in the faith, asleep on this earth, but alive in the Kingdom to come will help you in this. Grandfather Chesterton from the church in England reminds us that it is folly to talk or predictability. That our so-called sciences are slaves to predictability. We would call anything a miracle where God ‘intervenes’ from the natural order, but this is not so. If that were the case, then most assuredly, everything is NOT spiritual. But you have learned a better way than this, for most assuredly, everything IS spiritual.
Hear from Brother Chesterton:
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.”
“But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and ever evening , ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grow old, and our Father is younger than we.”
“The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE. Heaven may ENCORE the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of brining forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose.”
“It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop.”
If this is the way of things, then most assuredly miracles are merely when our Heavenly Father decides to tell something to do something other than what we have expected. So look for miracles, both in the sun rising on the righteous and the unrighteous, in the transformation of your heart, but most assuredly in the physical and spiritual healing of those with you.
-Benjarobi in Nairobi
(Many of my insights here were inspired by a book called Generous Orthodoxy, indulge if you feel so inclined
The description of this blog says that it will contain more than just a narrative. I know that I have left so much out( a 4.5 hour church service, gymnast in Kibera, eating Ethiopian goat) but the following entry is a reflection and a bit of insight. I don’t think if I was sitting at home right now I would agree it, but things are different over here.
I’ve been having some problems with some of the theology being taught around this place(imagine that). The greatest example of corse is the prosperity gospel: that if you have faith and confess to Jesus then your car is on the way(since only 15 percent of people own a car). They even want nice cars after that. Not that this isn’t a problem in America as well though. In fact the Christian radio is played quite frequently here and some of the messages aren’t necessarily the most Love sounding things(just not a huge fan of claiming a holy war on someone because of a misunderstanding). So I’m sure some of misguided concepts come from the west.
Everyday we drive to work though I see countless posters and signs for Christian miracle and healing conferences and cents.
The miracles thing is an interesting concept. Yes I believe in miracles, but it seems as if they are advertised as if they are so rampant. The healing thing is also something that I find questionable. Granted, the miracles preached that repeat so often is the trash that comes on at 1 in the morning on cable asking for your money so some guy with a fat toupee and a botoxed face can get another grandmother Cadillac. He says if you send him one dollar he’ll multiplied it by 10 and so on. So with that disgusting image I find it a little harder to believe everything that people say is miraculous.
And at first, with my wrestling, confused, emerging, freed, frustrated, postmodern thinking mind I find it even more difficult to believe in such phenomenon as sight being restored just like that. Sure it can happen today but I call that miracle lasik eye surgery.
Rob Bell says many people usually think theology is heretical if they’ve never heard it before…So I think I was part of that many.
O the wisdom though that comes from Pastor Edward-it is so refreshing, so loving, and so open.
After hearing stories of how he has been healed before and how he has seen people that he feels are possessed by evil forces, I really started to wrestle with these concepts and actually started questioning his doctrine as well. What a dangerous thing that is that we constantly do. If somebody has one questionable thought or does one thing that we personally don’t approve of, we discredit everything they say and count them as “just another one of them.” O how destructive that is.
We had this conversation as we drove through the rain in Nairobi as we sat in traffic for 1.5 hours and as I enhaled a million parts per million of carbon monoxide from the mutatuas(public vans and buses) which have absolutely no filter or regulator, so I want to blame my sin of being judgmental on the conditions. It of course though was just me stuck and not thinking progressively.
Edward’s wisdom quickly gave deliverance though. He could tell that I was struggling to grasp and to believe his stories of miracles and of healing. He went on to say that he could understand why it would be hard to believe such things and to even see such things in America. With all that we are blessed with, he said, its almost as if there isn’t any room for miracles and healing. Maybe we’re embodying Christ and truly performing a miracle when a boy that has been diagnosed with leukemia receives proper care and can live on to become a doctor and perform the same kind of miracles. Maybe it is a miracle from God when someone who makes millions denies themselves and their family to live simply amongst the poor and give away all that they earn.
