Just a quick update on the first couple of nights in Kibera. Ashley and I moved over on wednesday and spent the first night cooking Pilau for our new neighbours. The kids particularly were excited to have us around and explore our room, but the parents also are happy that we are coming to stay, although they would like it to be more than a month apparently! It is important to note that I have a 9 year old neighbour called Wireless. Yes actually.
So the first night was all about Pilau and speed scrabble with the neighbours and then not a lot of sleep as we slept in strange beds surrounded by new noises. Before bed we prayed over the room, asked God what specifics we should pray about and what things we needed to repent of on behalf of previous residents. Though we didn't sleep much, I felt quite at peace and not scared which is fairly huge!
Last night Ashley led some devotions for us on why we work with kids and what we can learn from them and we spent some time worshipping and praying together with Godwill and Dishon (my next door neighbours) and Moses, which was a really God soaked time.
I'm blown away by God's perfect timing having Ashley around at this time to share the first couple of days with me. She left of a jet plane this morning but she has been a huge blessing to loads of us and will be so missed! I'm also pretty excited about some of the pictures God has given those praying for us like of whole armies of angels on guard around our house and compound - not just one or two - whole flippin armies! And light exploding out of the room as we were worshiping and praying last night. Light that was unstoppable and exposed the darkness around. Oisky its pretty exciting! Please keep praying especially for my first couple of nights on my own.
Friday, 14 May 2010
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Moving house
I have not blogged for a while as I spent some time at home and on holiday in India but now I'm back in Kenya and ready to take the next step on the road of whatever the heck God is up to with me.
Before I first moved to Kenya, as I prayed, read the bible and books by people who have been obedient to Jesus' sometimes crazy leading, I was pretty challenged by the idea of living actually in Kibera rather than just visiting each day for work. But at the time it was decided, quite rightly, that it wasn't a very wise idea as I had no clue about Kenyan culture and language etc.
The challenge has not gone away and I keep finding more and more reasons why it would be awesome to live amongst the community that God has made me to love. Over christmas paricularly I spent some time seeking God and got really excited about the idea of staying in Kibera, I had dreams of playing worship music really loud and jumping around praising God together with my friends in Kibera.
So I started to explore the idea with Jo and Jon, I had to get permission from the Trustees and they asked for the Kenyan staff's thoughts on it. Also over christmas a friend in Kibera said I should come and stay for a while, pretty sure he was joking, but now I'm moving in to the room next door to him this afternoon.
I'm not totally sure why I am going, its a bit of an experiment just to see what its like and where it could lead. A verse that communicates a bit of why is I Thessaloneans 2:8 it says 'we loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.'
I want to share more of my life with people in Kibera, to have more opportunities to build friendships, to chat and pray and worship together. I want to try to step out of my mzungu status and understand more of what life is like. I want to be vulnerable and to need people's help rather than always the person whose opinion is listened to because they are seen to have all the money!
I have plenty of reasons that I want to go but I'm still praying about what God wants this time to look like, what is significant and such. A song I keep listening to says 'Our God saves, there is hope in His name, mourning turns to songs of praise, our God saves.' I have a sense that worshipping God during this time will be important and significant. But I don't really know, I'm just fumbling my way along, so please pray! And pray for joy because the joy of the Lord is my strength (and my favourite fruit of spirit). This is a fairly big challenge and I'm really scared but I know that God is so faithful and I've already seen Him going before me.
Thank you so much for praying, its so so good to know I'm not on my own but there are other people standing with me in prayer. I cannot wait to share with you the stories of what God does!
Before I first moved to Kenya, as I prayed, read the bible and books by people who have been obedient to Jesus' sometimes crazy leading, I was pretty challenged by the idea of living actually in Kibera rather than just visiting each day for work. But at the time it was decided, quite rightly, that it wasn't a very wise idea as I had no clue about Kenyan culture and language etc.
The challenge has not gone away and I keep finding more and more reasons why it would be awesome to live amongst the community that God has made me to love. Over christmas paricularly I spent some time seeking God and got really excited about the idea of staying in Kibera, I had dreams of playing worship music really loud and jumping around praising God together with my friends in Kibera.
