In my last quick update I
said I would be posting a couple of follow-ups to “Living the Dream”. Then I talked to Kelly and we both agreed we
don’t like posting more than one or two blogs at once and I thought I would
just try to wrap up Kenya
for you in one post, and really the ideas I was going to share in those two
posts will heavily influence what you read here. Also the ideas on which I was going to
expound where berthed out of a few conversations with Ian and he has written a
pretty darn good summary of our conclusions in three-parter that should be
popping into the World Race blog queue about the same time as this little
composition. You should definitely read
his series.
Kenya was pretty huge, and not in a huge way. I didn’t feel the earth move and the skies
didn’t open up, but my team is beginning to feel and operate a lot more like
family and I’m starting to get a pretty cool picture of what it means to walk
in the will of the Maker. This month I
learned that God really only calls us to be obedient and draw near.
This month we worked with a
guy named Missionary John Lodepe Nakara.
He is the director of SHARE International in Lodwar Kenya and he
has a lot of connections with God’s laborers in the Turkana region. We met many different pastors and were able
to encourage many believers. At times I
was astounded at the power of these men’s ministries. Pastor Elim spends half his week walking
through the desert encouraging and evangelizing the Turkana herdsmen and is
still ready to perform a funeral when an unbelieving family in his village
loses their father and then need to bury him within the hour (the community had
no problem with him brining his American friends along). Pastor Nainok only completed primary school
but felt a call to Turkana and eventually was given a church to pastor. Now he supports his wife and two beautiful
daughters on a salary of 600 shillings (I’m thinking and hoping that must be
monthly), committing his life wholly to the Lord’s purpose and trusting that
his God will provide. It was easy for me
to see these men as giants of the spiritual world. Walking in trust and confidence to seek what
the Lord has for them. Then I hear about
how they all want bigger buildings for their church, and they worry that the
pews aren’t being filled, and they stress over bills that need to get paid and
they don’t sound too different from the men of God I know at home. They’re just trying to spread God’s word as
best they can in their context. LESSON
#1: MAYBE OUR LIVES SEEKING THE LORD IN AMERICA ARE NOT SO FAR FROM THE
ROMANTIC LIFE GOD PROMISED AS WE THINK.
At the beginning of our
third week in Lodwar our teams were broken up into small groups to live and
minister alongside local pastors for a couple days. Ian and I spent time with Pastor Thomas
Narumbe Nainok and spoke five times in three days at his Nakwamekwi Full
Gospel Church. Sundays’s service was, as Thomas would say,
“very powerful”. Early in the worship
time a few women fell on the floor screaming, overcome by the spirit. Later as we began to sing and minister to
each other in prayer I felt the Lord telling me I needed to be praying for the
church and the people there. However, I
was in a fairly charismatic setting and lot of my skepticism started creeping in
about how and when the Spirit moves. I
didn’t want to jump into the fullness of what God may or may not have been
doing in that place. Within a few
minutes Thomas encouraged Ian and I to begin laying hands on people in
prayer. I prayed on one woman and about
three seconds later she started running around and screaming. I moved to the next woman and in about three
seconds she fell over backwards onto the floor.
The wheels in my head started spinning.
I myself did not feel particularly overcome with the weight of the Spirit
that morning, but I could definitely feel his presence in that room. I know that God works in some of the ways I
was seeing because he has done it in me in the past. Other than that all I knew was that I prayed
what I felt the Lord telling me to pray in those moments and those women seemed
to have a pretty powerful encounter. Ian
and I processed the service later that night and I think I decided that
whatever I felt that day the Lord appeared to have worked in some people. I was lucky enough to be there and, though it
felt normal, he might just have used me to do his work.
LESSON #2: THE LORD’S WORK
IS NOT OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO COMPLETE OR POLICE. OUR RESPONSIBILITY IS TO
LISTEN AND BE OBEDIENT AND PRAY THAT HIS GRACE COVERS ALL.
God is doing some amazing
things on the Race and very little of it looks exactly like what I
expected. I’m definitely being stretched
and I am so very thankful that most days I wake up not sure I’ll make it
through the day, then God pulls me through and I meet him again the next
morning. I’m letting go of new things
and awakening to new Holy desires. I’m
often reminded how much I love the Lord and how much I love my team. I often wake up in the middle of the night
and say, “Oh, right, I’m in Africa”. I’m OK using a “squatty potty” (hole in the
ground). I’ve adjusted to the idea that
soda comes in bottles that you have to return and is sold with a ten-shilling
“white man’s tax”. I’m used to walking
through town to the sound of children yelling, “How are you?” because that’s
the only English they know. I’m not sure
I’ll ever understand that I’m on the World Race or quite what that means. In the meantime I’ll continue to let God
lead. I’ll praise his name and pray for
his direction. I’ll learn to love people
with my heart more than my head. I’ll
try to worry about me and God and let him take care of the details.
For the month of January
Team Quake will be flyng solo in Soroti,
Uganda. We have been told that this place is not
quite so much out in the boonies, so hopefully contact will be a bit more
frequent and I can blog with a little more regularity. But as always we hold our expectations
loosely. I pray that God is with you all
and you are hearing his voice as clearly as I wish I could.
