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

Pilot Project Progress Part 4: What To Grow and Where To Go

Typically I don’t think of rain or weeds as obstacles to attendance at meetings. We made several attempts at meeting with our pilot group the past month, and after cancellations several weeks in a row due to weeding season and then to heavy downpours on our outdoor meeting place, we finally successfully met last week and it was brilliant.

We didn’t start immediately when we arrived; in fact we even had enough time for some manual labor in a farm immediately next to the grove of trees where we meet. Phyllis (the one wearing lavender), only 17 years old but a faithful member of the group, was good enough to invite us to experience the joy of weeding in her family's rice field.

Weeding has always been one of my favorite things to do. Yeah. After only a few minutes of bending over at the waist, being confused as to what was rice and what was weed, and having the equatorial sun beat down mercilessly on my back, I was delighted that the meeting under the trees would begin soon.

We sat together in a semi-circle as Michael began by leading a discussion about what we did last meeting, and then Beth jumped right into the first activity. The goal by the end of the meeting was for us and the group members to have a more organized understanding of what crops they grow in their area and for what purposes (for consumption versus for profit), and then to understand what markets their community uses, what markets are the best markets for profit, and what some of the barriers are for the community in getting their products to those good markets.

So Beth started with the crops. She asked the group to think of all the crops that their community has grown in the past 2 years and to write each of those crops on a note card. The 23 crops identified were then laid out on the ground to analyze. The group was given 20 small stones to rank the crops in 3 different categories.

 First, they ranked the crops according to how much each crop is grown in the community, so they took 20 stones and placed them on the note cards to indicate how much or how little it is grown. Then they picked up the stones and rearranged them, ranking the crops according to importance for consumption. Last, they ranked the crops according to importance for profit; the group identified 11 of the 23 crops as for profit crops.

Having identified all the local crops grown for profit, we transitioned from crop analysis to market analysis. Michael passed out blank note cards again, this time having the group write down all the markets that they used in the past 2 years.

Ten markets were identified, including markets as close as the “Broker that comes to the farm” and “Neighbors,” and as far away as Nairobi (a two hour drive). The 10 note cards were laid out on the ground and the group members did two more rankings. They ranked each crop to identify where they actually sold that product. And finally they ranked each crop according to where the best market was to sell that product.

After finishing the analysis and making notes, the group talked together about the results. They were excited about having organized their knowledge as farmers and business people to understand better where they have been and what they have done in the past.

They saw huge discrepancies between where they generally go to sell their goods as opposed to where they should go for the best profit. Transportation, time, safety, brokers, and limited production (not having economies of scale) were all identified as struggles and obstacles to getting better profit and going to better markets. How could they afford to hire a pick up truck to take their produce? How would they get to Nairobi, sell their goods and return home before nightfall since the roads are so dangerous after dark? How do they deal with the broker cartels that force small scale farmers to sell at excruciatingly low prices? These and many more issues surfaced during the discussion. Yet the group also seemed to be excited about moving forward with this knowledge and these challenges to work through how to do better business in the future.

Like Michael was saying in “Part 2" (you should read it if you haven't yet!), we really are trying to begin at the beginning with this group, to walk with them to help both us and them to recognize and then to build on their abilities, talents and strengths as image bearers of God, and more specifically as savvy farmers and significant members of their community and economy. We have five steps that we are working through pole pole (slowly slowly) to eventually lead to this group doing collective farming as business. The first step, kuvumbua, “discovery,” is where we are now. It's about the group members talking about, remembering, realizing, and organizing all the things that they have and all the things they know about the assets of their community, and also about farming, marketing, and business.

What we did today was part of this first step, and by the end of it the group will have a narrowed down list of 3-4 crops that the group is interested in growing and selling together. Step 2 is when the group’s marketing team will study the market and report their results to the group. The third step is where the group will decide on the 1 crop they want to grow collectively and from that they will form a business plan. Kushirikiana, “Linking,” is next (step 4) and very important since this will be the point where the group will work to get connected with the appropriate agricultural and/or financial advisors and suppliers. And finally, step 5 is putting it all into action – using their own knowledge and resources to do collective agrobusiness.

Please continue to pray for us as we continue to develop relationships and walk along side this group of talented and intelligent people. Pray for Beth. And pray also for the farmers themselves. They have done so much and will do so much in the future, and pray that they will see that God is at work in their community and in their lives, and that Jesus is using them to help to bring His kingdom to the world.

Love,

Rebecca

Christ's Corpse Bride: Poverty of Being and the Mzungu Legacy

For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and the bride has made herself ready.

During my years at Covenant, I read a great deal about how poverty is fundamentally relational, a result of broken relationships that no longer work for life. At the heart of this idea is the observation that the poor are held back by the lies that they believe about themselves, lies that are often told by the rich in order to keep the poor “in their place.” This is worlds different from the “boot strap” perspective that the poor are poor because they’re lazy or unmotivated; but it does recognize that the poor are literally trapped in a web of lies about their value, their ability, their very personhood. Until recently, I believed this in theory. Now I know it as fact.