So I started to explore the idea with Jo and Jon, I had to get permission from the Trustees and they asked for the Kenyan staff's thoughts on it. Also over christmas a friend in Kibera said I should come and stay for a while, pretty sure he was joking, but now I'm moving in to the room next door to him this afternoon.
I'm not totally sure why I am going, its a bit of an experiment just to see what its like and where it could lead. A verse that communicates a bit of why is I Thessaloneans 2:8 it says 'we loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.'
I want to share more of my life with people in Kibera, to have more opportunities to build friendships, to chat and pray and worship together. I want to try to step out of my mzungu status and understand more of what life is like. I want to be vulnerable and to need people's help rather than always the person whose opinion is listened to because they are seen to have all the money!
I have plenty of reasons that I want to go but I'm still praying about what God wants this time to look like, what is significant and such. A song I keep listening to says 'Our God saves, there is hope in His name, mourning turns to songs of praise, our God saves.' I have a sense that worshipping God during this time will be important and significant. But I don't really know, I'm just fumbling my way along, so please pray! And pray for joy because the joy of the Lord is my strength (and my favourite fruit of spirit). This is a fairly big challenge and I'm really scared but I know that God is so faithful and I've already seen Him going before me.
Thank you so much for praying, its so so good to know I'm not on my own but there are other people standing with me in prayer. I cannot wait to share with you the stories of what God does!
Thursday, 4 March 2010
a little minute
Its been a while. A Kenyan would tell me – umepotea - you have been lost.
Just thought I'd share about a little minute I had the other day with a lady who hates me, well she only hates me sometimes, it depends on what level of drunk she is.
I struggle a bit with this lady because I know her daughter and the way she treats her, but I ended up sitting on the floor with her at Turning Point's birthday party the other day and it was one of those moments where it felt like God was there in His 'I'm doing something that you don't understand' sort of way.
As we sat around some of the little kids came over to play some clapping games and the lady started laughing at our songs so we started to teach her some. That was it really, nothing very exciting happened but it was just an awesome moment to just hang out and have fun with this lady, to include her, to respect her and have an honest moment of appreciating each other's company.
This lady can do bad things when she is drunk but surely she only spends most days wasted because life hurts so much. God's answer is love and community.
As we celebrated 7 years since TP started it was awesome to see this community of amazing people that has grown in that time. Staff who are so devoted, kids brimming over with confidence and potential and parents who work together to build a future for their kids. I'm excited that this lady is now part of the Turning Point community and I'm praying that she will experience some of God's love and His costly grace through that community.
Just thought I'd share about a little minute I had the other day with a lady who hates me, well she only hates me sometimes, it depends on what level of drunk she is.
I struggle a bit with this lady because I know her daughter and the way she treats her, but I ended up sitting on the floor with her at Turning Point's birthday party the other day and it was one of those moments where it felt like God was there in His 'I'm doing something that you don't understand' sort of way.
As we sat around some of the little kids came over to play some clapping games and the lady started laughing at our songs so we started to teach her some. That was it really, nothing very exciting happened but it was just an awesome moment to just hang out and have fun with this lady, to include her, to respect her and have an honest moment of appreciating each other's company.
This lady can do bad things when she is drunk but surely she only spends most days wasted because life hurts so much. God's answer is love and community.
As we celebrated 7 years since TP started it was awesome to see this community of amazing people that has grown in that time. Staff who are so devoted, kids brimming over with confidence and potential and parents who work together to build a future for their kids. I'm excited that this lady is now part of the Turning Point community and I'm praying that she will experience some of God's love and His costly grace through that community.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
Mo Faya!
At the end of last year I went to see a musical called Mo Faya written by Eric Wainaina, the synopsneeze is as follows:
DJ Lwanda’s voice rings out daily on local radio, leading and inspiring the Nairobi community of Kwa Maji. But Anna Mali, an avaricious real estate diva, craves the land beneath their slum. She seduces the fiery young DJ away with a job at a top nationwide station, and organizes a violent campaign to terrorize the people of Kwa Maji. When the government and media turn a blind eye to the decapitated bodies in the streets, DJ Lwanda must return home to expose the truth. But at what cost?
The tag line is 'they call it a slum, we call it home'. It was awesome! The music was so good, lots of Kenyan styles cleverly done. My favourite musical bit was when they used the singers voices as matatu horns while the others sang over the top. Tidy. There are loads of fun characters and heroes and villains that are scarily true to life if a little simplified.