He continued on with saying that many here in Africa don’t have access to medical care and insurance or even a daily meal. Edward revealed that he had gone 40 days without eating before not just from fasting(which he used to do annually) but also because he didn’t have food growing up.(Talk about a success story-he goes from having nothing to attending Oxford). He said there wasn’t anyone around that had the resources that could bring such blessings… With no food, and no medical professionals, God did and does the healing.
Again, the wisdom and love that this man has is phenomenal.
I sat to the left with Edward and started processing and wrestling with his understanding.
So it was my progressive, questioning, usually skeptical thinking mind that possibly brought me into this, but it also helped me accept this(of course with the great help of Edward’s wisdom)
Here is what I came up with. We have put God in a box. He is whatever we interpret him as and sometimes only that. We have defined him by our own culture, our own traditions, and sometimes our own agenda.
There is no box for God. He probably doesn’t even live by our same dimensions.
Speaking dimensionally, it was my friend John Thornton who passed on this teaching to me. He said a teacher was teaching theology and had a dry erase marker in their hand. The teacher said that it is almost like we are trying to define a three-dimensional, in a two dimensional world. (There is a book that deals with this concept, I believe it is called
Flatland, but I’ll find that out.)
So when we look at the marker from one angle, it is a square, but if we look at it from another angle, it is a circle.
Relating this to theology, when we ask if God has given us free will or as predestined everything to already happen, so is it predestination or free-will? yep.
Perhaps when we speak of the way God is and the way He works amongst different cultures, countries, and time periods, He is a lot of times different. He transcends these boxes, these narrow theological beliefs, and these agendas that are developed by our two dimensional minds.
And it also depends how you are defining miracles. Edward said it is any extra-ordinary thing that happens in any extra-ordinary situation.
So do such extravagant miracles actually happen? I believe they do now. And I hope to continually tear away the cardboard that is storing my God.
And when I see the 14 signs for Christian healing tomorrow, I will have much less frustration and anger, and maybe perhaps a instead comforth
Finally, here is an insight that my brother Christopher Mack shared with me about this dilemma that I have been having. It has truly been such a beautiful encouragement
Our beloved Grandfather in the faith, asleep on this earth, but alive in the Kingdom to come will help you in this. Grandfather Chesterton from the church in England reminds us that it is folly to talk or predictability. That our so-called sciences are slaves to predictability. We would call anything a miracle where God ‘intervenes’ from the natural order, but this is not so. If that were the case, then most assuredly, everything is NOT spiritual. But you have learned a better way than this, for most assuredly, everything IS spiritual.
Hear from Brother Chesterton:
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.”
“But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and ever evening , ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grow old, and our Father is younger than we.”
“The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE. Heaven may ENCORE the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of brining forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose.”
“It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop.”
If this is the way of things, then most assuredly miracles are merely when our Heavenly Father decides to tell something to do something other than what we have expected. So look for miracles, both in the sun rising on the righteous and the unrighteous, in the transformation of your heart, but most assuredly in the physical and spiritual healing of those with you.
-Benjarobi in Nairobi
(Many of my insights here were inspired by a book called Generous Orthodoxy, indulge if you feel so inclined
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Rescue is coming
(actually written friday, a new post will soon come)
Hopefully, where you have heard this phrase before was on a beautiful collision, A Collision. (David Crowder Band, if you don’t have it, but it on itunes it today)
Crowder's voice has been one of utmost comfort. He plays often in this household and I love it. He was the first voice I heard when I awoke my first morning and his name appeared on Jean’s shirt yesterday and Andrew's today.
No need to worry about me. I’m not at the lowest point where I see nowhere but up, but the song fits well with the theme of this entry.
My entry into the country hasn’t been what I expected, but still indeed beautiful. It is a much different entrance into any mission trip that I’ve done before. For example I’ve never started a mission trip without seeing an American for 3 days. That doesn’t sound long, but when’s the last time you went more than one day without seeing an American? It is different. My longing to speak to my family has wearied me. I’ve been blessed to have such loving parents. We are still so close that even at a college I talk to them everyday. That absence is also different.. My Skype doesn’t seem to work at Edward’s church and my American cell phone doesn’t call out or send text messages. It does receive text messages though, so if any of you ever get bored...