One of our friends, who currently lives in the largest slum in Africa, had come for a meal at our place. Let’s call her Mary. Talk turned to the post-election violence that ravaged Kenya in 2008, with our friend relating stories of how she had partnered with a friend from another tribe to sneak out and get food: if a Luo greeted them, the Luo friend would reply; if a Kikuyu, the Kikuyu would reply. This way both friends were protected from the other’s tribe mates. Rebecca and I were explaining our belief that Jesus gives a clear answer to tribalism, for in him there is “neither Jew nor Greek.” “The answer to tribalism,” I said, “is rooted in the Bible.”

“And why are the mzungus so rich? Is that in the Bible, too?”

“What?” I replied laughing. “Of course not . . .”

And then it came tumbling out, like a river breaking its banks after a hard rain. “They are teaching in Sunday School that black people are cursed, because we come from Ham,” “I have heard that you are rich because you had the Word of God first,” “But Jesus, wasn’t he an American?” “But your people are so smart, so good. Our people, most of us are not very smart. And we are very bad.”

This didn’t come from a textbook, a liberal psychological journal, or a rant about “the man;” it came from my dining room table. And before that, it came from the church.

The final scenes of Revelation present a picture of Jesus coming to reunite himself finally and ultimately with his bride, the church of his elect. This is our destiny: marital union with the resurrected Lord and Christ. But what happens when the bride plays the whore, when the church seems more like Burton’s corpse bride than Shakespeare’s Juliet?

And we have indeed played the whore. Oh yes, our churches in Kenya and America have stood on the solid rock of the Scriptures as the inerrant Word of God, at least the parts that make us feel comfortable. Oh yes, we know that homosexuality and abortion are terrible sins, and we know that no amount of good works can save us. But we have played the whore none the less.

How else do we explain the pastor in Nairobi who tells another friend of ours that she is outside of God’s will because she isn’t ready to move back in with her husband who beat her, never had a job, left her for another woman, and threatened her with a knife the last time they met? How else do we explain the emails that fill up our inboxes about how Barack Obama is the anti-christ? How else do we explain our thunderous noise about abortion and our callous hearts towards African American single moms and our resolute opposition to any kind of health care reform? How else do we explain the way that so many Kenyan pastors have used their position as shepherd to bully and oppress, or the American pastor who preaches that the Bible is only about a “personal relationship with Jesus” and that if we only follow Him we’ll get “our best life now?”

Power, wealth, security and control have blinded the bride in America and exposed her to the beast. And we have exported our idolatry around the world. Where did our friend learn that she was cursed from Noah because of the color of her skin? Old propaganda from the South, it seems, dies hard in the rest of the world. Where did she learn that she is poor because she is stupid and bad, but white people are rich because they are good and clever, if not from the wealthy stream of white folks running around her country from the colonialists to the missionaries to the United Nations and World Bank? And where did so many Kenyan pastors learn to lord their power and money over their congregations, if not at least partially from the televangelists on the airwaves and the wealthy missionaries in their midst?

We have but one option: resurrection. If we are a bride, we are the corpse bride. But in the same way that Christ took on a mortal body and the Father raised it immortal and imperishable, Christ will take our rotting, corpse of a church and raise it to be the beautiful bride prepared for the groom. We catch resurrection glimpses in our Kiswahili teacher who walks the muddy streets of his rural village ministering to the poor despite his high level of education and access to much greater economic situations, in the Mennonite missionaries who have worked in drought regions for thirty years, and in the relationships that we see beginning, broken as we are, across racial, ethnic, and socio-economic lines in our own work. But the first step in the process is not the triumphalism, arrogance, or patronizing posturing so common to our career; it is repentance. Down on our knees. No, down on our faces, for the ghettoes and inner-cities in America and the slums of Africa and South America which our idolatry has been a part of building whether we like it or not. If the poor believe lies about themselves it is because, we the rich, have been such talented tellers of lies. “Forgive us for our sins and the sins of our fathers,” Nehemiah prayed. And so must we. This is the first step in walking with Mary into the life-giving reality of God, where every person is made in His image, and every believer given a place of honor at his wedding table. And it is the beginning of taking us off God’s throne where we’ve put ourselves, and getting back on our faces before the King of kings.

Pilot Project Progress Part 3: Meet Beth

Thursday afternoon we’ll be having our second general meeting with the pilot project group, but before we do that we’d like to introduce you to Beth Muthoni Kabathi, our new CCS partner in the work!

Beth was born and raised within the Murang’a district where our project is located. She received her degree from Daystar University, a very well respected Christian university near Nairobi committed to raising up Christian servant leaders in every area of life. Beth studied business and accounting, and after graduation went to work for CCS for six years as the Mount Kenya regional accountant. During that time, she not only did great accounting, she also learned more and more about what CCS does in the field. Along the way she took part in a distance course through the Chalmers Center at Covenant College on community development, and later decided she wanted to be involved in something more directly related to helping the poor.

So, get this, she went and got her Masters in Micro-finance! Just last week, Beth defended and presented the research she did on insurance among poor Kenyans, and now we’ve got a real master on the team!

Best of all, Beth is passionate about the work, and about the community. She has brought tremendous insight to our work, helping the two dumb wazungu (white people) figure out what the heck is going on. Beth is a tremendous example of a highly educated Kenyan woman on the front lines of serving the poor, making great sacrifices to do so (including having to learn how to ride a motorbike). Please pray for Beth as we continue to sail into uncharted waters together, and that God would help her to build real rapport and community within the village where we’re working.

