Too late, you can't pray God has already sorted it out! Well nearly, the church has agreed to fund Candy's school fees for a term, Aggrey has found a school and he hopes to enrol her next week.
The cheif is demanding a bit of money for the work he has done, a bribe basically. So please pray that these bits and pieces get sorted out without too much beef and Candy can get off to school soon. Pray for her too as all this moving around is probably quite unsettling and scary.
Anyway things seem to be going a good way.
Friday, 11 September 2009
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Pray for
My friend Aggrey says he would really appreciate prayer at the moment, he is in a super difficult situation. Let me try to explain…
When Aggrey’s wife died a few years ago he was given joint custody over their daughter Candy along with his sister-in-law. Candy is now five and was very excited about travelling upcountry with her aunt who she has stayed with for last few years. Candy is a little legend she gives such big high 5s she has to take a run up, I have a photo of her on my phone all tangled and twisted up in our hammock, very cute.
Anyway, later it became apparent that the aunt had actually moved to the rural area without telling Aggrey, basically stealing Candy. Aggrey is totally ripped up about it, he travelled to try and get Candy back but they didn’t allow him to take her.
He has approached the courts to try to revoke the joint custody but in Kenya that’s going to be a long and costly process with potential corruption involved. Aggrey is exploring every possible solution as he is desperate to get her back; he even considered marrying the aunt in order to get closer to Candy (in Kenyan culture that’s not as crazy as it may sound in the UK)
The situation is developing daily and Aggrey is constantly trying to figure out what is the right thing to do, he is doing an admirable job of keeping his head and striving to respond in a godly way to everything. The aunt is adamant that she will not bring Candy back to Nairobi. I spoke to her on the phone earlier and she just said a flat no with no good reason.
Aggrey has contacted the chief in that area upcountry and he has become a mediator between Aggrey and the family upcountry who all seem to want to keep Candy there. In the latest round of negotiations the aunt agreed to sending Candy to a boarding school. Aggrey is very pleased with that possibility as he feels Candy is not being cared for properly by the aunt, when he saw her she was thin and unhappy.
God has been working in awesome ways in Aggrey’s life recently, opening doors out of the deep poverty he fell into, restoring his hope and he fully believes that God can work in this lady to change her mind or to open some way for him to send Candy to a boarding school. Please stand with us in prayer for Candy, the aunt, family and chief and for Aggrey.
When Aggrey’s wife died a few years ago he was given joint custody over their daughter Candy along with his sister-in-law. Candy is now five and was very excited about travelling upcountry with her aunt who she has stayed with for last few years. Candy is a little legend she gives such big high 5s she has to take a run up, I have a photo of her on my phone all tangled and twisted up in our hammock, very cute.
Anyway, later it became apparent that the aunt had actually moved to the rural area without telling Aggrey, basically stealing Candy. Aggrey is totally ripped up about it, he travelled to try and get Candy back but they didn’t allow him to take her.
He has approached the courts to try to revoke the joint custody but in Kenya that’s going to be a long and costly process with potential corruption involved. Aggrey is exploring every possible solution as he is desperate to get her back; he even considered marrying the aunt in order to get closer to Candy (in Kenyan culture that’s not as crazy as it may sound in the UK)
The situation is developing daily and Aggrey is constantly trying to figure out what is the right thing to do, he is doing an admirable job of keeping his head and striving to respond in a godly way to everything. The aunt is adamant that she will not bring Candy back to Nairobi. I spoke to her on the phone earlier and she just said a flat no with no good reason.
Aggrey has contacted the chief in that area upcountry and he has become a mediator between Aggrey and the family upcountry who all seem to want to keep Candy there. In the latest round of negotiations the aunt agreed to sending Candy to a boarding school. Aggrey is very pleased with that possibility as he feels Candy is not being cared for properly by the aunt, when he saw her she was thin and unhappy.
God has been working in awesome ways in Aggrey’s life recently, opening doors out of the deep poverty he fell into, restoring his hope and he fully believes that God can work in this lady to change her mind or to open some way for him to send Candy to a boarding school. Please stand with us in prayer for Candy, the aunt, family and chief and for Aggrey.
Saturday, 22 August 2009
Backstreet boys, meat flaps and the legend of banamel fire
For the last three weeks the Graceworks team from Christ Church, that’s my church at home, have been out working super hard running the summer camps and cracking me up. Before we headed up to the boarding school in Kiserian we spent a couple of days in Kibera playing with the kids at both projects.