Along with the jetlag… I think when your body knows you’ll only be in a place for a week it says to the body to shut up and deal with it. That second flight was brutal. Whew it got long. A London stop will indeed happen on the flyback. So my weary body has emo’ed me up and brought along a little homesickness.
The excitement still only seeps in. Again when you are with a group and only have a short amount of time in a place, its like God injects you something that adrenalizes you through the few weeks. I still haven’t grasped the concept that I am in Kenya. That very well could change tomorrow though(Saturday, I write this Friday night and send it...?). So it has made for not a bad entrance, still a good one, but a different experience.
My friend Sarah visited me right before I left and her prophetic words have given me much hope and encouragement.
Those words: Process. Journey. Story. They have constantly reminded me that I have 3 months to experience the highs, the lows, the struggles, and the victories. Rescue is coming in this story. For my ignorance and apathy for the poor and the oppressed. Rescue is coming for the hundreds of thousand living with HIV just living blocks away from me with your prayers. Rescue is coming for us all.
Today I think was the first transition into this new chapter and was also a day where I saw His wondrous grace.
I went with Edward today to a college where he was teaching Chaplains at schools around the nation how to do just that, Chaplain. I’ve met Edwards’s staff but haven’t really had a chance to connect with them. These teachers I think were the first people that I truly found connection and friendship with. Kuruiki in particular was such a funny man. It is a 2 week course so the mornings are 2 hours and the afternoons 3. After the first session, which was very good, it was time for lunch. An immense amount of tire came upon me for it was 5 a.m where you are, my latest time to go to sleep. With this came that emotion. I began to do something that I rarely do and don’t know how to handle when I do: worry. I tasted the first bitter taste of homesickness with my rice and beef, for the 4th meal in a row. Then I remembered I was here for 3 months...thats uhhh like 90 days, like a whole semester. Hmm...longer than I anticipated. I did somthing that I’ve stopped doing as my life as become more and more comfortable in the U.S.: I did on the spot prayer. I asked for guidance, selflessness, and deliverance from this inner sorrow. I then remembered the words of Rob Bell and the reminder from Christopher Mack, my mentor-Our God is a God who hears the cry of the oppressed. He heard the cry of the Hebrew people and delivered them from Egypt. Rescue came for the Hebrew tribe. Not that I was suffering anything like that but this small bit of worry bound me.
I did believe I was being selfish praying for such small things while I was amongst such great evils. I sometimes hesitate to pray for small things for I fear that I am being selfish. I think that there are bigger things going on in this world, this country, and this world than my small problem. No problem is a small problem though to God.
After continuous prayer it wasn’t 5 minutes when I met a teacher and student of this class that quickly told me that her daughter now lived in Frisco, the suburb of Dallas...What a coincidence, maybe? After speaking about her daughter and her one trip to the states, I questioned how and how often she communicated with her daughter. She told me she can’t ever get a call out of her Kenyan cellphone (same problem that I had) but her daughter could buy a 1 hour calling card for 5 dollars. Her daughter always calls her and the connection works fine.
Wow, answered prayer, great relief, now feeling comfortable within 5 minutes.
Yawwwnn...I’m still kinda tired though at that point. I walked back for the second session of class with my new friends comforted yet still exhausted. I attempted to stay awake for the first five minutes but my eyelids got heavier than the rhinos. My friends also noticed this and urged me that it would be fine to go to sleep in class. I quickly agreed. After half an ounce of drool accumulated in my palm, or pillow at this moment, I got another nudge in the side. Half asleep, I was told to follow another friend, who led me out of the classroom and into a building where he said we were going to his “cubicle.”
He opened a door and gave me the key to what was his dorm room for the length of the time he was schooling at the college. And what a soft bed I soon discovered! A bed worthy of 2 and half hours of good sleep. I woke up very refreshed, temporarily and still to this point, free of jetlag. The worry had been lifted and the rest of the day was very enjoyable. Rescue is coming. Rescue came.
And concerning that prayer for small things struggle, as I started to clothes my eyes when I slept on my new friends bed I noticed a note that he had taped up above his desk so he could see it everyday. It read, “Greetings Child, This is God. I am going to take care of you today and all your problems. You just don’t get in the way.”
