Praxis

Life has been a bit strange since being back in Kenya. For whatever reason work is just now starting to pick up, and we're struggling with how to think about the sustainability and feasibility of our projects, especially in light of the fact that we're in the second year of our two year contract. With our old projects, we're trying to figure out how to improve the way we work with our Anglican Church partners and the community groups, while also recognizing that these groups should be running themselves more than us running them this year.

On Friday, we had a meeting with Horace Tipton (PF Director), Gitari (our field staff partner), and three other CCS staff members who are specifically engaged on our sunflower projects in Meru and Embu. As I believe we've explained, this project has caused us tremendous problems, most of which hinge on the fact that we have been trying to empower farmers to process their seeds for oil using oil press machines that CCS and PF purchased for the two demonstration stations in the area. These machines were supposed to be up and running last July; they are now at the CCS stations, but neither are functioning, and farmers are approaching their third season without having processed anything. This delay has been caused by all sorts of internal and external factors, but regardless, we've come to a stand still.

This meeting in some ways was the result of the way I have grown to think about community devlopment over the last 6 years of study and work in the field: we began with our convictions, our principles, with theory. You can't get anywhere without a foundation. In our discussion on Friday, we talked about a theoretical foundation of people as image bearers of God, as stewards of His creation; of organizations that value professionalism, accountability, and transparency between the organization and the community; and empowered communities and community owned projects as both the means and the ends. But we then moved to discussing how we can practically stand on that foundation while pursuing our more tangible goals of economic development, etc.

The difficulty in community development work, and really in all kingdom efforts, is that it is so darn easy to quote the principles and pursue your goals and 'never the two shall meet.' Everybody and anybody can and is talking about "empowerment," "sustainability," "participation." Or, to use a different set of buzz words, how about "mercy ministry," or "word and deed ministry?" As we discussed with our partners on Friday, we realized that in several significant ways, we had quoted the principles in our proposals and trainings, and then ran the actual program in ways that bulldozed those same principals. As one of our partner staff said, "You know, we have participation and community ownership up there as principals. But in this project, we went to the groups and told them what they should do. That's a top down approach, and it doesn't fit with our stated principals."

This sums up a great deal of the learning that Bec and I feel that we have gathered at Advance in Memphis and with Planting Faith in Kenya. When the principals shape the program, both the community and the organization experience the kingdom in powerful ways. When the principals exist alongside the program, and separate from it, whether intentionally or unitentionally, you are building with your right hand and tearing down with your left. When a pastor teaches about Jesus washing His disciples feet, and then acts like a dictator, he undermines the ground he claims to stand on. When a community development worker tells a community group that they are all made in God's image and given the skills and abilities necessary to improve their lives, and then implements a program that makes the community dependent on the organization, or that leaves all the hard work and decision making to the white folk, or rich folk, or church folk, or whoever, we are lying with our lives. When "mercy ministry" means creating as many hoops as possible for the poor in our midst to have to jump through, we're establishing a ministry model that's the exact opposite of the mercy we claim we're sharing. Words must mean something.

As the founder of the Mondragon worker cooperative movement said so beautifully, "we have learned that theory is necessary but not sufficient." We have to live what we say we believe.

By the end of our meeting on Friday, we came up with concrete objectives that centered on achieving our goals by following our principals. On Monday, we again met with the pilot project group. As we've repeatedly said, planning for this pilot centered around trying to design a model that flowed out of our convictions and principles. Our task for Monday's meeting was to design a survey together with the "marketing team" to be used in the market survey. The marketing team (8 people) will be visiting 4 markets over the next three weeks to attempt to gather information about the demand fluctuations, profitability, quality demands, etc., of the 4 crops they picked at the end of last year to help them decide on what crop to produce and sell together. We emphasized that the survey would only require them to do something they do regularly (go to market, talk with traders, etc.), but this time in a systematic way. We asked them to discuss and decide what they needed to know to make a good decision, and then asked them to formulate questions that would give them that information. They decided when to do the survey, where to do the survey, and how many traders to talk to. Along the way we gave some advice, and talked a bit about the best way to engage with the traders and to record the information.