Peace,
Michael

Missionary Stuff

So occasionally, very very occasionally, we act like “real” missionaries. Some recent examples:

Rebecca has been involved in several women’s outreach events, using them as an opportunity to try to help some of our Kenyan friends from town get plugged into a church (ours, preferably). Two of our former neighbors have been really good friends to us, and have come to church events with us on a couple of occasions.

Rebecca drove a car load of Kenyans and Congolese refugees out into the Rift Valley last Sunday to be a part of a soccer match between our church’s youth (18-35) and a group of IDPs (internally displaced persons) living in a refugee area because of the violence after the last election.

Rebecca actually gets asked to play a lot, not surprisingly, and both of us played with a team of Congolese refugees one Saturday morning a few weeks ago. The refugees we know come from two families who attend New City Fellowship. Despite being “aliens in a foreign land,” they have been incredibly hospitable to us, and Rebecca and I have enjoyed playing soccer with them, making a visit to their home, and watching the dance group they’ve put together for the young folks. They’ve got a lot of free time on their hands but they’re making the best of it, and Rebecca and I have been brainstorming about how to be more involved in their lives (see below).

Rebecca and I got to do a “follow-up” lunch with a couple of deacons at our church, New City Fellowship. You may recall that we got a chance to lead two Sunday schools on working with the poor with the new deacons in June, and now they’re working hard to come up with a set of policies that will guide them in their work among the poor. Because New City is a small, highly inter-racial church, with a high number of very poor families from the slums, we can say that they have their work cut out for them! It was awesome to get to kick around ideas with a few of them, and to simply be a part of the conversation about what it means for a church to holistically care for the poor. In the next few weeks, we’re hoping to visit a few of the folks the deacons have worked with (particularly the Congolese refugees) to begin trying to do with them what we talked about in our last blog post: discussing what God has done for them, what gifts and abilities He’s given them, and how they can better use those gifts to provide for their families.

Rebecca lead our small group Bible study last Friday. We talked about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, with Rebecca helping us to look carefully at Mary, Martha, and Jesus’ characters specifically. The small group has been awesome for us, giving us a real base for making friends and real encouragement in our own lives with Jesus.

I got to lead worship the past two weeks at New City because our normal worship leader was sick. Although I’ve participated before, these were my first opportunities to actually lead. And while I’ve lead music for years in numerous different venues, this was, to put it mildly, a completely different thing altogether. The team consisted of about eight people with six different national ethnicities represented (India, Pakistan, Madagascar, Kenya, Korea and the US). We sang in English, Hindi, Kiswahili, and some language from Zimbabwe for good measure. I had lots of help, to say the least. But as someone who has been thinking and convicted about the importance of racial and stylistic diversity in all worship everywhere this is like a dream come true. And because the worship leader’s doctor asked her to stay away from singing for a month, I’m on the schedule twice more in November.

Moreover, Jesus has put us in relationships with several different individuals or families who are either Muslim or openly nominal Christians. Please pray that Jesus would use us to bring some of these folks to himself!

All of this is very exciting for us, not only because we’re passionate about Jesus and His church, but also because it allows us to bring our heart for his kingdom into our lives in Nairobi itself, instead of leaving all of that to our actual job descriptions. And things are happening all the time. I visited a Teen Challenge residential facility recently that is literally three doors down, and have been asked to preach at New City in November. So please pray for all of it.

Peace,
Michael

Pilot Project Progress Part 2: Appreciating Assets

Had any of you magically been whisked away to Nairobi last Wednesday night to visit the Rhodes household you might have been surprised at what you would have found. Two very stressed 20-somethings scribbling on poster boards, bickering about whose job it was to figure out how to say "values" in Swahili, and generally running around like chickens recently departed from their heads. Preparing for the first day with a new pilot project turned out to be a bit like getting ready for the first day of school. And we both slept just as poorly.

"Not with bang, but with a whimper." That's what T.S. Eliot said about the world's ending, but it fit quite well with our pilot beginning. When we arrived with our new coworker Beth at the beautifully shady grove of trees where the meeting was to be held, we found literally nobody (we were a bit early). But slowly and surely people streamed in, walking or on bikes, clearly having just left their farms or cows or other morning work. By the end of the day, 13 of 17 people made it, which isn't bad for the first day!

More importantly than the turn up, though, was the meeting itself, which was a complete success. The overall goal of the pilot project is to help a group of farmers to be able to collectively produce and sell a crop with a good market, while also learning the skills to know how to read the market and respond to its changes and fluctuations. But we didn't start with marketing trainings, or giving the group a crop to grow and a lesson on how to grow it. In fact we didn't really do any training at all.

That's because in this project we're trying to begin where the Bible itself begins: the story of God making human beings in His own image. If we really believe that incredible truth, then we have to treat every single human being as if they have value, skills, abilities . . . in short, that they have assets that God has given them to be managed and stewarded in His world. And while almost every Christian would agree, most of the time the way we think about the poor comes from the implicit idea that the poor simply lack things, whether money, knowledge, character . . . whatever. And when that's our implicit idea, whether we like it or not, that's what gets communicated to the poor people we try to work with.