The day in Kianda was especially cool as on the way we bumped into a kid called Umoyo. I met him a while ago walking through Kibera, we had a little chat and I tried to invite him to the project but my Swahili was not sufficient to do a good job of directing him. Since then I was praying that he would find the project as he is about 12 and seems to just walk around all day in his grubby clothes feeling hungry and he is a bit of a dude, greeting loads of people along the way with the most confusing handshakes.
So with the team we met him again on our way to the kianda project and he was well up for coming with us. Turns out he does actually know the project, Mary has seen him several times but he never wants to come in. He seems like a lone ranger, not wanting to be told what to do. He hung around outside for a bit watching through the church window as we joined the kids for songs and memory verses, then he came in and started leading the kids in some more songs! He stuck around for the whole morning and had an awesome time, he was so excited in all the circle games. Hopefully he will come back again after the holidays.
Then was the camps, I think the title nicely summarises the essence of this years camps, if you were there at least. Anyway, we took all the school kids from the mashimoni project to a boarding school upcountry for drama, games, bible teaching on Daniel, sports and swimming and everyone had an awesome time. It was the first time mama millie and Godwill had experienced camp but Godwill had an awesome impact on the kids and the UK team, his testimony and his heart are very cool. Mama millie came extremely close to winning in the second week with blue team but it was stolen from her at the last minute by Moses and the green team.
The UK team were amazing, they worked hard and were so good at getting alongside the kids, getting to know each one in their teams and caring for them. These are the kids who are at school all week so they don’t see the TP staff very often like the kids who come to the project each day so the school kids don’t get as much of the individual care and attention. That is part of what makes camps so significant to the kids. In the second week the UK team decided to split up the girls and guys and chat together about whats hard for them. I think the team understood the concern that the Kenyan staff have for the kids that they have such an awesome opportunity as part of Turning Point to go to school and get somewhere but it is so easy to make one wrong decision that wrecks all of that. The UK team shared about the stuff they struggle with which I think the kids really appreciated, it broke down some of the ideas they have that all white people are rich and have perfect and easy lives. The Kenyan staff thought it was awesome.
I really enjoyed getting to hang out with more of the school kids as I hardly ever see them during term time, it was cool to know more Swahili and understand a bit more of what was going on! And it was a great time to enjoy being with the Kenyan staff, they are so cool, although I do have beef with Margaret because I lent her my hat on the first day and I still haven’t got it back, she thinks she looks like a rapper in it.
The day in Kianda was especially cool as on the way we bumped into a kid called Umoyo. I met him a while ago walking through Kibera, we had a little chat and I tried to invite him to the project but my Swahili was not sufficient to do a good job of directing him. Since then I was praying that he would find the project as he is about 12 and seems to just walk around all day in his grubby clothes feeling hungry and he is a bit of a dude, greeting loads of people along the way with the most confusing handshakes.
So with the team we met him again on our way to the kianda project and he was well up for coming with us. Turns out he does actually know the project, Mary has seen him several times but he never wants to come in. He seems like a lone ranger, not wanting to be told what to do. He hung around outside for a bit watching through the church window as we joined the kids for songs and memory verses, then he came in and started leading the kids in some more songs! He stuck around for the whole morning and had an awesome time, he was so excited in all the circle games. Hopefully he will come back again after the holidays.
Then was the camps, I think the title nicely summarises the essence of this years camps, if you were there at least. Anyway, we took all the school kids from the mashimoni project to a boarding school upcountry for drama, games, bible teaching on Daniel, sports and swimming and everyone had an awesome time. It was the first time mama millie and Godwill had experienced camp but Godwill had an awesome impact on the kids and the UK team, his testimony and his heart are very cool. Mama millie came extremely close to winning in the second week with blue team but it was stolen from her at the last minute by Moses and the green team.
The UK team were amazing, they worked hard and were so good at getting alongside the kids, getting to know each one in their teams and caring for them. These are the kids who are at school all week so they don’t see the TP staff very often like the kids who come to the project each day so the school kids don’t get as much of the individual care and attention. That is part of what makes camps so significant to the kids. In the second week the UK team decided to split up the girls and guys and chat together about whats hard for them. I think the team understood the concern that the Kenyan staff have for the kids that they have such an awesome opportunity as part of Turning Point to go to school and get somewhere but it is so easy to make one wrong decision that wrecks all of that. The UK team shared about the stuff they struggle with which I think the kids really appreciated, it broke down some of the ideas they have that all white people are rich and have perfect and easy lives. The Kenyan staff thought it was awesome.