When we left yesterday, we promised to take the material the farmers had given us and put it into a printable form. On our way home, I couldn't help feel really great about the day. At every step, we have given decision making power to the farmers, we have encouraged them to consider their own resources, and to plan for new ways to use those resources to improve their lives. The principles are shaping the project. We still don't know if it will work, of course. But it certainly feels like we're on the right track.

Jane Vella, author of Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach, defines praxis as action followed by reflection. Both of these two meetings involved this reflection on previous actions as preparation for future actions. And I think that this is a pretty good way for the community of faith to pursue God’s kingdom; we cannot be hearers of the Word only, constantly pondering and preparing but never engaging. But when we take a step of faith, God’s Word calls us to reflect on that action, to consider what we learned, where we succeeded, where we failed, how we can do better in the future. This is, I think, what it means to live Biblical lives, to constantly let our convictions, the experiences of others, and the Holy Spirit shape us and call us to reflection on what we’ve done and what we will do in the future.

Community work is difficult. We often feel like we're going forward into the dark. But I'm confident that Jesus is walking with us as we try to engage with our coworkers and our farmers groups in this process of action followed by reflection on that action, that the Holy Spirit will guide us in our efforts to be constantly learning and growing and moving toward His kingdom vision for our lives and our work.

Please pray for our farmers, particularly those who will be doing the survey this next week, and for Beth who will be with them in the market!

Peace,

Michael

P.S.- The birds are Crowned Cranes. They're some of my favorites, and are rarely seen in groups larger than 2. But on this particular day we saw a whole flock!

Cricket, Krishna, and Crates of Onions

In reverse order:

Onions

Just before we came home at the end of the year, we reported that our farmers in Ngare Ndare had successfully sold several tons of squash. During our last meeting with that group of the year, the farmers still had some left to sell, but were beginning to look ahead towards the future in terms of new crops and new ways to manage their revolving loan fund.

There are many issues facing the group at this stage. Because the money for the fund initially comes from white people within a church organization, farmers have a hard time treating the loan with due gravity. Research shows that community managed credit schemes that use “cold money” (money that comes from outside of the community) fail the vast majority of the time. This is why we’re exploring the possibility of working with a local microfinance bank in our pilot project. But needless to say, we were anticipating the group’s decisions about how to give out new loans with some trepidation. I had some informal conversation with the decision makers about the importance of designing a program with good incentives (reward those who repaid, don’t give loans to people until they’ve finished paying, etc), but I couldn’t tell if it stuck.

At the end of last week, we got the report from our Director that 9 farmers had fully repaid their loans, 6 had paid most but not all, and 6 had paid little to nothing (due to crop failure). Within two months, the leadership had collected loan payments, decided to grow onions for their next season (planning on rotating squash and onions in the future), and redistributed loans to all the members using the following criteria: those who repaid fully got large loans that would cover the cost of production for onions using the best ag methods. Those who repaid the majority were given about half as much as the others (allowing them to produce a lower quantity), and those who didn’t repay anything were given just enough for a packet of onion seeds. The second two categories had to put up collateral, and agreed to try to repay the previous loan as well as the current one.

Will it work? I have no idea, but I think they have done a good job of trying to keep incentives steady while also considering how to keep all of the group members involved. We’ll give updates on how the onions go! It’s also exciting that they did all of this with very little guidance from us. That alone is a positive sign that, against the odds, this group might find a way to make it work sustainably. Praise the Lord!

Krishna

On Sunday, Rebecca and I had the opportunity to visit the Hare Krishna temple with a new friend, Mukund. I met Mukund at a grocery store where he was selling literature written by the guru who established the Hare Krishna beliefs in the West. I talked to him a little bit about my faith, listened a little to him talk about his, and bought a book. After we got back from the States, I contacted Mukund, and he invited us to visit.