But don't people really need knowledge, capital, food? Of course we all have needs. But, as Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett have explained in their excellent new book When Helping Hurts (everyone should read it!), a Biblical view of poverty centers around broken relationships with God, with ones self, with others, and with creation. And whether it's inner-city Memphis or rural Kenya, one thing that all poor communities face is the consistent implicit message from the non-poor world that they're messed up, worthless, powerless, vulnerable, stupid, and incapable of change. The government, many NGOs, sometimes even the church, as well as the Primary School of Everyday Experience all teach poor people that they matter less than the rich, that their problems are their fault, and there really isn't much they can do about it. And when outsiders come in with programs that treat the poor as people lacking resources, it simply reinforces the lies they've been told, inadvertently reducing that individual or community's ability to really make changes in their own lives.

But the truth of the Scriptures that conquers the lie is that God has given every person His image! And that means that every one of us has assets and skills that we can use. And so in this pilot project, our primary objective is to help community members use their own assets and resources to study the market, to design a business plan, and to execute that plan to gain a profit.

So on Thursday, we started the whole process with two funny things: drawing maps and telling stories. You see, if we really want this project to be about helping the poor recognize their assets and empowering them to use it to address the problems and opportunities they themselve identify, we wanted to start with activities that would help us do just that. So Rebecca opened up the entire meeting by explaining that we believe that every person has God-given assets and abilities, and that we wanted to begin by learning about what assets God had given this community. She did an excellent job of explaining how every stage of the project would flow out of this foundational idea: God has given you the ability to make changes for the good in your community.

We then began with a Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) activity. PLA is a set of tools that community workers have used for a number of years to help a community process its own resources, opportunities, and problems. The foundational assumption is that community members are the experts on their communities, and that by getting them talking and thinking, an NGO can empower them to begin using their resources and abilities to address their own needs, all while affirming the Biblical message of being made in God's image.

Our first PLA activity, led by our coworker Beth, was a simple community map. The idea is remarkably simple: Beth merely asked the group to create a map of their community, emphasizing local physical resources. But what followed was extraordinary to watch. All 13 community members began scratching and drawing in the dust, gathering sheaves of corn to make crosses to represent churches and rocks for schools, and discussing in great detail all of the physical resources in their community. These included the irrigation project that they began, and also highlighted some limiting infrastructure issues, including far off markets, and a ferry that doesn't operate year round. Not only was this incredibly fun to watch, not only did it encourage every person to be involved, but it got all of them thinking about how resource rich their community really is, and it taught us a whole lot about the area where we're working.

Our second activity comes from a set of methods known as Appreciative Inquiry. The foundational assumption behind Appreciative Inquiry is that every functioning community is a miracle. The fact that people exist in community is a sign that God is working, that people have found a way to overcome obstacles, to work together. Appreciative Inquiry allows a facilitator to help community members form action plans based on their analysis of their own assets and strengths. And AI begins with something everybody loves: stories.

So after the mapping, I explained to the group that before we could begin to think about where we are going, we had to remember where we were, where we had come from. I told them that our project was all about them using their strengths, abilities, and successes to come up with a plan on how to keep moving towards their dreams. And then, I just started asking for people to tell stories. "Tell me a story about a time when you were proud of your community?" "About a time when you tried something new on your farm and succeeded?" "About a time when you faced an obstacle and overcame it?" As people would tell stories, I asked one of the young women in the group to write a few words about the story, and then I would walk through the process of analyzing the strengths, values, and enabling conditions present in the story. For instance, when one man told the story of how he had wanted to get married in a church, and the community pulled together to help him be able to pay for it, we said that the story showed the community was strong in unity, friendship, and love, that they obviously valued family, marriage, and following God's laws, and that in order to have had that experience, they had to have jobs, money, the willingness to help one another, etc. We did the same process with the stories about the man who started selling watermelons as soon as they arrived in the area, and sold them in a far away market, or for the person who told the story about traveling far away to learn how to grow rice, and taking the risk to try it in their own home place.

At the end of the day, the community had spent several hours talking only about their successes, only about their resources, only about the encouraging moments and powerful aspects of their community. Maybe some people think all of this is silly, but after years of development in the 2/3rds World and increasing Welfare states in the West, we believe it is something to begin where God does: that people matter, and that He's given all of us skills, abilities, and assets to manage and use for His glory. This is the beginning and heart of community development, and it was absolutely amazing to see it in action. And maybe, just maybe, it gave us the foundation, the starting point, to walk together with these farmers all the way towards sustainable agricultural business. We'll see.

Peace,
Michael

Pilot Project Progress Part 1: Man's Work

Authors Note: This post is the first in a series about the newly started Pilot Project. Look for regular updates as the project is just now beginning!

The first general meeting with the new group isn’t for two more days, and yet the real work has already begun. As many of you will remember, Planting Faith is conducting a Pilot Project in the Murang’a District to try some new techniques and strategies based on keeping the best of what PF has done before while also improving and addressing issues and challenges we’ve had with other groups.

One of the first issues we wanted to address was the issue of group size and formation. At a simple level, it’s really hard to have meetings where everyone’s voice is heard if there are 50 people. At a much more complex level, we’ve found that if you ask people “hey do you want to do x,” they basically always say yes, whether you’re talking about promoting agricultural business or about underwater basket weaving. Which makes it really hard to make sure you have people in a group who are really interested in what it is you actually want to do!