The dialogue is full of cutting remarks, mocking and exposing various different groups of people and I guess the system at large. Like this woman Anna Mali, the main villain, runs an NGO which they say stands for New Growth Opportunity. In fact there is a whole song where they talk about development lingo and give every phrase a new meaning – UEA lecturers would love it. There was the usual blaming the government and rubbishing politicians but I enjoyed the few rude comments about Christians and do-gooders too.
Basically, in Kenya there is hectic poverty and there are lots of people working to change that but the systems and organisations working to do that are infested with people with bad motives, in the business of trying to empower and provide for the marginalised and impoverished there are opportunities to sneak a little bit of that power and that money for yourself and there are plenty of people doing that including 'Christians'. I think some people like to suck up to do-gooders because they want something, so it was nice to hear this play reflecting the true feelings of some people.
DJ Lwanda’s voice rings out daily on local radio, leading and inspiring the Nairobi community of Kwa Maji. But Anna Mali, an avaricious real estate diva, craves the land beneath their slum. She seduces the fiery young DJ away with a job at a top nationwide station, and organizes a violent campaign to terrorize the people of Kwa Maji. When the government and media turn a blind eye to the decapitated bodies in the streets, DJ Lwanda must return home to expose the truth. But at what cost?
The tag line is 'they call it a slum, we call it home'. It was awesome! The music was so good, lots of Kenyan styles cleverly done. My favourite musical bit was when they used the singers voices as matatu horns while the others sang over the top. Tidy. There are loads of fun characters and heroes and villains that are scarily true to life if a little simplified.
The dialogue is full of cutting remarks, mocking and exposing various different groups of people and I guess the system at large. Like this woman Anna Mali, the main villain, runs an NGO which they say stands for New Growth Opportunity. In fact there is a whole song where they talk about development lingo and give every phrase a new meaning – UEA lecturers would love it. There was the usual blaming the government and rubbishing politicians but I enjoyed the few rude comments about Christians and do-gooders too.
Basically, in Kenya there is hectic poverty and there are lots of people working to change that but the systems and organisations working to do that are infested with people with bad motives, in the business of trying to empower and provide for the marginalised and impoverished there are opportunities to sneak a little bit of that power and that money for yourself and there are plenty of people doing that including 'Christians'. I think some people like to suck up to do-gooders because they want something, so it was nice to hear this play reflecting the true feelings of some people.
Monday, 4 January 2010
Christmas thinking
Its a little late but apparently some celebrate Christmas at the end of the 12 days so here are some Christmas related thoughts (quickly before we get to the 12 drummers drumming) from Viv Grigg whose book I have been enjoying...
'Two thousand years ago a seed fell from the sower's hand from heaven to earth. The God of eternity now inhabited humanity in the cry of a child, in the frame of a manger, in the tramp of sandaled feet.
But the symphony the angels sang at Jesus' birth was tinged by the melancholy of poverty. In coming from heaven to earth, the seed did not remain at the surface among the unrealities of the rich and haughty. He buried himself in the depths of humanity. And those depths have weighed down the labouring poor for thousands of years.
The prophet Isaiah declared that God has two homes: “For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy: I dwell in the high and lofty place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble-spirit” (Isaiah 57:15)
Two homes, two addresses: eternity and poverty.'
'Two thousand years ago a seed fell from the sower's hand from heaven to earth. The God of eternity now inhabited humanity in the cry of a child, in the frame of a manger, in the tramp of sandaled feet.
But the symphony the angels sang at Jesus' birth was tinged by the melancholy of poverty. In coming from heaven to earth, the seed did not remain at the surface among the unrealities of the rich and haughty. He buried himself in the depths of humanity. And those depths have weighed down the labouring poor for thousands of years.
The prophet Isaiah declared that God has two homes: “For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy: I dwell in the high and lofty place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble-spirit” (Isaiah 57:15)
Two homes, two addresses: eternity and poverty.'
Monday, 14 December 2009
Naivasha and Nakuru - Kenyan Lakes (Part 1)
Here is my big brother's write up on our trips over the summer. Very well written!
Naivasha and Nakuru - Kenyan Lakes (Part 1)
Naivasha and Nakuru - Kenyan Lakes (Part 1)
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