Naro Moru, Kenya
High security. We were presented to the village elders and the county commissioner several times just so they can know what we are doing.
The view of Mount Kenya from our house
Sowing Seeds
When we went to a certain village, the assistant chief showed us six children huddled together in a pile of clothes in the grass. The oldest was thirteen years old and was left in charge of them while the twelve-year-old was somehow able to go to school. The father had neglected the family, and the mother–who could only find work once a week or even a month–was out. The baby in the girl’s arms looked so fatigued and all the children moved slowly, as they go days without any food at all. Can you imagine?
Some of my friends from home eagerly sent money for them, and we were able to give them seeds and fertilizer to plant a vegetable garden, since the rainy season will begin next month. We were bummed to find out that we couldn’t begin the garden that day, since it’s a long journey to get to their house, but the assistant chief is going to plant with them soon. Instantly, we realized that the family was Muslim, and when the garden was postponed, we realized that God opened the door for us to plant seeds of the Gospel instead.
My beautiful team!
We sat down to a picnic lunch, and the children lunged toward the bananas as I handed them out. Fatima’s first words–she’s the mother–were, “I’m tired of praying to God because nothing is happening to help my family.” Her greatest hope is for her children to have full stomachs. Can you imagine? While we fed them and gave food for meals ahead, we told them about Jesus, and they received a Bible. Fatima was afraid to give her life to Jesus, but we pray that she will see and believe in the Father. Planting seeds: sometimes it falls on good soil.
So Much in Love
Panting, breathless, crawling under barbed wire, we arrived in the field of the home of Samuel and Beatrice, a couple in their 80s, who live way out in the plains. We walked to their house. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” they said as we sat in their living room. “Karibu sana!” (Welcome very much.) No one ever came to check on them, so they were thrilled that these white people showed up.
Samuel helps to care for the orphans throughout the village. He and Beatrice have eleven kids, approximately 30-35 grandchildren, they said; and eight great-grandchildren. One year there was a drought, and they survived entirely on cassavas.
Beatrice has diabetes now and can’t get around the house, but she reminisced about the days when she used to farm for her family and do the neighbors’ chores whenever they had a new baby or were in need. And she spoke so highly of her husband. “My favorite memory is of our falling in love,” she told us. “When I was giving birth, Samuel did the dishes, cleaned the clothes, and all the work.” Samuel remembered what she was wearing when they met. They’ve been married for 63 years!
This couple was Catholic until “a white man” came and started a Presbyterian church in their area. They realized that they wanted a relationship with Christ, and began going to this man’s church. “Your visit is a God-send!” Samuel reiterated. “You motivate us to continue taking care of our grandchildren” (since he said he sees us like them). The funny thing was that all we did was show up! “Meeting you,” said Beatrice, “makes me wish I could get up and share the Gospel.”
Any wisdom you can teach us?” Teresa asked. Samuel looked thoughtful. “About love,” he said. “Love as much as you can…Be patient and wait upon the Lord in every situation. God’s timing is the best.” “God is love Himself,” Beatrice chimed in, “so we should all be loving. We are different colors, but we are one. Pray and never tire.”
The couple’s daughter was coming in and out of the house. Like so many in Kenya, she found out years ago that she has the HIV virus; and after she found out one terrible day that her daughter disappeared for no known reason, she became mentally unstable. Samuel and Beatrice are always watching out for her, because they’re afraid that if she wanders off she’ll be raped, at fifty-seven years old. Can you imagine living the life of a Kenyan! Before we left, the couple told us to tell our country about Kenya, and to go preach love.
Firecracker Asuntah
She’s Living Twelve Lives
I think everyone’s story should be told to at least someone, since even people who think they have a boring story were actually born into a crazy scene: fallen world verses redemption. The woman we’re working with this month has a FIRECRACKER story, and she’s only just begun. But if God has redeemed your life, then you have a good story too! I’ll call her “Firecracker Asuntah”, since every day of her testimony explodes with excitement! But her story began with pain.
As the youngest girl in a family of twelve children–her father died when she was four years old, and she had a younger brother and another brother on the way–she was denied the advantage of going to secondary (high) school. Her two older sisters were married at ages fourteen and sixteen, resulting in her mother telling her, “You’re going to be married at such an age too! Why would I bother to send you to school?” But Asuntah wanted a good education, so she had to find her own way. She began to pay her own fees, cleaning laundry for people on holiday so she could go back to school. Though she requested a place in form one (ninth grade), she was placed in form four (twelfth grade) instead. In the university it was the same story: she worked and asked for payment to go directly to her school tuition.
