down day and cultural event

Wrapping up our time in Kenya.  What a whirlwind of a trip.  Our time was packed full of reaching children with the gospel.  

To wrap up the trip in just a few words is difficult, but will try.  One word that I come away with is CONSISTENCY.  No matter where we went, the message was the same.  All teachers have been equipped to teach The Greatest Gift and The Greatest Journey in a way that the children understand. 

At each event, the children are taken through the concepts of Creation to the resurrection of Jesus.  After this presentation the children have the opportunity to participate in the 12 lesson discipleship program.  It is interesting to know that the children have no idea about the shoebox gift.  See, the gift is a tool for the local church to bring people in and to reach out to others in their communities.  When the children come to an event, they are coming to hear the gospel message and the gift is a BONUS.  

The discipleship journey focuses on:

Lesson 1: The Great Creator

Lesson 2: The Greatest Problem

Lesson 3: The Great Savior

Lesson 4: The Greatest Friend

Lesson 5: Zacchaeus

Lesson 6: Children

Lesson 7: David

Lesson 8: God's people

Lesson 9: Help Others

Lesson 10: Love others

Lesson 11: Hope in Heaven

Lesson 12: Tell Others

The consistency of the message was very impressive to me, at each event the message was the same.  The hand motions may have been a bit different, but the message was the same.  The children learn about sin.  Sin is ANYTHING that you DO, SAY or THINK is AGAINST God.  

To wrap up the few days, we had the opportunity to go shopping to purchase items that could assist us in presenting what we learned during our time in Kenya and to purchase souvenirs.  The shopping experience for me was just God kisses.  One of the vendors was Edith and another Janet.  I felt like my Sunday School class was with me not just on this day, but throughout this trip.  

Cultural Experience

Our cultural experience was going to the Giraffe Center where we learned about the Giraffes in Kenya and we had the opportunity to feed them.  This was a cool experience.  The Giraffes tongue is very rough and we were told very anticeptic.  The Giraffes we are use to here in the US are Retriculated.  The Giraffe's in Kenya are low in number.  They breed Giraffe's and when they turn 2 years old they are released to the wild to help grow the population.

Traveling Home

I was NOT ready to leave.  I felt like I had just gotten there and it was time to leave.  Going to the airport was an experience in Kenya.  The security is taken very seriously with 5 security checkpoints before even getting on the plane.  At one point, when you get to your gate, you better be ready to sit, as you cannot leave the gate, unlike in the US and Paris where you can walk around the airport prior to needing to be at your gate.  Yes, we could walk around the airport, but when you go to your gate, you had to go thru a security checkpoint, which you could not leave once passed through.

I left a piece of my heart in Kenya and will need to go back one day, maybe to stay.  I can say I will return at some point.

June 16, 2024 Father's Day, Worship, Outreach Event

On the way to church this morning, we spoke about "Sweetnenss'.  Each day we received some tangible item that was representative of our color, today since we spoke about sweetness, we received watermelon candy.  Our verses for this day were Psalms 119:103, 19:9-11, 55:14.

Today we attended the FEM Family Church, this church has an attendance around 3,000 members with an overflow tent for more people.  What an amazing service,  very international feel, it was heaven like.  The guest pastor that day was Hans Moller from the Netherlands, he is an architech by trade and designed the buildings for this church, there is a long standing relationship here.  It was wonderful having multiple nationalities together worshiping one God under one roof.  The service was in both English and Kswahili and one takeaway from the service is that "Kenya is the springboard for revival".  The scriptures referenced were Nehemiah 1:3 and we spoke about the rebuilding process.  what people could not do in 72 years, Nehamiah was able to accomplish in 52 years.   Hans spoke about how God is rebuilding you as referenced in Isaiah 60:1, 18.

The Lord is building walls in your life and those walls ar praise of Salvation.

Rebuilding to Host the presence of God.

John 14:20

This season is to work on self and character.  God is rebuilding wells to dwell amongst us.

God is good

With God nothing is impossible

The root structure of a tree is similar to the fruit structure of the tree.  Be planted - roots have to go into the dark, resistence work and it is dirty.  They keep pushing the roots - NO MATTER WHAT ADVERSITY.  They do not give up.  YOU should not give up.

Everyone is significant.  Everyone matters

After this service we had a quick snack, provided by the church - completely unexpected.  We had packed lunches to eat on the bus on the way to the next outreach event, but honestly, it wasn't even eaten.  

This outreach I think was one of my favorites, if that is even possible.  They are all different and yet the same.  Just like the lessons that are given to the children at the outreach events.

When the children are invited to an outreach event, they have NO idea there is a shoebox, they think they are coming for The Greatest Gift presentation of the gospel.    The shoebox gift is simply a tool for the local pastors to bring children and families in to hear about the Greatest Gift. After this presentation they find out about the shoebox gift.  

This outreach event was on the outskirts of the Massai borders.  A beautiful young lady came and recited for about ten minutes about Africa, I'm waiting on the video from a team member.  She was beautiful.

This group of children were the most filled with gratitude and love from any of the other groups.  The children could not tell us thank you enough for the gifts they received.