If you’ve ever seen Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Limited, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what we experienced. Because Sunday is their big day of worship, we entered the temple to see the incredibly ornate altar decked with the marble painted carvings of the deity while some several hundred worshippers were chanting in unison to the sound of five or ten Indian drums and other instruments. The temple has a live-in facility, and huge kitchens which they use to feed their many followers as well as 2,000 kids in the slums . . . every day. During all of our tour, Mukund answered our questions about the Hare Krishna beliefs. Finally, he introduced us to an African follower of the movement who heads up the temple’s interfaith outreach programs. Karuna asked us what we thought about the book, and we got to spend about an hour talking about Christianity in contrast to the Hare Krishna movement. Because the movement is very inclusive (we’re all on different paths to the same God), we spent most of the conversation discussing whether there really were differences between the Bible and their ancient eastern scriptures.

I felt like we had several real “a-ha” moments with Karuna and Mukund: the difference between a theology that makes the material world an evil to be escaped through an end to the cycle of reincarnation versus a Christian theology that promises that God will do to the creation and to us what He did through Jesus’ body: resurrect us to new redemption life in the new heavens and the new earth; and the difference between a theology that focuses on attaining “God consciousness”, which will give the adherent the power to stop sinning, and the Christian view that Christ died for all of our sins, that He took on the “bad karma” of the world because we could never do enough good things to balance out the bad. But probably the greatest paradigm shifter occurred when Rebecca explained that we really believe our Scriptures to say that Jesus is the only way: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” Jesus said, “Nobody comes to the Father but through me,” she quoted. For a few seconds nobody spoke, and then, two guys dressed in full length robes, with paint on their faces and their chanting beads around their necks said: that makes you a fanatic.

And you know what? They’re right! We are fanatics! We believe that the whole key to the salvation of the cosmos comes in the story of one man who lived 2,000 years ago and who spent the majority of his life in a little no-name village! What a great reminder that we believe the most radical thing in the whole world, that most cults and religions have nothing on us in terms of the extremity of our conviction! What a convenient thing to believe that Jesus is one road among many that lead to God! What a world changing thing to believe he is he only one! We’re thankful for Mukund and Karuna’s hospitality, and hope to invite both to a Christian celebration that seeks to create a missional response to the Hindu festival of Diwali.

Cricket

And last but not least, I fulfilled one of my long-term goals for life on Monday: I watched, and understood, an entire cricket match. Thankfully it was one of the ones that only lasts an afternoon, but our friend Hash took Rebecca and I, as well as our Kenyan friend Anne, to an international match between Scotland and Kenya. It’s a pretty neat game once you get it, every bit as lazy and relaxed as baseball, and Kenya demolished the Scots, so all and all it was a great afternoon.

Peace,
Michael

Pilot Project Progress Part 6: To The Market And Beyond

We're moving forward with the pilot project again! Just before we left Kenya in December we met with the pilot group to synthesize all the information that had been collected and organized during the previous meetings. We compiled the knowledge they shared about crops, about markets, and about production factors (things like suitability of certain crops, quality and quantity demanded at the market, perishability and other risk factors, etc.) to enable the group to select 5 crops they would like to study in the market. After a good discussion, the group voted on watermelons, green grams (legumes), rice, tomatoes, and corn. So last week in our first meeting of the new year, we began working with the farmers to make plans for studying the market and getting more information on the production costs of each of those crops.

First Michael reviewed the overall plan of the project by explaining the "Five Footsteps" in the process. The first step is to Discover what the farmers already know about their land, about their community, about farming, and about business (that's what we've been doing up until now). The second step (where we are now) is to Study the Market. Third is to Make a Business Plan, fourth is to Link the farmers with the needed agricultural experts, farming suppliers, and financial institutions in order for them to carry out their business plan, and fifth and last is, of course, to Do the Work: to actually plant, harvest, market, and sell a crop collectively.

We've hinted at this in previous blog posts, but we really are trying to do something different with this pilot project. The "something different" is explored and explained well in The Nazareth Manifesto by Duke University professor Sam Wells. He describes 3 "Styles of Engagement" when working with people of a different racial or socio-economic class. We as an organization are trying to transition out of the first of these tiered styles, the "doing for" style. Sometimes this style is necessary; Wells gives the example of doctors, firefighters, attorneys, and other professionals who have skills, education, and resources that other people need, and thus they are able to provide a service for those that do not have those same resources (anyone who is sick, or who is stuck in a burning building, or who needs legal counsel). Though it may be a necessary style of engagement at times, however, Wells points out that the "'working for' model perpetuates relationships of inequality." The "doing for" style is the mentality that there are "have" people in the world, and there are "have not" people, and the "haves" are responsible to identify and rectify the deficiencies of the "have nots."

