Kenya Update

God never ceases to amaze me and each time He does something spectacular, I’m left wondering why I’m so surprised. He is God after all. Sherri and I are just returning from a month in Kenya. We traveled to 5 different cities and experienced something phenomenal in all of them. I will attempt to share a few of the highlites.

We visited a Children’s Home/Orphanage that literally took my breath away. There were almost 500 children that were extremely well behaved, well disciplined and knew where they were going in life. Our first real encounter with the children was participating in their Intercessory Prayer time. The kids lead everything themselves. They didn’t have an adult coming to tell them it’s time to start, now do this or that… Nope, each child is led by the Holy Spirit and I was in awe. These kids worship with their entire being. They pour themselves out to God and each other in a way that I can’t describe to you with words. During our first prayer time with them, the tears ran freely down my face. (okay, if I’m 100% honest, tears ran down my face with pretty much every encounter them)They were tears of joy and I was humbled by the purity and the sincerity of the words coming out of the mouths of those sweet children. My heart kept saying, Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this place. These are children who truly love God and believe that He loves them and will do absolutely anything for them. It was so refreshing to experience the Presence of the Lord with little children. Tears are forming as I write this.

 In an incredible twist of almost everything I have seen in orphanages around the world, they also have an intense love the people who are caring for them. Foyer La Providence in Haiti is the only other place I have seen the children love their caretakers so intensely and you can see and feel the love as you walk around.

We were able talk with the directors, staff and older children who were very forthcoming about how things work there, how they finance the place with 500 children and they only have 78 of the kids sponsored.  We also got plenty of ideas for how we will run our own Children’s Home in the future. 

Maasai Land was my next favorite part. It was such a delight to go and worship with the Maasai people. I don’t speak Kiswahili but worshipping with them was surreal. This particular tribe has only been introduced to the Gospel since 1993. They are relatively new Christians but their hunger for the Lord and their love for Him is breathtaking. We sang, they danced and shared testimonies about what God has done for them. My heart was overwhelmed. When I was there 2 years ago, the Pastor told me that the greatest need they had was for the word of God.  This village of about 200 has only 4 people who can read and those same 4 can also speak English. They had a few Bibles in their language and the few people who could read would take turns sharing the word with the other villages throughout the week. I was able to find Kiswahili audio Bibles that are solar powered. (no electricity in the entire village – they are EXTREMELY remote) The smiles on the people’s faces when they saw the Bibles were priceless… The bigger smile on Pastor Zack’s face as they listened to the word in their language was even better. He walked around with the Bible listening and showing us around. A small group of people were gathered at the house we were visiting and they sat and listened in awe. What a blessing. I can’t describe it. My heart has memories of sitting under the trees with some of the ladies of the village sharing stories from the Bible with them and answering their questions. I can’t wait to get back and do it all over again!

The final part of our trip was bittersweet. We ended up extending our trip by a few weeks. There was another Missionary in another city 8 hours away that was in need of some serious help. She runs a rescue home for children rescued from sex slavery. After being up all night in prayer for her and the children, Sherri and I decided to make the trip to assist in any way that we could. Overwhelmed is the only word that I can use to describe how I felt when we were told some of the stories of the girls and some of the issues that the house mom’s had been working through. I had my own meltdown while we were there… These girls are mere children. The youngest was 9 years old and the oldest was 20. (the ones we met, I’m sure there are many ages out there.) Some of them had been on the streets since the tender age of 6. THIS IS NOT O.K. Many of them had been sold into prostitution by family members and they “worked” to provide food and shelter for themselves and their families. There are many reasons why these kids are “working girls” but none of the reasons are o.k.  Men and women from all over the world fly to this city just to be able to have cheap sex. (something like $.50 for an encounter) The fact that this can go on and the local government knows about it and turns a blind eye or even participates in it makes my stomach churn. While walking on the beach, attempting to talk to God, I was propositioned numerous times. Anger, despair and hopelessness filled me at times.

Even with all of the horrible stories and the realities of the situation of this city, those girls were precious. They were loving and giddy and happy to be in a home with their “Mama.” I use the quotes only because Mama B. isn’t their biological mother or even legal mother but she is and always will be their Mom. The work that God has done in them over the last year is nothing short of a miracle. The girls are learning who God is, who He says they are and that their bodies are temples of the most high. It was wonderful to hear the stories of how they learned about God and when they began to understand what it means to worship and how they pour their hearts out to God during their worship time. I hope I am around in a few years as they are sharing their testimonies all over the world and are working to stop sex slavery. They will all be used powerfully by the Lord I am so sure! Please be in prayer for these precious children and Mama B. who is working tirelessly to help these girls have a better future. Because this is a public blog, I am not sharing the city or any identifying info about the girls. I don’t want to provide any sicko’s out there who don’t already know about this horrible place the opportunity to hurt any more children. I also don’t have permission from Mama B. to share all the stories. In the long run, it doesn’t matter. God knows who they are and when you pray for Mama B. and her girls. He knows the needs. My personal selfish “need” is that I want to go back and help Mama B and the girls. Another friend of mine will be joining me in Cameroon in July and then will be heading to Kenya to help out. She had invited me to go with her several months ago and now the burden in me to help is overwhelming. I need to raise about $1,500 to make the trip back in July.  If you feel led to help, please message me or donate through the donate button at the top of the blog.

My time with God was surreal the entire visit in Kenya. He continued to reinforce who I am in Him and He gave me so many glances into my “assignments” for the future. More than anything this visit helped me to see who I am in Him and the call that He has placed on my life. It’s huge and overwhelming. There were many times, I felt like, God, I can’t do this. I felt like He was saying, no, you can’t but I can if you are willing to allow me to use you. I’m willing, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that it’s overwhelming. There are many times I look at the ideas that God gives me and the people that He has me helping and I’m like, Whoa, this is a whole lot. There is so much to be done and I’m just not sure… The good thing is I don’t have to do it alone. I have the Lord, I have people on the ground helping and I have all of YOU! I’m so thankful that He has made us partners on this journey and He has equipped all of us to do our part.

My heart is overwhelmed with the blessings of the Lord. This trip to Kenya has taught me so much about myself and how to do the assignments that God has given me much better. Thank you for being a part of this journey. Thank you for loving me and “my kids” around the world. Thank you for listening to the Lord and doing what He tells you. I was visiting with my girls in the orphanage in Cameroon tonight. One of them asked me, Auntie, how is that you are able to help us? My answer, there are many people around the world who love the Lord, they also love me and are kind enough to listen to my stories about you. Because they love the Lord and believe in what I do, they also love YOU. They are willing to sacrifice money and time to help because of LOVE. Her answer to me, I want to be one of those people Auntie. I love the Lord and I want to be able to show love to others too. Will you help me so that I can love too?

Never underestimate how YOUR love is making a difference all over the world. Your sacrifices of time to pray for me and my kids, taking the time to read this blog or email update, making a trip to the store to buy an item to donate or digging through your kids things they never use, giving financially or volunteering at a VBS is changing the lives of people you may never meet. People are coming to know Christ for who He really is. They are finding their identity in Him. Girls are stopping sex for pay and People are learning to love like God loves. This is how we will change nations and God’s Kingdom will come here on earth.

THANK YOU!