Of course, these are some of the things that make international development so difficult, right? I mean, cross-cultural communication is hard, often times what the NGO thinks the community needs and what the community thinks they need are quite different, and it certainly seems so much more efficient to work with 50! And yet, often times it seems that these simple decisions made at the outset really do set the stage for the entire shebang.

So with this project we asked CCS to help us find a group that already existed, that had expressed an interest in agricultural business before hearing about our project, and that was already involved in their own projects. And what a group they found!

The Githuri Water Project group consists of 100 farmers who have mobilized themselves to access gov’t funds in order to get irrigation for their farms. Previously a total drought region, their group has now managed to get irrigation water for 50 households (and counting) using gravity, a nearby river, funds from the gov’t, and a whole heckuva lot of work. And after discussing with our CCS partners, they’ve agreed to mobilize 25 of those 50 households who are specifically interested in agricultural business for our project.

So, having met the leadership, Rebecca, Beth (our new CCS coworker), and I decided that it would be a good idea to invest a little time in the community to learn more about what’s going on, to begin some relationships, and to communicate how excited we are about what they’ve already accomplished. And so, just yesterday, we picked up hoes, pick axes, and shovels, took of our shoes, and joined the group in digging the main trench where they will put the next section of irrigation piping.

Let me be clear about two things: this pipe is a big pipe. And this ditch they put it in . . . it’s a big ditch. And so, what we had dreamily contemplated as a relational building time became (in addition to that) probably one of the hardest days work of this city slickers life. We’re talking digging 6 feet down into the earth, removing enormous boulders, and shoveling out tons of dirt in the excruciatingly hot Kenyan sun. And we’re also talking about watching women old enough to be your grandma totally making your 23 yr old self look like a complete pansy. I mean, these folks can work! So of course, Bec and I got blisters in all of thirty seconds, and did our best to not make total fools or ourselves. And while we’ll be feeling the effects for a few days, the relationships begun, the message conveyed, and the sheer joy of feeling in your bones a hard days work done together was well worth the effort.

Actually, most of my hardest days of labor have been on missions trips: mixing cement in Mexico, gutting houses in New Orleans, etc. But I’ve never, on any trip, really worked under local leaders who are already providing all the supplies, labor, and planning that the project required. There had to be 30 people who showed up to work all day in the hot sun with no pay and no food. If there’s ever been a time when you might have generalized the poor as lazy, incapable of managing or leading, or at least not very driven, it’s time to think again.

What a great opportunity for us! Hopefully, it was the start that we needed in the community (in addition to meetings with the leaders and a walk through the village as well). Please pray for us these next couple days, because our first meeting is on Thursday (check the blog on Friday for the next update!), and we’re all going to be out of our comfort zones!

Peace,

Michael

Long Time Gone

Well, there’s nowhere to begin but by apologizing: sorry it has been so long! But despite the long silence on our end, there’s plenty to tell . . . we just haven’t had time to tell it. To dive right in . . .

Visitors
Since the World Freedom Day party we’ve hosted numerous folks at our home in Nairobi, including Marian, Mark, Christen, and Stephen Sasscer (Rebecca’s Mom, Dad, and two of her siblings), Dr. Russell Mask (one of my profs from Covenant), and Mom and Dad from Memphis. All in all, that’s more than 30 days of visitors since July!

Former professors and new in-laws sound like a recipe for major stress, but we can honestly say that all our visitors were an incredible encouragement to us, and that everybody weathered the various small storms of international travel (running out of water, no power, bumpy roads, multiple day car breakdowns, food poisoning, and one really mean jellyfish) with incredible graciousness! I’d like to publicly thank Dr. Mask for interacting with us and giving guidance on all sorts of work and cultural issues (he worked in Nairobi for several years), Christen and Stephen for spending the last few days of their break running around with us, and all of the parents for being incredible role models for us newlyweds, for giving us great advice and encouragement, and for being willing to roll with the punches during their stay. Plus, ya’ll were a great excuse to do some great vacationing!

Work
Based on our guest schedule, you might assume that we’ve hit a lull in our work schedule. Not so! In fact, and maybe I always say this but really this time, I don’t think we’ve ever been busier. To take it group by group:

Our farmers in Ngare Ndare have planted butternut squash! Back in August we visited the group and took a tour of about 7 farms with the entire group, which was really fun. They had just germinated at that time, but they looked good, and the reports over the phone line sound like they’re coming along well. This is great news! Please pray that we’d be able to get up there in October before harvest, and that we’d be able to help the group to put together a marketing plan in time to really turn a good profit. This would be a major success.

In Mang’u farmers continue to grow passion fruit, but the truth is, many of the farmer’s crops failed due to neglect or disease, and we’ve spent most of our time since arriving trying to help the group find its feet again and decide on a way forward. After the leaders sent letters to all defaulting members (on their own initiative), we got a good portion of the group together for a meeting. The group decided they want to plant a new crop together using their own funds, to get on loan repayment schedules that would allow them to repay their loans slowly, and to start a community managed loan fund referred to locally as a Table Bank.