I really enjoyed getting to hang out with more of the school kids as I hardly ever see them during term time, it was cool to know more Swahili and understand a bit more of what was going on! And it was a great time to enjoy being with the Kenyan staff, they are so cool, although I do have beef with Margaret because I lent her my hat on the first day and I still haven’t got it back, she thinks she looks like a rapper in it.
Sunday, 19 July 2009
five little ngombe
It’s a bit of a strange time in Kenya at the moment, lots of people are travelling during school holidays, so the usuals aren’t all around but its summer project season so there are teams with matching t-shirts everywhere. Nairobi is ever changing with people coming and going, one of my housemates is moving out to babysit some cats which is fairly rubbish, cats don’t know how lucky they are. Bruce who I have been doing prayer walks with is getting ready to leave so I’ll be praying alone for the last couple of weeks before camps.
I’ve been surviving without Jo and Jon around, everything is continuing fine. I think! We are preparing for the team to come and run the holiday camp up in Kiserian, I’m very excited to see them all. After that the project closes down for the rest of the school break so I get a holiday! Flippin cannot wait.
So this Thursday will be the last session we do up at the farm for a while, I think it’s a good time for us to take a break as the last couple of weeks have not been so encouraging, certain characters are very against building a community at the farm. They are convinced they are staying at the farm for 2 years then TP will buy them each a piece of land for them to farm on their own which is completely untrue but they don’t want to bother trying to build a community as their two years at the farm is nearly over, they believe they will be leaving soon. It seems there isn’t much point trying to continue with community building until those issues are dealt with, which will have to be in September when the Parsons are back.
Other than all that I’ve had some exciting times over the last couple of weeks: taking a photojournalist round Kibera to interview some the TP kids, I’m now the proud owner of a Kenyan diving license, went to a friend’s graduation ceremony which lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes outside in the sun but had an immense performance by a maasai choir, and a cow nearly ran into the side of my car yesterday on my way to band practice. TIA.
So please pray for the preparation for the team coming and for the time while they are here, pray for all the kids getting excited for camp. Please keep praying for the mums that God will do something, I don’t know what! And please pray that God would guide me and keep growing me into someone He can use.
I’ve been surviving without Jo and Jon around, everything is continuing fine. I think! We are preparing for the team to come and run the holiday camp up in Kiserian, I’m very excited to see them all. After that the project closes down for the rest of the school break so I get a holiday! Flippin cannot wait.
So this Thursday will be the last session we do up at the farm for a while, I think it’s a good time for us to take a break as the last couple of weeks have not been so encouraging, certain characters are very against building a community at the farm. They are convinced they are staying at the farm for 2 years then TP will buy them each a piece of land for them to farm on their own which is completely untrue but they don’t want to bother trying to build a community as their two years at the farm is nearly over, they believe they will be leaving soon. It seems there isn’t much point trying to continue with community building until those issues are dealt with, which will have to be in September when the Parsons are back.
Other than all that I’ve had some exciting times over the last couple of weeks: taking a photojournalist round Kibera to interview some the TP kids, I’m now the proud owner of a Kenyan diving license, went to a friend’s graduation ceremony which lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes outside in the sun but had an immense performance by a maasai choir, and a cow nearly ran into the side of my car yesterday on my way to band practice. TIA.
So please pray for the preparation for the team coming and for the time while they are here, pray for all the kids getting excited for camp. Please keep praying for the mums that God will do something, I don’t know what! And please pray that God would guide me and keep growing me into someone He can use.
Monday, 29 June 2009
Love each other
Returned to the farm last thursday for our weekly visit, we did a prayer walk and supervised a new playground being put in so the kids now have swings, a see-saw and a very steep looking slide, I haven’t tried them yet. We took blankets up for the mamas which they were extremely pleased with, they were a gift from someone in the UK.
We have been continuing to talk about how to build community at the farm, I learnt last week that in Kibera if you have beef with your neighbour you just move house, you don’t deal with it, you run away and carry all your resentment and bad feeling with you. A lot of things make much more sense now I know this. We said last week that although that’s how it is in Kibera and that may be how they have always functioned that’s not how it works everywhere and they can choose to do things differently.
This week we pressed the pause button, and lakukarachad the sessions for a bit to evaluate, thought I had better check that the mamas were actually up for it and didn’t just see it as a waste of time. They were very up for continuing, I guess it’s a nice change from digging!
I asked if they had noticed any change since we started talking about this stuff, Grace said they have started to forget about the past and look to the future, Rose said they have started choosing to forgive each other, Wahu said they no longer let small issues become big problems but choose to forget them instead, and Zipporah said the other day she needed some sugar and asked another mama for help and the other mama shared with her, they never used to do that apparently.