We are trying in this pilot project, to move towards Wells' second style of engagement, the "doing with" model. This model says, "You know and understand certain things about the world. I know and understand certain things about the world. If we work together and both bring our experiences and knowledge, then we can do more and go further than if we just did it on our own." It's a way of doing development work that makes relationships necessary, because only when we are in relationships can we really begin to think and plan and dream together about what God has for us and our communities. "It involves. . . surrendering some of one's own autonomy and sense of power in being able to identify what needs to be done and take steps to make a difference." It's a way of doing life that reflects the belief that every person is an image bearer of God, and that each of us has skills, abilities and creativity to steward the world that God has given us to care for.

At Thursday's meeting, and at all of our meetings, it would be easier, more convenient, maybe more efficient, to make a plan and share with the farmers what we've already decided to do. But there are lots of reasons why we don't want to do it that way. For the principled reasons that we believe that each person has something to bring to the table by virtue of them being image bearers, and also for the very practical reason that when people decide to do something and they know that they are able and responsible to make it happen, they are more likely to think through all the logistics and actually carry out their intended plan. We want this group's project to be their project, going in the direction they believe their community should go, and we want to walk with them in all of it.

After Michael spoke about the overall project plan, Beth led the discussion by raising a series of topics that needed to be addressed before the farmers can begin conducting the market survey. They decided that six elected members of the group will serve as the "marketing team," and will go with Beth to visit 4 different markets that they think will give them the best information, and they will use a uniform market survey to interview various brokers and retailers. They also formed a budget that included cost of transport to the markets, lunch for marketing team members on the days they are doing the survey, and the cost of printing and copying the survey. This coming Thursday they will vote for the six marketing team members, and then we will establish the questions that should be on the survey and begin scheduling days to go the different markets, hopefully starting next week. In this past meeting, it was so obvious that the group making the plan was so much better than us making the plan for them. They thought of things we hadn't thought of, they decided on the numbers and timing in ways that are doable for them, and they got excited about carrying out the plan that they made for themselves.

Doing the marketing survey will hopefully accomplish several tasks: meeting and getting contact information for possible buyers, learning about market demand and price fluctuations of the different crops, and observing the pros and cons of each specific marketplace that the group is studying. While the marketing team is working from that end, 2 other farmers will be working with Michael and I on figuring out the production costs of each of the 5 possible crops. We will be visiting the local branch of the Ministry of Agriculture to get information on best practices for growing all 5 crops so that the group has a good idea of what each crop will cost to produce. With those two sets of information (from the market survey and from the Ministry of Agriculture), the marketing team will then come together, share and organize the data, determine the approximate profitability for each crop, and report their findings back to the entire group.

The group (and of course we as well) want to be able to do all of this - the marketing surveys, the production cost study, the synthesizing of the information, and the reporting back to the group - by the end of February. This, we believe, is a doable though difficult target. Please pray for the marketing team, for Beth, and for us that we would do diligent and good work as we are in a critical stage of the project. Pray that we would get accurate information from many resources so that the group is able to make a good decision on what, how, when, and how much they should grow. And pray that we as an organization really will continue to learn and live the "doing with" model.

The third style of engagement, as you may have guessed, is yet another challenge to us as an organization, and also to Michael and I personally. Wells calls it the "being with" model, which is not just about bringing everyone's skills and abilities and knowledge to the table, but it's actually about being with people, not just when needs are there, or when work is there. It's about living life together, "hanging out," living in intentional community with others who are different from us. Wells asks the question, "What would we do if there was no fixing that had to happen? If everything was alright?" The answer: we'd probably hang out! We'd be together. But why would we wait till everything is done? Why would we wait to live life with people fully and completely, vulnerably and openly, until the hard stuff is finished? This is a difficult challenge that Wells poses, and one that Michael and I are working through what it means in our own life. We would love you to be praying for us in this, and we'd love to interact with all of you about it. It makes me uncomfortable and nervous, but it also excites me, because I think the "being with" model might be hitting on God's call for us to show the world who, and whose, we are by loving each other.