Table Banks are basically small-scale, informal credit unions that, using only the members contributed savings, make small loans and allow members to save with the potential for annual dividend payments. Table Banks have several distinct advantages over traditional microfinance banks and loan schemes. First, and most importantly, Table Banking is an initiative that begins in the right place: with the community’s own assets and resources. So many well-intentioned community development programs implicitly enter a community with the message that “You need help. You have problems. And we can fix them for you.” Nothing could be more disempowering and hurtful to the vulnerable poor, who already feel powerless and destitute than to bring a message that says, "You can't solve your problems without our help." But Table Banking begins with the message that “You have resources! You have opportunities! You have money! If you work together, you can help each other achieve your goals!” Second, using the community’s own savings for the loan capital means that loans are smaller, safer, and more appropriate. Whereas an outsider might over-estimate a poor person’s debt capacity, and mistakenly give them more debt than they can possibly manage, Table Banking begins at the right level, as determined and managed by the community. Third, whereas microbanks and lending programs tend to be totally based around credit, Table Banks reward people who do nothing but save by giving them dividends or interest payments on their savings at the end of the year!

Our group in Kabete has also decided to begin Table Banking, so we’ve agreed to lead both groups through a training on forming Table Banking produced by the Chalmers Center at Covenant College. This is a totally new step for us, and we’re trying to equip our coworker, James Njeru, to be able to do the training on his own by the time we finish, so pray for us in all of that.

Our sunflower and aloe vera groups are continuing. We finished our Prepare a Better Business training in one of the groups, and the training continues to go well in all the groups. Two groups have harvested their sunflower, but low production because of the drought here and complications with getting the machine for processing have made the process more complicated. Our aloe vera farmers are implementing some new irrigation techniques, and production seems to be good, but we’re continuing to work on the marketing side of things. Please pray for wisdom and encouragement for both us and the farmers.

Finally, we’ve begun meetings with members of our new Pilot Project group! I posted something about the project several months ago, and more updates will be coming out soon, but for now I’ll just say that CCS hired an excellent new staff person for us to work with, and after meeting with some of the farmers and even visiting some farms we’re more excited than ever. Stay tuned to see how all of this new stuff unfolds!

Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera
And of course, there’s always the rest of everything. Rebecca and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary on August 23rd. Not many people graduate from college, move out of their parent’s houses, get married, and move overseas all in the space of a single year, and both friends and family have covered us with prayers because of the potential stress and strain that all that change can put on a marriage. We praise Jesus for giving us an incredibly happy and joyful first year, and for leading us to a job and country that have given us such a huge opportunity to learn more about each other and our future lives together.

We also are continuing our adventures with urban gardening. Having successfully harvested a heckuva lot of lettuce from one tire and some very small carrots from another, we’re ready to expand our operation to five tires for the October rains. And while you might be thinking that we’ve got bigger concerns than learning how to make salads grow up out of our driveway, I’ve got to admit that there’s been something significant about getting into the rhythms of growth and harvest, of participating in just a minute way with what our farmer’s do every day, and in remembering what our farmer’s have always known: that food doesn’t come from a restaurant or in a box, it comes from the earth, and it comes with care.

And we’re continuing to try to find ways to engage relationally with our farmers and other friends here in Nairobi. Our New City Fellowship small group continues to be a blessing, as does our relationship with my good friend from Bungoma, David Khisa. Alvin Mbola, a local community development professor and field worker here, has given us priceless guidance and direction in everything from our pilot project to how to help our friend who is trying to decide how to care for her orphaned, HIV-positive niece. And even as I write this, our three farmer friends from Mang’u, Lucy, (another) Lucy, and Mary, are busy in our kitchen learning how to make pumpkin pie.

Jesus has been good to us. The work is hard, and we’re always looking for better ways to do what we’re doing. Please pray specifically for the work, that our farmers would see success and that these projects would benefit their lives, that Jesus would guide us through this pilot project, and that he would guide us in our daily life as we seek to understand how best to walk through the many trials and struggles that our friends face here. Pray also for our Muslim neighbors who are celebrating Ramadan now (and who occasionally bring us tasty leftovers), that we would be good neighbors to them.

We would love to hear from any and all of you any time.

Peace,
Michael

A Different Spin On Independence

Ten days ago, on the day that Americans traditionally celebrate independence from Britain, we decided to do things a little different here in Kenya. Instead of American Independence Day, we celebrated "World Freedom Day," complete with tasty Kenyan "nyama choma" (fried goat) and ugali, Indian curry, and American deviled eggs, potato salad and burgers. Many people from church came, as well as 25 children from a nearby Children's Home, neighbors, co-workers, and other friends. In other words, we had a PAR-TAY!

The day was both amazingly busy and unexpectedly delightful. Some of my favorite parts of the day. . . 2 women from church coming to spend the night just so that they could help us in preparing for everything. All the men helping Michael grill hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken and goat by the truck load (okay, maybe not a truck load, but almost). Kids running around everywhere, playing various forms of soccer, rugby and wiffle ball. Youth from the church lounging on blankets in the grass and eating popcorn (lots of popcorn). 15 women all packed in the kitchen, all rapidly chopping, cooking, spreading, filling - whatever needed to be done in order to serve the 80 or so people who showed up over the course of eight hours - and along with all the preparation, lots of chatting and laughing. Seeing different people from different places, cultures, ethnic groups, economic backgrounds, and communities being together, eating together, and playing together.