While I do believe that we are commissioned to be the living breathing Gospel and help conquer problems and such catastrophes such as AIDS, this was an instance where I just needed to trust God. And he spoke to me in many ways through the Kenyans on this day.
Tomorrow I may get that week missionary opening experience. We picked up four great people from Chicago(also a gift from God to aid my minor homesickness) tonight at the airport and will take a tour of Nairobi tomorrow. Up to this point, I’ve just kind of tagged along with people as they let me transition into Kenya. It should be a glorious day.
The process is emerging. Every good story is a struggle to get into. I do believe though that first chapter is being scripted now as you read this. Pray for this. I would very grateful.
I will begin working at City Harvest next week and will get an idea of what the next few months look like. Continue your prayers, your emails, and your support.
For rescue is coming
-benjamiah
Hopefully, where you have heard this phrase before was on a beautiful collision, A Collision. (David Crowder Band, if you don’t have it, but it on itunes it today)
Crowder's voice has been one of utmost comfort. He plays often in this household and I love it. He was the first voice I heard when I awoke my first morning and his name appeared on Jean’s shirt yesterday and Andrew's today.
No need to worry about me. I’m not at the lowest point where I see nowhere but up, but the song fits well with the theme of this entry.
My entry into the country hasn’t been what I expected, but still indeed beautiful. It is a much different entrance into any mission trip that I’ve done before. For example I’ve never started a mission trip without seeing an American for 3 days. That doesn’t sound long, but when’s the last time you went more than one day without seeing an American? It is different. My longing to speak to my family has wearied me. I’ve been blessed to have such loving parents. We are still so close that even at a college I talk to them everyday. That absence is also different.. My Skype doesn’t seem to work at Edward’s church and my American cell phone doesn’t call out or send text messages. It does receive text messages though, so if any of you ever get bored...
Along with the jetlag… I think when your body knows you’ll only be in a place for a week it says to the body to shut up and deal with it. That second flight was brutal. Whew it got long. A London stop will indeed happen on the flyback. So my weary body has emo’ed me up and brought along a little homesickness.
The excitement still only seeps in. Again when you are with a group and only have a short amount of time in a place, its like God injects you something that adrenalizes you through the few weeks. I still haven’t grasped the concept that I am in Kenya. That very well could change tomorrow though(Saturday, I write this Friday night and send it...?). So it has made for not a bad entrance, still a good one, but a different experience.
My friend Sarah visited me right before I left and her prophetic words have given me much hope and encouragement.
Those words: Process. Journey. Story. They have constantly reminded me that I have 3 months to experience the highs, the lows, the struggles, and the victories. Rescue is coming in this story. For my ignorance and apathy for the poor and the oppressed. Rescue is coming for the hundreds of thousand living with HIV just living blocks away from me with your prayers. Rescue is coming for us all.
Today I think was the first transition into this new chapter and was also a day where I saw His wondrous grace.
I went with Edward today to a college where he was teaching Chaplains at schools around the nation how to do just that, Chaplain. I’ve met Edwards’s staff but haven’t really had a chance to connect with them. These teachers I think were the first people that I truly found connection and friendship with. Kuruiki in particular was such a funny man. It is a 2 week course so the mornings are 2 hours and the afternoons 3. After the first session, which was very good, it was time for lunch. An immense amount of tire came upon me for it was 5 a.m where you are, my latest time to go to sleep. With this came that emotion. I began to do something that I rarely do and don’t know how to handle when I do: worry. I tasted the first bitter taste of homesickness with my rice and beef, for the 4th meal in a row. Then I remembered I was here for 3 months...thats uhhh like 90 days, like a whole semester. Hmm...longer than I anticipated. I did somthing that I’ve stopped doing as my life as become more and more comfortable in the U.S.: I did on the spot prayer. I asked for guidance, selflessness, and deliverance from this inner sorrow. I then remembered the words of Rob Bell and the reminder from Christopher Mack, my mentor-Our God is a God who hears the cry of the oppressed. He heard the cry of the Hebrew people and delivered them from Egypt. Rescue came for the Hebrew tribe. Not that I was suffering anything like that but this small bit of worry bound me.
