For any of you who have had the chance to ask Ashley, "Are you excited about moving to Africa?", you've heard her response. "No." Well, we've been praying and I know you've been praying too, that this transition is a good one for her as well.
Last Friday, a friend from Kenya come through Denver on her way back to Africa after visiting family. We had first met this friend last summer at our SIM candidate orientation (SIMCO). She and her husband were changing agencies and so were also attending SIMCO. We hit it off right away. Two of their children are around Ashley's age, so the Lord introduced Ashley to her first friends in Kenya while she was still here in the States. He's so good, isn't he?
Anyway...we had all of about 1/2 hour to catch up with our friend as she waited for her plane at DIA and she took the time to talk to Ashley and encourage her. She mentioned there was another little girl on the compound where we'll be living that is just under Ashley's age and loves to play pretend (one of Ashley's favorite pastimes!) After that very brief conversation, Ashley tells us that she's now excited! Thank you, God for putting the exact words on our friend's lips that Ashley needed to hear.
Last night, Ashley and I perused the website of her new school in Kenya, West Nairobi School. We looked at all the pictures and saw class pictures from last year, so she now knows some of the faces of her future classmates and she wants to share this information with her friends here. So, if you see her, ask her about her new school! And, if you want to look at it as well, the link is http://www.westnairobischool.org/.
Thank you for your prayers for Ashley! They've been answered!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Thank you
I typically have one of two reactions when watching TV documentaries on the plight of people in Africa. I'm either moved to tears or I feel manipulated. In preparing for our first trip to Africa I knew I would come face to face with poverty and sickness such as I had never known here. I had also been told that it was common for some to play on the tender hearts of Americans. Not wanting to spend my entire trip either crying my eyes out or hardened to the plight of truly struggling people, I prayed that God would break my heart for what breaks His.
The first day out we visited a ministry in the heart of one of Nairobi's slums. It was a day school and a TB clinic, which mostly ministered to those with AIDS. There were people lined up outside the clinic waiting to be seen. One of them was a young man, dressed neatly in a suit and tie with a small son, maybe four years old sitting next to him. This man had the gaunt appearance customary of those with AIDS. It was likely that his son would end up on the street within the next year. I felt compassion for the young man's plight and the future that lay ahead of his son and prayed for them, but I didn't cry.
As we walked through the narrow passage of the school and peered into each dark room greeted by smiling faces and waving hands, the person who started the school told us that each of these children was an orphan. She had no room to house them, so at the end of the school day, each of these precious little ones went back out on the street and she would pray that they would return to school the next day, unharmed. I was saddened, but I didn't cry.
Several days later we visited another slum in Nairobi and went to a sewing center set up for AIDS infected women to learn a trade. I listened as the women told us of the segregation they'd felt as many of them had been ostracized from their own family when it became known they were infected. Many of their husbands (the very same ones who had infected them) had left them and their children and they'd been cast out from their communities. I mourned for their losses, but I rejoiced that my friend had found these women and gotten them on antiretroviral drugs and into the education program. I still didn't cry.
Another week went past where we daily saw young people on the street with paint cans stuffed up their shirt sleeve sniffing the fumes; where a young mother, strung out on drugs, was waving a wailing infant asking for money to feed it; where we saw young girls, dressed in black, indicating they'd just gone through female "circumcision". I was shocked, appalled and sickened, but I didn't cry.
And then we took a bus ride, dressed in our finest, to meet with a member of the Kenyan President's cabinet. The organization I was serving did HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Typhoid and TB training in rural areas. They relied on invitations of the various tribes to come into an area and one of Kenya's government officials was of a tribe our organization had yet to be invited into. A good meeting with him could mean an endorsement that would allow our organization an audience with another group of people needing to hear the truth about how these diseases spread and how to keep themselves safe. So we prayed in earnest as a group for a good meeting.
After the meeting, on the bus going home, I asked our host if she thought the meeting went well. "Yes," she said. "I think it went very well!" I sat for a moment thinking of how hard we'd prayed for God's favor before the meeting and how we'd just blithely accepted it and moved on after. And I started crying. Uncontrollably. My heart had been broken. In the midst of poverty and sickness, abuse and addiction, my heart had been broken by what breaks His..the lack of His own children to offer up praises of thanksgiving to our defender, protector, and Savior.
I had to go all the way to Africa to learn that lesson, but I will never forget it. So I urge you, if you've made it this far in the blog to give thanks .. right now and at every opportunity for everything God has given you and for the destructive things he's taken from you. It's really important to Him.
All praise and honor and glory to the only One who is worthy of it all..our Savior, our Redeemer, our Friend..Jesus!
The first day out we visited a ministry in the heart of one of Nairobi's slums. It was a day school and a TB clinic, which mostly ministered to those with AIDS. There were people lined up outside the clinic waiting to be seen. One of them was a young man, dressed neatly in a suit and tie with a small son, maybe four years old sitting next to him. This man had the gaunt appearance customary of those with AIDS. It was likely that his son would end up on the street within the next year. I felt compassion for the young man's plight and the future that lay ahead of his son and prayed for them, but I didn't cry.
As we walked through the narrow passage of the school and peered into each dark room greeted by smiling faces and waving hands, the person who started the school told us that each of these children was an orphan. She had no room to house them, so at the end of the school day, each of these precious little ones went back out on the street and she would pray that they would return to school the next day, unharmed. I was saddened, but I didn't cry.
Several days later we visited another slum in Nairobi and went to a sewing center set up for AIDS infected women to learn a trade. I listened as the women told us of the segregation they'd felt as many of them had been ostracized from their own family when it became known they were infected. Many of their husbands (the very same ones who had infected them) had left them and their children and they'd been cast out from their communities. I mourned for their losses, but I rejoiced that my friend had found these women and gotten them on antiretroviral drugs and into the education program. I still didn't cry.
Another week went past where we daily saw young people on the street with paint cans stuffed up their shirt sleeve sniffing the fumes; where a young mother, strung out on drugs, was waving a wailing infant asking for money to feed it; where we saw young girls, dressed in black, indicating they'd just gone through female "circumcision". I was shocked, appalled and sickened, but I didn't cry.
And then we took a bus ride, dressed in our finest, to meet with a member of the Kenyan President's cabinet. The organization I was serving did HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Typhoid and TB training in rural areas. They relied on invitations of the various tribes to come into an area and one of Kenya's government officials was of a tribe our organization had yet to be invited into. A good meeting with him could mean an endorsement that would allow our organization an audience with another group of people needing to hear the truth about how these diseases spread and how to keep themselves safe. So we prayed in earnest as a group for a good meeting.
After the meeting, on the bus going home, I asked our host if she thought the meeting went well. "Yes," she said. "I think it went very well!" I sat for a moment thinking of how hard we'd prayed for God's favor before the meeting and how we'd just blithely accepted it and moved on after. And I started crying. Uncontrollably. My heart had been broken. In the midst of poverty and sickness, abuse and addiction, my heart had been broken by what breaks His..the lack of His own children to offer up praises of thanksgiving to our defender, protector, and Savior.
I had to go all the way to Africa to learn that lesson, but I will never forget it. So I urge you, if you've made it this far in the blog to give thanks .. right now and at every opportunity for everything God has given you and for the destructive things he's taken from you. It's really important to Him.
All praise and honor and glory to the only One who is worthy of it all..our Savior, our Redeemer, our Friend..Jesus!