It was in this university that she was traumatized by a man who raped her. She became pregnant with a baby girl, and the man was sentenced to nineteen years in prison. Asuntah was in so much agony over what happened, and she became bitter toward others–especially men–and stopped caring what she wore or how she looked. Besides, the community treated her as an outcast, thinking that she must have gotten Aids. Even her family quarantined her. Asuntah told others that she didn’t need anyone. When her daughter Linette was born, she could hardly look at her and left her in the care of a friend, wanting nothing to do with her. Finally, she tested for HIV and was negative, so she sent her results throughout the community so they would receive her again.
Asuntah found healing and a way to live again, after going through counseling and seeking God’s help. She knew too well the way that people so blatantly shunned those with Aids, and soon found herself giving a home to three orphans whose parents had died of Aids. But it wasn’t her own home where she brought them. “Mommy,” she said, “I want you to take care of these children.” “What am I supposed to do with them?” her mother replied. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I will send you the funds for them.” And she went back to her university, working as well in order to pay for those children. She got engaged to a man from her university, who had seen everything she just went through. “Are you going to take care of these three children as well?” she asked. Her fianc wasn’t sure. But after some time he decided he would take care of them and Linette, and began to support them. And when he sent a dowry to Asuntah’s mother, everything was official; they were married.
Not long afterward, Asuntah was traumatized by an old friend. He called to see if he could come to visit, and was totally welcomed. Her husband, sister, and two-year-old daughter were home, and she gave him directions. But coming into the house, he tied up the husband, daughter, and sister, and the the family thought he had killed the husband. All three were cut on their heads. They were sent to different hospital wards, where recovery was so difficult. The husband said to his counselor, “Don’t let me see my family again. I tried to protect them as the man in the house, and I failed.” It wasn’t until Asuntah went to each one of them and told them that she understood they did what they could to stop it, and that she forgave them for what they weren’t able to do, that restoration came. Linette was not able to eat for one whole month, and though she is eight years old now, her memories are so vivid. It was at this time that Asuntah’s relationship with her daughter became loving.
Asuntah’s passion for children who are affected or infected with Aids gained vigor, and she began to receive more orphans. By this time, she needed a new house for the children, and put a friend in charge of them. “What am I supposed to do with them?” Lucy asked. She sent money for support. And it wasn’t long before she began receiving more children than she could provide for on her own. When she requested help from the government, she was granted a considerable amount of help, and more children came who were able to find a home and even an education. One-hundred-and-four children are now in the orphanage, twenty-six infected with Aids. Grants from the government allows all the children free health care.
Sitting with Dokkas at Asuntah’s orphanage
You would think that Firecracker Asuntah stopped there and allowed the orphanage to tend to itself through the overseers she put in charge of it. A job really well done! *Pat on the back…* But Firecracker Asuntah decided to make many improvements to the children’s lives, bringing people in to show them how to make jewelry to sell and fancy crocheted work and shoes out of tires. Every child goes to school and has plenty of space in their bedrooms. Asuntah gets up so early.
I might consider 4:00 to still be night, but that’s when she’s wondering, “What more can we do?” And so she has led HIV awareness campaigns and formed a village co-op to send food to the elderly, and has even become a pastor! She talks of building a 60-by-40-meter greenhouse on her portion of inheritance from her mother’s farm, and has even established running water and electricity in many of the villager’s houses. One year she even spent all three-hundred-sixty-five days going to the city to help the prostitutes find a new way of life. Every single day she met them to collect shillings from their earnings. At the end of the year she invested the money in Kenyan Airlines, and sold the stocks for 9,000,000 shillings, which she used to buy a piece of property for the prostitutes. They’re self-sustained, now, with the apartments they’ve built and rented out.
During Kenya’s political unrest in, Asuntah was so upset that she left the house and told her husband she’d be back. A couple hours later, her husband saw her giving a speech on TV. Her phone rang. “Are you out of your mind?!” he asked. But that’s “Firecracker Asuntah”, and that’s who we are working with this month. She has introduced us to so many different people and situations, in order to expand our hearts for Africa. Her heart is huge!
It can be easy to look at Asuntah’s life and wonder what I’m doing with my own. She’s thirty-one years old and already seemingly a savior to so many! But Ecclesiastes 9:10 says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” And her life has made me realize that I am not a savior, but I follow the Savior, love Him, and love others. He is the ultimate Healer of mankind. And because of that, I can minister to Africa without the weight of the world on my shoulders; it’s on Father’s.
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