I did believe I was being selfish praying for such small things while I was amongst such great evils. I sometimes hesitate to pray for small things for I fear that I am being selfish. I think that there are bigger things going on in this world, this country, and this world than my small problem. No problem is a small problem though to God.
After continuous prayer it wasn’t 5 minutes when I met a teacher and student of this class that quickly told me that her daughter now lived in Frisco, the suburb of Dallas...What a coincidence, maybe? After speaking about her daughter and her one trip to the states, I questioned how and how often she communicated with her daughter. She told me she can’t ever get a call out of her Kenyan cellphone (same problem that I had) but her daughter could buy a 1 hour calling card for 5 dollars. Her daughter always calls her and the connection works fine.
Wow, answered prayer, great relief, now feeling comfortable within 5 minutes.
Yawwwnn...I’m still kinda tired though at that point. I walked back for the second session of class with my new friends comforted yet still exhausted. I attempted to stay awake for the first five minutes but my eyelids got heavier than the rhinos. My friends also noticed this and urged me that it would be fine to go to sleep in class. I quickly agreed. After half an ounce of drool accumulated in my palm, or pillow at this moment, I got another nudge in the side. Half asleep, I was told to follow another friend, who led me out of the classroom and into a building where he said we were going to his “cubicle.”
He opened a door and gave me the key to what was his dorm room for the length of the time he was schooling at the college. And what a soft bed I soon discovered! A bed worthy of 2 and half hours of good sleep. I woke up very refreshed, temporarily and still to this point, free of jetlag. The worry had been lifted and the rest of the day was very enjoyable. Rescue is coming. Rescue came.
And concerning that prayer for small things struggle, as I started to clothes my eyes when I slept on my new friends bed I noticed a note that he had taped up above his desk so he could see it everyday. It read, “Greetings Child, This is God. I am going to take care of you today and all your problems. You just don’t get in the way.”
While I do believe that we are commissioned to be the living breathing Gospel and help conquer problems and such catastrophes such as AIDS, this was an instance where I just needed to trust God. And he spoke to me in many ways through the Kenyans on this day.
Tomorrow I may get that week missionary opening experience. We picked up four great people from Chicago(also a gift from God to aid my minor homesickness) tonight at the airport and will take a tour of Nairobi tomorrow. Up to this point, I’ve just kind of tagged along with people as they let me transition into Kenya. It should be a glorious day.
The process is emerging. Every good story is a struggle to get into. I do believe though that first chapter is being scripted now as you read this. Pray for this. I would very grateful.
I will begin working at City Harvest next week and will get an idea of what the next few months look like. Continue your prayers, your emails, and your support.
For rescue is coming
-benjamiah
Thursday, August 16, 2007
No More Lies
That's right...It is finally the truth: Benya is in Kenya. It was quite a long journey yesterday, and the day before, but the time has finally come. Here's a little journaling of mine I've done in these first hours of this glorious place.
The First Morning
As I opened my eyes, all looked normal except that the white tint that appeared on everything. It had been my first night in a mosquito net. And the music playing in the background: none other than David Crowder Band’s A Collision. It doesn’t feel like a foreign place at all. The pattering of children’s steps running on wood floors also was the first beat of this day.
I walked through the doorway and was greeted by five joyful faces. Edward’s two Children-Jean, 11 and Andrew, 6. I’m sure it was a strange sight to see a tall goofy white guy emerge from his room to join them for breakfast. I’m about this from the looks of their faces. It didn’t’ take long though before they stopped chattering in Swahili and allowed me in on their African lives.
So many of you who have been here before have gone on about how much this place feels like home. I’m sure that will come shortly but already it feels comfortable. I don’t even realize I am in Africa.
Crowder’s voice now is soft in the background as he sings, “heaven came down and glory filled my soul.” Already glory has been present in my soul this day. I can’t wait to be blessed by these children’s lives. I’m sure that’s only the first of many things. I leave in about an hour to go to City Harvest and to see the rest of Nairobi.