So that is flippin encouraging! Slowly slowly they are starting to change.
Since they are getting on so well now I had to make them play snap as a way to cause a fight this week so we could talk about conflict resolution in a not too heated way. They loved it, next week they really want to play football so we shall, there will be no ref so they will have to resolve any conflicts amongst themselves, hopefully employing some of the stuff we talked about this week.
In other news… Jo and Jon have abandoned me and gone to the UK for the summer, please pray for them as they tour about telling people about Turning Point.
We have been continuing to talk about how to build community at the farm, I learnt last week that in Kibera if you have beef with your neighbour you just move house, you don’t deal with it, you run away and carry all your resentment and bad feeling with you. A lot of things make much more sense now I know this. We said last week that although that’s how it is in Kibera and that may be how they have always functioned that’s not how it works everywhere and they can choose to do things differently.
This week we pressed the pause button, and lakukarachad the sessions for a bit to evaluate, thought I had better check that the mamas were actually up for it and didn’t just see it as a waste of time. They were very up for continuing, I guess it’s a nice change from digging!
I asked if they had noticed any change since we started talking about this stuff, Grace said they have started to forget about the past and look to the future, Rose said they have started choosing to forgive each other, Wahu said they no longer let small issues become big problems but choose to forget them instead, and Zipporah said the other day she needed some sugar and asked another mama for help and the other mama shared with her, they never used to do that apparently.
So that is flippin encouraging! Slowly slowly they are starting to change.
Since they are getting on so well now I had to make them play snap as a way to cause a fight this week so we could talk about conflict resolution in a not too heated way. They loved it, next week they really want to play football so we shall, there will be no ref so they will have to resolve any conflicts amongst themselves, hopefully employing some of the stuff we talked about this week.
In other news… Jo and Jon have abandoned me and gone to the UK for the summer, please pray for them as they tour about telling people about Turning Point.
Monday, 15 June 2009
PLA to make PLS proud
The last couple of weeks I’ve been doing some community building sessions up at the farm using the ‘participatory learning approach’. This is a fancy dev term you can only use when you have a degree but it basically means having discussions to learn from each other rather than a teacher telling you all the answers. The mamas still struggle a lot at the farm, mostly because they don’t get on very well, they are unable to deal with issues that come up amongst themselves and always bring loads of complaints to Pastor or to Jon when they visit. So we are hoping that if they can figure out a way to work together maybe their problems won’t be so many and they might start enjoying themselves a bit more.
We started by talking about our basic needs, what do we need to have a good life that we enjoy, not just food, water, shelter and fuel but also friendships, knowledge, rest, play etc etc. From there the mamas decided that yes life might be a bit better if they built a community than if they just stay separate and conflicting. So last week we looked a bit more at community, what things build community and what things hurt community or friendships and they agreed to try and stop doing the bad things and start doing the good things more. It’s all pretty simple stuff but I think the mums need a chance to think about it, talk together about it and choose together to live out these things.
This week I hope we will talk a bit about decision making and how they can deal with situations that come up amongst themselves in a fair way that they have all agreed on, they might make up some rules for the community or something, I don’t know yet. It’s quite cool that it all comes from them, I don’t teach them anything, I just ask questions and present back to them what they have said and try to lead them towards their own answers and solutions. It’s been so fun so far, the mums have really enjoyed it and have been working together and listening to each other and playing together so I hope they are taking some of these things on. Wahu was hilarious the first week, she was feeding back what her group said about the need to play and celebrate and she was getting super animated about how she really wanted to play football! Kicking the air and shouting!
I would really appreciate your prayer for the mums in general and for these sessions as I don’t actually have a clue what I’m doing! It’s a bit hard to know what things will work and be understood and what things are a bit too off the wall to translate in Swahili, and it takes a lot of quick thinking to respond to what the mums are saying and keep the discussions going the right way when it takes me a while to understand what they are saying.
Prayer walks
Have started doing prayer walks around the farm every time we go up to visit and also around Kibera, walking from one project to the other and praying along the way. I’m so glad God has provided someone to come prayer walking with me in Kibera in the form of Mr Bruce Fraser, other TP staff are all busy during the day but I feel much safer standing around praying with another person than on my own, in fact a few people in Kibera think that Bruce is actually stone cold Steve Austen so that helps! Also a few other people from my church home group want to come along with us or are praying for us at their office desks while we walk! As Shoshu says ‘Mungu tu’ (just God) as in only God will sort it out. Only God can transform Kibera. Matthew 11:12. word.