Another prayer request: this Saturday, Michael and I will be meeting with a Krishna follower (one tradition of Hinduism) to talk about our faith. This young man was giving away Krishna literature in a grocery store one day, Michael talked to him for a while and read the book that the man gave him. Now we get to see him again, and he seems very excited about talking with us. So please be praying for this young man, and for us, that we would have proper sensitivity and boldness in talking with him about Jesus.

Love,
Rebecca

Back In The Saddle Again

We had so much to say we posted twice today! Don’t miss the second one!


Well, we made it back to Kenya! Our month in the States was crazy and exhausting: we taught Sunday Schools, spoke in services, met with boards, got great time with our family, were both in a wedding, and hung out over coffee. Thanks to everyone for coming, meeting, sharing, listening, and praying for us along the way.

Sharing about our work in Kenya helped remind us why we’re here. We truly feel blessed to be a part of the work of empowering Christ’s church to pursue His kingdom by working with the poor. And we feel so supported by all of you. Your prayers, words of encouragement, and acts of kindness towards us are overwhelming; our trip home reminded us that we work as part of a team that includes literally hundreds of folks thousands of miles away. We’ve only been back four days, and already there are new issues and hurdles to try to deal with, so we covet your prayers in the days ahead. We really believe that through it all Christ is teaching us amazing things about Himself and His kingdom, and we hope that many of you will follow along with us on that by reading the blog. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Praying that Christ would call you further and farther out into His love than ever before,

The Rhodes

Pat Robertson and Haiti: Standing Against Christ

Several months ago, Rebecca and I blogged about how the poor are held captive in poverty in part by believing the lies the rich and powerful tell them. We told the story of our friend “Mary,” who was taught in church that black people have been cursed since Noah. In Walking with the Poor, Bryant Myers makes the case that the powerful tell stories to the poor that teach them that their failure is their own fault, the result of their own inferiority, or even because God hates them. The poor often believe these lies, which become like shackles on their feet: if you believe you’re inferior, less valuable, rejected by God, well, then you tend to act like it. Whereas I grew up in a family and a society where everyone told me that I could be anything I wanted to be, many of the poor are living in a very different story: that they deserve poverty, that they were designed for it, that it is their lot to suffer.


What’s so blasphemous (yes , blasphemous) about these myths is that they stand in total and utter opposition to the story that God tells through the Bible. Isaiah 61 tells us that God will rebuild the broken and abandoned cities through the poor, who will be called Oaks of Righteousness and a display for the Lord’s splendor. “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven,” Jesus says in Luke.

Almost all of you have heard about the earthquake in Haiti that recently killed as many as 200,000 people. What you may not have heard is that Pat Robertson, a would-be ‘minister of the gospel,’ has stated on national television that this earthquake is God’s punishment for a pact with the devil that he claims the Haitians made nearly 200 years ago.

To a watching world we declare: this is not our Jesus.

What Mr. Robertson has done this past week, and has done regularly throughout his long career, is to reject Christ’s life giving message of hope amidst despair to one of the poorest nations on earth, and instead whispered Satan’s lies into their ears . . . all the while claiming to be talking about Jesus of Nazareth. He has told a nation filled with Christians that the reason their children have died in mass, that their businesses, homes, and hospitals have been destroyed, that literally thousands have died violent untimely deaths, is that their great-great-great-grandfathers (so he’s heard) made a pact with the devil. In our Christian business trainings we tell our farmers they don’t have to fear the witch doctor because “having disarmed the powers and authorities, [Christ has] made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” But Mr. Robertson has told my young Haitian friend, who studied with me at Covenant College, that the reason his family remains missing in the devastation is that Satan still holds his nation captive based on the rumor of a Satanic pact between some Haitians 200 years ago!

