I was driving back from Nakuru with a staff member of mine. At that point it hadn't rained for several months in Kenya and the rift valley floor was dry and dusty. When the rains cease it pushes the animals closer to the highway to graze, so we saw impala, gazelle, and zebras along the road side. It always amazes me how two different worlds can collide so easily in Africa. I guess it should be the same when I'm driving up I-30 through Arkansas in the early evening and see deer on the side of the road, but for some reason its different in Kenya. As we drove south back to Nairobi we talked about raising children, marriage, dating, the original sin of Adam and Eve, frustration with God, and other faith topics. I love getting time alone with our staff in moments like these. It reminds me the people that God has placed around us that are so deep in their faith. It makes me thank HIM for how he continues to bless ACO and reminds me that the bar might be set a little low sometimes. Maybe we need to trust Him with some bigger things in Kenya and East Africa. One thing stood out from the conversation that just floored me when I heard it and made me think....Are we thinking GOD sized? I was sharing about a couple Kerry and I had been helping wade through some issues and I gave him my uneducated concultion that all relationships hinge on communication. In fact 99% of all issues in marriages, dating relationships, shoot relationships of all kinds break because people won’t communicate. What followed my babble was one of the most thought provoking statements that I’ve ever heard on relationships, mind you from a guy that’s never been married and is not currently dating (or at least isn't owning up to it). “You started by being irresponsible and now you’re responsible”, he said. When you began dating your now wife/husband or soon to be whatever, you laid all responsibility to the side. Think about it, you blew money you didn’t have or time you should have been spending doing something else to be with that person. You might of stayed up all night on the phone because you didn’t want to say goodbye, talking about the silliest things, the following day suffering in misery from lack of sleep. You threw caution to the wind when it came to doing everything in your power to spend every second with the person you were in-love with. You were just plain irresponsible. Now that you’ve landed the love of you life, what do you do? All the sudden you’ve turned into a logical thinking adult. Sleep now proceeds the need for small talk before you go to sleep. Your finances and time now follow a structured plan that you’re sticking to as a couple. Seeing your mate is a priority mixed in with all the other priotities of your now complicated life. When he wasn’t yours, when you couldn’t get her off your mind you’d drop anything to spend a second or just a minute with them. But now, you are responsible. Its the very nature of the world around you that says you're in a very mature relationship based on a deep love that can only be described as BORING! Are our lives in Christ the same? I'm wondering if playing it the same and being responsible is God's way or resembles anything todo with the word Faith. Isn't Faith, believing in something that isn't seen, isn't heard, isn't really known? My old friend used to say, "faith isn't faith until its all you're holding onto". Am I a RESPONSIBLE CHRISTIAN? Yikes, thats not exciting, that's not life changing. Peter. Was Peter responsible? Saul, sorry Paul. Was he responsible? Jesus. Was Jesus responsible? I'm really asking, I really do need your input here. Were the those mentioned in Hebrews 11 irresponsible and thus men of Faith? I think I want to be an irresponsible Follower of Christ. I think I want to throw caution to the wind, step out of the boat and try and walk on water, feed 5,000 with a package of crackers and cheese whiz. Irreverent....NO. Irresponsible.....????

This Island Is Shrinking

Yesterday as I was driving Sydney and Raegan to school it was raining. It had been raining for a few days and some of the roads were flooding. Raegan (7 yrs. old), who is always thinking, said “Dad, I thought God promised not to flood the earth again? You know the rainbow tells us so.” I responded by telling him that God promised not to destroy the whole earth by flood again, but it still happens in places where there is too much rain or a bad storm. His response was priceless, “Well, he’s shrinking the Island today!”
I guess the United States is just a really big island. Raegan’s comments always make us laugh, but along with him funny statements he has a lot of deep thoughts that keep me thinking long after he’s moved on. I’ve been chewing on what he decided to give up for Lent. Kerry and I never really knew about the Lent season until we moved to Coppell, Texas. Our church, along with some dear Catholic friends, introduced us to the forty day time period leading up to Easter. Since then we’ve tried to practice the art of giving up to remember. This year we decided to tell the kids about it and ask if they wanted to participate. When we told them what Mom and Dad were setting aside for the 40 days, Raegan jumped in with no Star Wars on TV. Now if you’ve been around the kid lately, you know that he lives, breaths, plays and watches Star Wars more than he eats. In fact giving up food would rival his sacrifice of no Yoda, Anikan Skywalker and The Force. Seconds after his proclamation he jumped down from the counter and headed off to ride his bike around the neighborhood looking for his friends. Just like that, he made a decision to walk away from his ever present Star Wars world and continue on with life. Needless to say my motivation to stick to my commitment is a little stronger because of him.
Simple Faith really de-clutters our walk with Christ. My children continually remind me in their approach to a life with Christ that I really do complicate a simple response. My response to Him should take seconds, not days, months, years or a lifetime. I should be willing to give up the most important things, jump of the seat and head out into the world to find my friends. But that “something” keeps me stuck in my response. I can explain those “somethings” away with greater and deeper adult issues and a deeper, richer, more dominoes will fall with this decision excuses. But in the end they are excuses. I can’t find in scripture where it tells me to have a childlike faith, in fact during my searching, acting like a child is whole lot more negative when scripture describes it; but Jesus teachings weren’t complicated. Matthew 4:19 starts, “Come, follow me”; 28:19 says pretty simply, “Therefore go”. In Mark chapter 1, the next page over in my Bible, he is driving out an evil spirit and tells it, “Be quiet!”(25) As I spend time in the red letter portions of scripture, things are pretty simple.
Pray with me that our lives in Christ are simple steps of obedience, as simple as walking away from whatever it is and going onto the next adventure in life. And pray that this shirking island thing takes awhile to get to Arkansas.

