Crud Between Your Toes or In Your Heart?

 

Crud between your toes or in your heart? What’s the difference, they both stink.

 

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Team Kenya had a mid-trip debrief 2 weeks ago. We spent those 4 days hashing out some of the issues that were plaguing the team. It was a time of getting real and seeking reconciliation through Christ. Of course even a luxury retreat in Kenya is not without some TIA (“This Is Africa”) moments; each night while sitting around the fire pit we were intruded upon by massive, man-eating (or grass-grazing) hippos who busted through the electric fence. Also, each morning we were greeted by cute little monkeys, notorious for thievery, one of which was found trying to open Isaiah’s bottle of Cipro (antibiotic medication), and another TIA; thorns driving through your flip flops, embedding themselves in your SOLES!

 

We ended the retreat with a sense of refreshment and hopeful attitudes. But not long after returning to the routine of ministry, I began to feel overwhelmed and burdened by some things that were happening among the team. Once again there was a spirit of disunity among us, for multiple reasons. Daily I was trying to encourage reconciliation, freedom and grace among us. Little progress was being made until I surrendered an entire day to prayer for the team. I called out to God and He met me in the tiny bedroom at the back of our host’s home. I poured out my heart to God about my hopes for this team. What I really had wanted to see in them from the beginning was a release of God’s work in their hearts and if it meant we had to walk through this brokenness, that’s fine, but I needed to know that there would be breakthrough for them. The Lord began to take me back through my World Race journal. I read entry after entry describing my own brokenness and then I asked the Lord, “So what woke me up and brought me out of it?” and as I read on He showed me through more entries that it wasn’t until I willingly looked at my own reflection in my team mates, until I saw the old me for what it really was and realized that it needed to die, that I could finally find my identity in Christ and be made new and whole in Him.

The Lord spoke to me about sharing my hopes with the team, about speaking life into those broken places, and calling forth a higher level of perseverance and expectation for what God was capable of doing in their lives and in their ministry to the Kenyans. The Lord also spoke to me about healing and cleansing the team. We needed to take a good hard look at the fact that we are broken, prone to sin, and in need of a Savior to wash over us daily. And so we did. The team met that evening and we talked about the things that God had laid on my heart through prayer that day. It was bitter words for some to hear, and for others it brought relief. We decided to fight together for God’s good work in our hearts. Through tears and laughter we washed each other’s feet as a symbol of getting right before God and one another, as a symbol of submitting to one another and choosing to cover each other’s crud in love and servitude. With the Spirit of God present, something was released that night.

Immediately passion returned to our hearts the next day. We were excited about ministry and started the day with expectation for our Mighty God to show up. And of course He was faithful, that day (which was really only 3 days ago) we were making house visits among the Masaai tribe in the Rift Valley. We hiked a mountain (a small one but none the less a mountain), ladies in flip flops and ankle length skirts, till we reached the other side and found a few scattered Bomas (traditional homesteads). There we met a man named Daniel who asked for prayer for his sick father. We prayed but as time passed the team was feeling the call of the Lord to do more. We ended up bringing the sick man home to Kijabe to seek medical attention. He returned home that evening with medication and a huge blessing from God his Father. It turns out that Daniel was preparing to take the family cow to a market, 17kms by foot, to sell in order to get his father to a doctor. If you know much about the Masaai, you’ll know that the choice to sell their cows does not come lightly, especially for a family that owns just the one. Cows are a very important part of the Masaai homestead and culture. But Jesus had other plans and used us as an answer to Daniels prayer. The team was honored to be used by God and the situation pumped them up to ask and expect more every day. Yesterday the girls gathered around one of ours who was sick, contended for her healing and immediately her stomach pain was gone. Tears of joy took over her tears of pain!

Last week the team nearly gave into feelings of defeat. Some had resorted to feeling like the trip was over and safest bet would be to coast the rest of the time out. This week we started our mission again. This week heads are held high in faith and adoration of a God who saves and makes us new.