Some of you may think that this type of discussion isn’t appropriate for a missionary blog. Rebecca and I prayerfully and thoughtfully disagree. When someone who represents the body of Christ blasphemes our God, it is our responsibility to stand up using whatever public and private channels we have to say, “World, this is not our Jesus.” Mr. Robertson has been in ministry a long time, and I would be foolish to infer that he has not made a positive impact on the world in some areas. But when Mr. Robertson made those statements the other day, he made a stand: against Christ and His kingdom. When Mr. Robertson said that the late Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke because, as an Israeli PM he gave back land to the Palestinians and made a small step towards relieving the worst refugee crisis in the world, Mr. Robertson stood against Christ and His kingdom. When Mr. Robertson said on his show that we should assassinate foreign leaders like Hugo Chavez, he stood against Christ and His kingdom. Has it ever occurred to Mr. Robertson that there are believers living in Palestinian refugee camps, working in Venezuela, or crawling out of the wreckage in Haiti? And that he has exchanged the only message of hope for them, choosing instead a violent, demonic theology that belongs more to animism than the gospel? Mr. Robertson has attempted to wade into admittedly complicated political issues that believers around the world have a variety of opinions on; but this anti-poor, anti-global church, health wealth theology certainly has no place in Christ’s kingdom or legitimate political debate.

The stories we tell, the things we say, the worldview that we present to the world matters. It’s time for Christians to stop ignoring this unChristian lunacy so prevalent among would be bearers of Christian morality in America. It’s time we recognize that the myths of the rich stand in the way of the story of Jesus. To my Haitian brothers and sisters, we declare that Christ loves you and grieves with you in this crisis and will be with you no matter what lies ahead. We declare that every one of you is made in His image, designed to be servants in His kingdom and called for a purpose.

We work and live among the poor every day here in Kenya. Time and time again we have seen that Christ’s gospel is the good news for the poor. Let’s declare with our lives and hearts and words that Christ uses the things that “are not” to shame the things that “are,” that the poor are being raised up through His word to carry His kingdom message into the world. If we want to be a part of what God is doing, it’s time to stop trying to cut down the oaks, and start rebuilding the walls right alongside them. Then we can stop being televangelists preaching health wealth and blasphemy and become the “priesthood of the Lord” that Isaiah promises.

Hallelujah!

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! For squash and farmers and the power of the poor working together, for oaks of righteousness and rebuilders of walls! 

This past week our farmers in Ngare Ndare harvested almost 4 tons of squash, and are working on harvesting another ton this week. While we sweated and fretted and lost sleep at night over how they would market them, they found a buyer to purchase them at a relatively good price, and to buy all of them at a go in Ngare Ndare! This is a huge victory for us, the result of a group of committed hard working farmers with strong leaders looking for ways to use what God has given them to provide better lives for themselves and for their communities! Hallelujah!

Michael

P.S.- This is the second post in three days! Don't miss Monday's update on the Pilot Project!

Pilot Project Progress Part 5: More Rocks, More Decisions

Last Thursday we had our third general meeting in Murang'a. Sitting under the eucalyptus trees and watching rain clouds coming quickly towards us, we again brought out the rocks and tried to dig deeper into the agricultural minds of the farmers.

A word on method: some of you may think all of this stuff about notecards and voting stones is a bunch of garbage. Why not just ask the questions and get answers? But there are several reasons why this particular tool seems to give great results.

First of all, it removes the white folks from the conversation almost completely. We give a task, and then watch as the farmers complete it. In the process, they organize, arrange, and discuss what they already know, and we learn in the process. Secondly, it's visual, requires few if any abstract categories or ideas, and because it inevitably leads to everybody squatting around a bunch of notecards on the ground and counting rocks, it's about as unintimidating an excercise as you could possibly wish for. And what all this means is that everybody participates. In the Kenyan culture, it can be difficult to get people to speak before the "leader" has spoken, and once he has spoken, even harder to get people to disagree, regardless of their own opinons. These excercises allow everyone to have a voice without disrupting important cultural dynamics.