A canopy of Stars

When Kerry and I first moved to Kenya we couldn't understand why the stars weren't visible at night from our porch in Nakuru. We thought being in "Africa Dark" (its not like US Dark believe me) would bring out a canopy of lights we'd never seen before. What memorized us even more was when we picked up and moved to a city of 6 million people that the stars then came out in force.
Last night I was playing washers with a couple of friends here in Nairobi and the stars were out in force. Orion's Belt was so clear I felt like I could reach up and touch it. I almost got hit in the head a few times as I lost track of the game because my eyes were focused on what was above me.
It made me realize.... God knows the desires of my heart, but I think sometimes I have to get into His plan for me to realize some of desires. Stars is tiny thing, a silly thing really. I think Kerry and I both could of gone without seeing the stars, but isn't our God big enough to give us the silliest of things? I don't think this falls into the health and wealth gospel that is preached around the world. I think its that I've realized that God has a plan for my life and when I'm in it He reminds me in the subtlest of ways. I know that most of you could tell me why I couldn't see stars in Nakuru and why they were visible in Nairobi. There's a good scientific/geographical explanation. Its still God; he created that explanation when he formed the earth.
Have you ever really seen God give you, grant you, confirm you in the smallest of ways? I pray you have or you begin to look a little harder. Don't we all just want to be in His will, walking in His plan for our lives?
Here's a can of worms that I'd not want to open in the discussion of how God speaks to us or not. Some might say He'd just tell you, instead of show you. Or the stars are just your way of comforting yourself in a makeshift gospel that you've created. That "someone" who's worried about deep theology can go on about explaining faith and I commend you. You know me (or if you don't), I stick to Jesus died on the cross, He's the only way to eternal life, TOSHA (swahilli=enough). Everything after that is a discussion that we will all be right and wrong on when we get to heaven. Allow me to have a simple faith please, I promise I will allow you to continue to dig and explain.
My hope is that you've seen little signs that you're in the right place in your relationship/mission with our Savior.
What I'm excited about is that when I get home to Little Rock in a few days and walk out into my back yard a canopy of Stars will stretch from horizon to horizon....
As my father used to say, "trust God and do the next thing".... a canopy of stars might be waiting for you.

Flying for the first time & missing Daddy

When I promised myself I'd write more often, I forgot that 4 weeks in Kenya with spotty world wide web service was before me. I have however manage to post in the same month.
Kenya is hot right now, I mean hot hot. Much like Kerry describes Arkansas. I told her this morning (her night) that a cold front would probably hit about the time I landed since I hate cold weather.
This trip has been great though. The first week here Vic Small (Victor Otieno, National Director) and I took a trip down to the coast. It didn't hit me until the day we were leaving that this would be Vic's first real airplane ride. Later in the day a friend in Mombasa explained it well, "its so fast, you feel like you don't get your monies worth." If I had to pick a first plane ride it might be this one. 45 mins. and Mount Kilimanjaro out the window for 20 mins. of the flight. We were able to visit the 2 campuses on the coast that God laid our hearts to begin ministry on. BOTH ACCEPTED US WITH OPEN ARMS!! We're praying that we will be able to have permanent staff in place by May.
This past weekend all of our staff made it to Nairobi for our staff retreat. A great weekend of planning, praying & playing together. ACO has a great 2012 planned and with God's blessings we pray that we will be able to disciple young men and women across Kenya! More Later.... when internet allows.