It is all very surreal right now. I don’t know what to expect of my 90 days here and I still haven’t fathomed that I will be here for such a great length. A half of a half a year.
….8 hours later…
We have power! The power to communicate! Though the connection is slow, I still have the internet which means I can talk to YOU. Skype is kinda working and should be better as time goes on. The world seems so small as I browse facebook and check emails in utmost wonder. My wonder is much like that of Edward’s children who had a camera war this morning (it was much like a game of tag as they traded off my digital camera chasing each other around trying to get a shot of one another)
And with that I hope to communicate this prayer request to you. I entered City Harvest, the church I’m working for, just a few hours ago and they were in the middle of a prayer meeting. That pray that God will deliver them land to build new Church facilities. Edward described the building plan as “3 Dimensional”. He said one wing would be for the Church offices that run the different AIDS programs and offices open for rent that would help support the church. The offices would bring more than just church people to the church. Another wing would be an auditorium. It would hold the church services and also house conferences, pastoral training, as well as many other things. The other wing would be a guest house, to house those traveling abroad who have come to see and learn the beautiful way City Harvest does ministry.
It would be a glorious thing if you could pray that this vision and this dream become true. The Church now meets on the third story of a building. The sanctuary is the size of a 3 car garage but still has 70-100 Kenyans worshiping in it on Sunday. The offices are no bigger than a college dorm room. They are thankful that God has provided this building, but their ministry has expanded past what the building can hold.
I’ll keep this first post, the first truthful post, under 700 words.
Keep on Loving, Keep on Living
Shalom-bc
The First Morning
As I opened my eyes, all looked normal except that the white tint that appeared on everything. It had been my first night in a mosquito net. And the music playing in the background: none other than David Crowder Band’s A Collision. It doesn’t feel like a foreign place at all. The pattering of children’s steps running on wood floors also was the first beat of this day.
I walked through the doorway and was greeted by five joyful faces. Edward’s two Children-Jean, 11 and Andrew, 6. I’m sure it was a strange sight to see a tall goofy white guy emerge from his room to join them for breakfast. I’m about this from the looks of their faces. It didn’t’ take long though before they stopped chattering in Swahili and allowed me in on their African lives.
So many of you who have been here before have gone on about how much this place feels like home. I’m sure that will come shortly but already it feels comfortable. I don’t even realize I am in Africa.
Crowder’s voice now is soft in the background as he sings, “heaven came down and glory filled my soul.” Already glory has been present in my soul this day. I can’t wait to be blessed by these children’s lives. I’m sure that’s only the first of many things. I leave in about an hour to go to City Harvest and to see the rest of Nairobi.
It is all very surreal right now. I don’t know what to expect of my 90 days here and I still haven’t fathomed that I will be here for such a great length. A half of a half a year.
….8 hours later…
We have power! The power to communicate! Though the connection is slow, I still have the internet which means I can talk to YOU. Skype is kinda working and should be better as time goes on. The world seems so small as I browse facebook and check emails in utmost wonder. My wonder is much like that of Edward’s children who had a camera war this morning (it was much like a game of tag as they traded off my digital camera chasing each other around trying to get a shot of one another)
And with that I hope to communicate this prayer request to you. I entered City Harvest, the church I’m working for, just a few hours ago and they were in the middle of a prayer meeting. That pray that God will deliver them land to build new Church facilities. Edward described the building plan as “3 Dimensional”. He said one wing would be for the Church offices that run the different AIDS programs and offices open for rent that would help support the church. The offices would bring more than just church people to the church. Another wing would be an auditorium. It would hold the church services and also house conferences, pastoral training, as well as many other things. The other wing would be a guest house, to house those traveling abroad who have come to see and learn the beautiful way City Harvest does ministry.
It would be a glorious thing if you could pray that this vision and this dream become true. The Church now meets on the third story of a building. The sanctuary is the size of a 3 car garage but still has 70-100 Kenyans worshiping in it on Sunday. The offices are no bigger than a college dorm room. They are thankful that God has provided this building, but their ministry has expanded past what the building can hold.
I’ll keep this first post, the first truthful post, under 700 words.
Keep on Loving, Keep on Living
Shalom-bc
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