So on Thursday we laid out the cards with the crops for cash written on them, and then asked the farmers to come up with all the different issues that needed to be considered when trying to decide on a crop for agricultural business. Farmers came up with things like input costs, gross profit, perishability of the product, distance to markets, suitability to the area, susceptibility to disease, and several more. We then had them use the stones to rank the crops in each of these categories, i.e. to show how maize compares to tomatoes and mellons in terms of perishability, or how beans, mangos, and pidgeon peas compare in terms of distance to markets.

Rebecca led this section and was absolutely brilliant. The farmers took the idea and ran with it, and by the end we had come up with a great visual chart to help us think systematically about how to compare the crops with one another.

Best of all was the farmers reaction to the whole process. Although we can't understand Kikikuyu at all (the language they inevitably use amongst themselves), Beth can. And she explained to us afterwards that during the excercise, people expressed surprise and delight at how much they knew, and also about how new an idea it was to take what they knew and put it into an easily accesible format. They also clearly enjoyed the discussions, and said so. One guy went so far as to say, "When I come here to these meetings, I feel so relaxed." This may seem surprising, but I think the key is again in the fact that the poor really do deal strongly with a marred identity, that they tend to believe the lies the wealthy and even missionary culture tells them: You need us, you're ignorant, you can't handle your own business. But with these tools, over and over again we're asking them to tell us about what they know. And they're beginning to see that what they know, not what the white people, the outsiders, the rich know, but what they know will be the key to their plan. And when, as the authors of When Helping Hurts argue so powerfully, we the rich outsiders open our eyes and ears to what the poor are good at, to what they know, when we ask their advice instead of constantly giving our own, then Christ works His healing power for the poor . . . and for us!

This point was brought home powerfully with our Mang'u farmers this past week. We mentioned in a few posts that we've started some "urban gardening," trying to grow different things in tires to learn a bit more about agriculture. When Hezekiah, one of our heros from the Mang'u group, learned that we were trying this, he decided to help. I mentioned that I wanted to grow tomatos, and maybe he had some advice? Pretty soon, Hezekiah had brought sacks to plant seedlings in, had brought us seedlings he had grown for his own crop (12!), had brought us to his home to send us back with soil to fill the sacks with (because 'if you go in Nairobi, they will charge you a very high price'), had started swinging by our house every two weeks when he's selling passion fruit to counsel us on potential pests, and promised to show us how to build a small trellis to train the vines to grow up next week. And somewhere in the midst of this, it dawned on me that our relationship had totally transformed, becoming something much more wonderful, healing, and in every since of the word "Christian," than it had been before. For once maybe in his whole life, Hezekiah was coming and giving much needed advice to a "rich" white couple. And for one of the few times in our life, we were listening, and learning, and finding that our friend who we had tried so hard to help was in a reality a great storehouse of knowledge about things that we desperately needed to know.

By coming to read this blog, each of you has already proven that you care deeply about us and about the poor around the world. I know that many of you are involved with ministry or work among the poor vocationally, as volunteers, or just in day to day relationships. Here's a challenge that we're trying to take up: the next time you're with someone that you consider poor, that you feel God calling you to help, begin by asking their advice about something. Ask them to teach you something. Ask them to talk about something that they know a lot about. And just see what happens.

Isaiah tells us that when the Messiah comes he will bind up the brokenhearted, declare the year of Jubilee, and preach good news to the poor. And then he tells us that those rescued, healed, liberated poor will be called "Oaks of Righteousness . . . that they will be called Rebuilder of Walls." This is the good news of the gospel: that those God heals, He also calls to be a part of His huge saving the world project. And when we open our eyes to the ways God is making the poor and destitute, the things that are not, into Oaks of Righteousness, Christ's kingdom will come just a little bit more in our own hearts and lives.

Please pray for our continued work, especially as we have year end meetings with all of our groups, and specifically for our last pilot meeting on December 3rd. We're ecstatic about the meetings we have had, but discouraged by the numbers of farmers participating so far. There are plenty of good external factors for this (people forget, there is a lot of seasonally related work right now, etc), but Beth and the farmers who came last time are making a big push to make sure that the last meeting of the year is well attended. Please labor in prayer for that with us.

Peace,
Michael