We started by talking about our basic needs, what do we need to have a good life that we enjoy, not just food, water, shelter and fuel but also friendships, knowledge, rest, play etc etc. From there the mamas decided that yes life might be a bit better if they built a community than if they just stay separate and conflicting. So last week we looked a bit more at community, what things build community and what things hurt community or friendships and they agreed to try and stop doing the bad things and start doing the good things more. It’s all pretty simple stuff but I think the mums need a chance to think about it, talk together about it and choose together to live out these things.
This week I hope we will talk a bit about decision making and how they can deal with situations that come up amongst themselves in a fair way that they have all agreed on, they might make up some rules for the community or something, I don’t know yet. It’s quite cool that it all comes from them, I don’t teach them anything, I just ask questions and present back to them what they have said and try to lead them towards their own answers and solutions. It’s been so fun so far, the mums have really enjoyed it and have been working together and listening to each other and playing together so I hope they are taking some of these things on. Wahu was hilarious the first week, she was feeding back what her group said about the need to play and celebrate and she was getting super animated about how she really wanted to play football! Kicking the air and shouting!
I would really appreciate your prayer for the mums in general and for these sessions as I don’t actually have a clue what I’m doing! It’s a bit hard to know what things will work and be understood and what things are a bit too off the wall to translate in Swahili, and it takes a lot of quick thinking to respond to what the mums are saying and keep the discussions going the right way when it takes me a while to understand what they are saying.
Prayer walks
Have started doing prayer walks around the farm every time we go up to visit and also around Kibera, walking from one project to the other and praying along the way. I’m so glad God has provided someone to come prayer walking with me in Kibera in the form of Mr Bruce Fraser, other TP staff are all busy during the day but I feel much safer standing around praying with another person than on my own, in fact a few people in Kibera think that Bruce is actually stone cold Steve Austen so that helps! Also a few other people from my church home group want to come along with us or are praying for us at their office desks while we walk! As Shoshu says ‘Mungu tu’ (just God) as in only God will sort it out. Only God can transform Kibera. Matthew 11:12. word.
Thursday, 28 May 2009
The Shamba Report
Went to the farm today to see how things are going. Since we prayed at the farm a couple of weeks ago there has been so much rain every hole in the ground is full of water and the whole place is green again. All the mums are attributing the rain to God, Jackie said ‘we are so happy because God came’.
When I asked them what we should pray this time, the first thing they said was to thank God for the rain. Other than that they asked for…
1. more rain! For a bumper harvest
2. their health as many of the mamas and children have been sick recently
3. for the kids to do well in school
4. for peace and unity and grace at the farm
So if you are up for praying for the mums please get involved.
Because the land is so good, when it does rain potatoes and peas pop up everywhere. The mamas who have taken care in planting and cultivating their acres should get a great harvest but even the mamas who only planted part of their land will be able to harvest loads. A nice farming example of grace, we harvest what we didn’t even plant.
A lady who was renting the bit of land next to the TP farm has just moved house because she finally saved up enough money to buy her own piece of land. It is achievable, it took years and loads of hard work but it can be done and the mamas have the advantage of a rent-free house.
The verse that kept popping into my head as we squelched around the farm today was Philippians 4:19 ‘and my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus’. Sometimes I find it hard to fit these verses with the reality of poverty in Kenya, the mamas were asking me for blankets today because its cold and they can’t afford to buy them. But I guess that’s what faith is for, believing for things you hope for but don’t see yet.
When I asked them what we should pray this time, the first thing they said was to thank God for the rain. Other than that they asked for…
1. more rain! For a bumper harvest
2. their health as many of the mamas and children have been sick recently
3. for the kids to do well in school
4. for peace and unity and grace at the farm
So if you are up for praying for the mums please get involved.
Because the land is so good, when it does rain potatoes and peas pop up everywhere. The mamas who have taken care in planting and cultivating their acres should get a great harvest but even the mamas who only planted part of their land will be able to harvest loads. A nice farming example of grace, we harvest what we didn’t even plant.
A lady who was renting the bit of land next to the TP farm has just moved house because she finally saved up enough money to buy her own piece of land. It is achievable, it took years and loads of hard work but it can be done and the mamas have the advantage of a rent-free house.
The verse that kept popping into my head as we squelched around the farm today was Philippians 4:19 ‘and my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus’. Sometimes I find it hard to fit these verses with the reality of poverty in Kenya, the mamas were asking me for blankets today because its cold and they can’t afford to buy them. But I guess that’s what faith is for, believing for things you hope for but don’t see yet.
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