When we gathered together to pray before eating, Michael explained why we decided to celebrate the 4th of July like this. First, he explained that we knew this 4th of July would be different for us simply because we are here in Kenya and not in the States. But more than that, he shared that we really wanted to celebrate our true freedom, as believers in Jesus Christ, instead of merely celebrating America's independence from Great Britain. Instead of celebrating the country of America and being exclusive by definition (as many people know, a person cannot simply be an American by wanting to be an American), we wanted to be inclusive by definition, because as Jesus followers (from anywhere in the world) we get to celebrate our freedom together every day, and also as believers we get to invite others into the joy of knowing Jesus and finding their true freedom as well.

I know this might sound hokey, or like I'm trying to over-spiritualize something that we shouldn't be so worried about. But I don't think I am. If living here in Kenya has taught me anything, it has taught me that I should never take for granted the freedom I have in Jesus, and the constancy of His love and His peace. As an American, it's true that I have noteable "freedoms," freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to buy assault rifles, etc. But all of these freedoms are temporary, incomplete, and unfulfilling. American freedoms don't get at or solve the problems that I have. . . the problems that I have with God, with myself, and with other people. American freedoms don't make me a better person, and they don't make other people better people. American freedoms can't promise lasting peace, security, or love. American freedoms are not what make me free. And they do not and will never make anyone free. When we look at all the different horrible sins nations, including ours, have committed in the name of preserving "freedom," it seems like at least sometimes, national freedom really means slavery, whether for ourselves, or for those people that get rolled over in the process.

But Jesus changes everything. Jesus does promise, has brought, and will fully bring eternal, complete, and fulfilling freedom. Freedom in Jesus chases away sin "far as the curse is found," and brings me back to a right relationship with God, with myself, and with other people. He is the only way that any of my relationships will ever be good and right and just. Freedom in Jesus doesn't just make me a better person; He makes me a new person, and has actually given me Himself by dying on the cross and defeating death by His resurrection. Freedom in Jesus promises peace, security, and eternal love. God has so loved the world by giving His Son, Jesus. He is our Peace. He is our Freedom. Happy World Freedom Day.

Rebecca

Beginnings and Continuings

The problem with getting bogged down and forgetting to update the blog is that when you finally get to it, it’s hard to even begin to sum up all the things you’ve been doing. But here goes nothing:

Rachael’s Visit
For the past two weeks we’ve hosted Rebecca’s older sister Rachael, who came all the way to Africa just to say hi. Expecting, as we all do when we first arrive, the “slower pace of African life,” I’m not sure Rachael was prepared for the jam packed two weeks we prepared for her. It’s been awesome to catch up, to get her perspective on our work, and to have an excuse for doing a bunch of touristy stuff that we haven’t done yet.

We began with a trip to Nakuru National Park (home of the famous Nat’l Geographic shots of a lake filled with like a kabagillion flamingoes). Rachael arrived at 6:30 a.m. on a Thursday, and by 5:30 p.m. that evening we were looking at rhinos and water buffalo in the park. Karibu Kenya! During this two night camping excursion, we also ended up at Naivasha again, and finally took the boat ride to see the hippos. Very cool, and because Rachael is a fanatical photographer with a new camera, our lives are better documented than they’ve been since our wedding.

The next week we went on a 4 day work trip that included visits to Nyeri, Ngare Ndare, and Mitunguu. We got to stay with Rebecca’s co-coach at Rosslyn Middle School for a night, followed by another night with Jedida and John in the Ngare Ndare group, and were once again amazed by the extraordinary hospitality of pretty much every Kenyan we know. Mitunguu was also fun, and by the time we got back, we were all completely exhausted.

This week we also visited the elephant orphanage (probably the “cutest” experience on the planet), where you get to see, and touch, numerous baby elephants and even a baby rhino that apparently thinks it’s a dog. None of them are more than three feet tall, so you can imagine the googooing that occurred between my wife and her sister. It’s a good thing you can only be there an hour.

All in all, we cherished our last few days with Rachael, and were really sad to see her go. She’s been an encouragement and a reminder that what we do for work is also, as it turns out, quite a bit of fun.

Work
On the surface, our projects are continuing as they have been for some time. We’re still doing the Prepare a Better Business trainings (and getting better at them all the time), the groups are still meeting monthly, making savings, and growing their crops. Under the surface, however, there’s a lot going on.

In Ngare Ndare, we have at last agreed to grow the butternut squash, and have been working with the group to try to be ready to plant by mid-July. This will require a whole lot of finagling on our part in terms of getting them the inputs that will constitute the loan in-kind, and probably more trips up that way than usual these days. But we’re excited about it all the same.

With our CCS coworkers, we have recently visited the farms in both Embu and Mitunguu (sunflower groups). The rains, as feared, have gone away as quickly as they came. In parts of Mitunguu, the flowers are, frankly, looking pretty bad, although still harvestable. Elsewhere in the region, our farmers have great sunflower, so that’s going to create some interesting group dynamics as it comes to processing and selling. We’ve also been working on actually getting the processing machines that the groups will use to process the sunflower seeds to create and sell the sunflower oil. This has been a trying process, requiring a lot of difficult discussion with our coworkers and the farmers, trying to figure out the best way to go about all of this. I spent all of yesterday actually driving around Nairobi looking for the machines, and yet we still haven’t completely sorted out how all of this is going to work. Please pray for guidance on this issue, and also that we would remember that the way we deal with the farmers is as important in development as the final product. Development is as concerned with empowering means as it is with financially empowered ends.