New Year = New Things

Kerry and I decided a few years ago that we wouldn't make new years resolutions, I guess its the "rebel" in us. Maybe its that my resolutions didn't take after the first 15 days of that year. Anyways, now we try to make changes with some accountability. I know, same song different verse. So over the past month I've been really trying to pay attention to life and see where I can correct some habits that have taken hold in my own life, or my husbanding, or my parenting, or my ministering. The first.... blog more. I have a good friend that should of been a writer or a publisher, heck he reads in a morning than I do all year and always has great streaming thoughts. Anyways, he always encourages me to write, so I'm going to write more on this here blog.
Second, I'd like to memorize scripture with my kids each week. A family verse that we can work on together. RaeRae helped me realize this as we drove down the Interstate heading to Texas a few weeks ago listening to his AWANA CD.
Third, I want Kindness to flow from me. In my quite time I'm reading a great book that another wise man gave me. In it the writer says that "as grace is absorbed in my life, kindness begins to flow naturally and freely."
Fourth, you guessed it, show more grace.
Lastly, realize that God is in control of everything, good and bad. We have some lofty goals for 2012 as a ministry, advances into places that are scary and honestly not the safest of places to be. I've felt God leading us in these directions and yet I still have a fear of them. Funny, He leads yet I still wonder, I really give missionaries a bad name.
So I'm a day into 2012 and its started off pretty well. I've got our verse picked out, I felt like I responded well so far with grace and kindness, and I'm blogging. God in control? So far today, an early morning text informed me that a former student of mine is battling for her life after a car accident. I learning this morning as I sat down to work that a ferry and a ship collided overnight on the coast of Kenya and my first thought was, "oh, no. We have a team of students on the coast doing a mission trip." Just a few minutes ago the airline called and told me that undercharged me on my ticket later this month and need to tack on a few hundred dollars. God is in control of everything????
Yes he actually is Tom. He reminded me that life on earth is precious and not to be wasted, our students are home from the coast, and a church picked up the cost on the ticket change.

New Life

Tonight we got a phone call from one of our campuses where Freshman have just arrived. A group of our upper classmen and staff have gathered to spend the week together, using the mornings to study and grow in their faith and the afternoon and evenings to knock on doors and share the gospel with the freshman. When I answered a giddy staff member with everyone else gathered around him told me that 5 had accepted Christ during the evening. With laughing and shouting in the background from the our crew we couldn’t talk for long before I just yelled, “AWESOME” into the phone and we hung up. Tomorrow and the rest of the week and weekend our group will go back out, knocking and sharing the good news with everyone that will listen. Keep them in your prayers

Let Your Light Shine

"You are the light of the world, a city on a hill cannot be hidden.”Matthew 5:14

I have spent the past few months absorbing and hanging on to encouraging words and truths not only from God but from Spiritual Giants in my life that the Lord uses to keep “my head up” per say. Just today I was reminded by Larry Parsley via podcast from 2009 that “Sometimes the only explanation for our struggles is to strengthen our faith!” I love it that God can use something Larry said 2 years ago and it be just what I needed to hear today after some discouraging news last night. It is the utmost example of God’s omnipotence.

I also love a book I’ve recently picked up about, well of all things, “Missionaries.” It’s a plea from Beth Moore to earnestly pray and partner with missionaries around the world. I’m so thankful she wrote this book and that she “gets” how desperatly we need our community of believers to partner with us.

Believers in Christ are supposed to be completely connected, not in spite of our varied locations and vocations, but because of them. We are a family, but fragmented; we’re a dysfunctional one. The divine idea for full-throttle function was that God’s people would operate as one entity-or one body-in each generation. We’re meant to be like multicolored Christmas lights attached to one electrical cord called the Holy Spirit and strung strategically all over the earth. Millions of lights on one cord, with the guts to shine more brightly because we KNOW the others ARE there. “You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me.” Isaiah 43:10. Witnesses is plural, servant is singular. The entire people are as one servant in God’s eyes. We are each witnesses in a host of ways, but God’s entire people on earth at any given time constitute His Servant-(singular). Her point. You are also called to the world in partnership with missionaries. Likewise, they are called to local missions in partnership with you. This is our “partnership in the gospel” Phil 1:5. It all begins with AWARENESS of each other.

This has meant so much to me since being here. Away from comforts of home and extended family and friends. My survival this year is no doubt a testament to those of you who already “get this”. I didn’t until actually being here. I didn’t realize how powerful those prayers were across the ocean keeping those Christmas lights turned on. I didn’t realize the power of the Holy Spirit. What encouragement and comfort a message from a friend or stranger that a friend had asked to pray for me could mean. I am guilty of Not praying for missionaries enough. I didn’t understand the power. That it’s only by the lifting up of those prayers that I believe those lights don’t break apart. I feel the prayers and they keep me afloat. I thank those of you who have taken this partnership so seriously. I thank you with all my heart and beg of you that you keep us on your refrigerator or mirror or steering wheel or wherever it is that reminds you to keep lifting us up so that the Holy Spirit can work through God’s Servant-(singular-all of us in partnership with Him to reach the ends of the earth).

Blessings,
Kerry