Day 4 (June 15, 2024) Outreach 2 and The Greatest Journey

Once again this morning we started with worship and devotions.  Today we continued the theme around hope and that the symbol for hope is typically an anchor.  We learned that the anchor is not let down right next to the boat, but out a little further where it is stable ground.  Have you thought about how Jesus is our anchor?  He is not right next to us, but he is the calm, he is the safety, he is the ever presence in our life.  

Isaiah 49:13 talks about doing a new thing.  Are we allowing Christ to do a new thing in our lives?  Or, are we clinching on to everything we can expecting that to be our anchor.  There is freedom in releasing ourselves to the Lord and allowing Him to be our anchor.

I sat with Caroline at breakfast this morning and we spoke about how we both feel like we are living in the days of Sodom and Gamorrah.  I saw on the tv last night about transgenderism and I asked if that was prevelent here and it is growing.  As more and more are becoming bold more and more are coming out.  The kids are trying to emulate what goes on in the west, and it is not healthy.  Social media is a big concern, although I did find that Tik Tok is not allowed in Kenya.  We spoke about school and the children have to attend school and are given a twelve grade education.  The children have to do their homework before they can get on their phones or watch tv.  That is a priority.  

While driving to our second outreach event, I tried to really notice what we were driving by and I saw that we passed the Bible Society for Kenya.  Lots of street venders, motorcycles and such.  While enroute to the destination we heard from Travis about the logistics of the boxes and he shared with us a story of why soap is being phased out of the shoeboxes.  Because soap is made with chemicals that are not prevelent in other countries it can cause issues on the skin.  One person washed her face with soap and had a chemical burn  on her face, due to the unknown chemicals.

Kenya is the hub for the East Africa ministry teams.  Kenya received five containers this year.  Each containers contains 7320 shoeboxes which has to pass through customs.  Jacenta, the prayer team coordinator has a ministry that is the consignee for the conatainers, so the shoeboxes, once they have been exhonorated are released to her ministry.  

We were told a bit about the area where our outreach event would take place.  It is a very heavily traveled area for trucks and therefore is a huge transient area with prostitution.  Drugs are all over the place, this is an area that is rich with single parents. 

We hear of stories of the widow's mite, but the pastor of the church has experienced this first hand.  When he was four years old his mother took him to church and was so convicted about giving an offering and the only thing she had was her son.  She gave her son, while he didn't remain at the church (at that time), that made a lasting impression on him.  

His prayer for his community is for the witchcraft to be gone, the children would feel safe in a five story building being built specifically for them, the messages in his church are done in English and Kiswahili due to the high transient rate.  His goal is to offer business training skills so the children can one day get out of poverty and that the people would turn away from idols.

 Across the street from the church was a muslim masque which broadcasts throughout the day.  The church has come up with a ministry where they too will broadcast christian music, a message and prayers to the community.  

We went into the church and listened to the gospel presentation.  I love the consistency of the message.  The children were all learning the same way that was observed yesterday.  The training that the teachers go thru to present the gospel in a consistent way brings glory to God the Father.  

There were approximately 120 children in attendance, we passed out the greatest gift booklet and then the boxes.  I was spending time with one little boy who honestly, was a little dissapointed in his box.  He received a monkey stuffed animal and he definetly did not want it.  The teacher exchanged a box for him and he received a soccer ball and was much happier.  This was the first I had experienced this and I was shocked.  Another one received a flashlight in his box and the batteries were dead.  Honestly, I was a bit discouraged and walked over to the other side of the room.  It was then that I saw a little one playing outside with a ball that was in his box.  He was having so much fun kicking the ball around and playing with one of the adults outside.  Then, I looked down.  OH MY WORD.  There was the most beautiful little girl, Gracelynn.  She stole my heart.  After being alone with her for about five to ten minutes, another little girl came over to ask what we were doing.  I explained that I was sharing with her how beautiful she was and how much Jesus loved her.  

From there we left to go to a park and eat our sack lunches.  The park had swings, slides, blow up slides and such, it was like a mini amusement park.  This park was huge and beautiful.  After finishing our lunch we went to our next event, which was to observe a teaching session from The Greatest Journey, we observed lesson two.  We learned that this community, like the one earlier in the day is a community filled with witchcraft.  

At one point in this churches history there was a person who was a muslim practicing witchcraft who wanted ALL the children to die.  How sad, but through the power of Gods love, this young man was shared the gospel message and he gave his heart to the Lord and is now ministering at the church.  

One thing that has been reiterated over and over again is the simplisty of a shoebox gift.  It is the opportunity to be able to share the gospel message, but what I didn't know is that for the past four years, shoeboxes have not been able to come into the country, but The Greatest Gift booklet and The Greatest Journey discipleship progam has been happening.  The body is being built up - without the shoebox gift.  This ministry is so focused on the evangelism, discipleship and multiplication that it is showing througth the faith of the children.  

The children have such a rich foundation of biblical truths, there is definetly see the hunger for the word in their faces.  

Today has been hard to process because of the darkness around us today on our journey.  At all times I have felt safe, but the heaviness of the darkness was palpable.

Join me in prayer for the people of Kenya that they will feel the love of Jesus, come to a saving knowledge of Him and that they would turn around and continue to share with family, friends and neighbors that Yesu Anakupenda (Jesus loves them).

Blessings.