In Embeere and Kirinyaga, we are working to get simple, cost-effective irrigation systems installed, while also beginning the trainings. The Embeere group, which is in a drought-prone region, is working really hard, hoping that aloe vera’s drought resistance will make it a good source of income for them. Pray for them as they continue to learn how to take care of this new crop, and for us as we continue to try to understand the marketing aspects of the crop.

In Mang’u, the group continues to sell passion fruit, which is a huge blessing. Several of the farmers have almost paid off their loans, and they sold 70 kilos just yesterday! But many of the farmers’ crops have failed, and the group is struggling to find its way. Rebecca and I recently lead the group in a discussion to try to understand what has worked, what hasn’t, and what could be added to the group to make it stronger. This was all, of course, a great excuse for me to play with beans and rankings again like I did in Bungoma (check out thedudegoestoafrica.blogspot.com for pictures of what it looked like last time). The long and short of it is that we used participatory activities to make sure that everyone’s voice was heard, and that the group will be able to plan how to go forward. One thing we learned in classes back at CC that we’re seeing in real life now is that participation by the community is the most important element of community development. Designing good programs is much less important than empowering the community to design their own. This is a first step in shifting the focus away from us and back to the group.*

Other Stuff
To begin with, we’ve started a garden. Most of you are probably imagining us with a nice little plot outside of our grass thatched hut. In reality, it currently consists of two used tires and a seedling tray in our concrete driveway. Urban gardening is definitely in with the Rhodes family. This is our first effort at growing something from start to finish, and we’ve begun with tomatoes, carrots, and lettuce. We have absolutely no clue what we’re doing, and I honestly never expected anything to come up whatsoever. But about a week ago, on day five, we saw some green! And now, our little tires are just full of little veggies (that will, because of our ignorance, probably never make it out of the tire, but nonetheless)! I have to admit, seeing a bit of the process in our own backyard (tires), got us both pretty fired up.

We’ve also been introduced to some great new opportunities recently, both in terms of work and otherwise. I (Michael) recently got asked to lead a two part Sunday School class with the new deacons at New City Fellowship. The pastors heard that Bec and I are involved in microenterprise development, and wanted us to talk to the deacons about ministry among the poor. This was an incredible opportunity for us, because we love our church, and had prayed and thought about how God might use us to participate in the conversation about how the church can continue its life-giving, kingdom ministry with and among the urban poor. I spent the entire first session talking about God’s heart for the poor from Genesis to Revelation, and preparing for it was a good way for me to open my eyes again to the radical nature of God’s Word. Whenever I feel like I’ve got a good grip on my economic or political theory, the Scriptures quickly put me in my place.

Rebecca has also been introduced to some new opportunities, and is currently considering committing one day a week to a CRWRC/CCS project targeting high school age girls with programs to help keep them from being vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. This would include health training, as well as informal counseling and community building activities (cottage ministries, and most importantly for my athletic counterpart, SOCCER!). It would also require about a week’s worth of training, and could expand even into some basic economic training similar to what we’re already doing. We think this would be a great way for Bec to continue to use her gifts and abilities to really be a part of God’s kingdom work here. Pray for us as we think through all the ins and outs of this.

We went to our Kiswahili teacher’s children’s home to lead a soccer workshop with kids ages 8-17 last Saturday. We had a blast, I scored my first goal in any soccer game ever anywhere, and Rebecca wowed everybody who participated. Julius, our teacher who runs the children’s home, really is an incredible man of God who is doing really great community work for the kingdom.

We’re also diving more and more into a network or relationships here in Nairobi. Our neighbors, Josh and Emma, continue to be awesome guides around the city, and have also visited our church with us occasionally. This yielded practical returns when Josh came to our rescue after we broke down in downtown Nairobi at 11:00 p.m. (he’s a mechanic). We are growing more and more in our relationships with our predominately Indian-Kenyan Bible Study group, which has also grown into a Tuesday night badminton/Indian food event. And we’ve continued to enjoy playing soccer occasionally with the young Kenyans in the NCF youth group, and getting to know Agnus, our friend and house helper who lives in one of the poorer areas in Nairobi.

Agnus in particular has really helped us to understand the beauty of God’s image bearers who are living in Nairobi slums, and also the vast network of oppressive forces that they face in their daily lives. Just as a recent example, when Agnus got pneumonia recently, she had to get a “loan” from her neighbors . . . at 30% interest per month, while still not really being able to take care of her 8 kids and one adopted addition. Rebecca has led the charge in us trying to help Agnus plan financially, to begin saving with us (because she doesn’t have access to a bank), and to try to make the income she gets support her life.** Now Agnus is putting away her rent money every month with us, and only going home with a portion of her pay from us after working, letting us keep the rest in a “savings account” for a rainy day. This has reminded us that some of the most important work we do among the poor isn’t with big programs or based on education and specialized skills. It is the person-to-person, “walking with” our friends who find themselves in bad economic straits, and trying to apply God’s word to both of our lives together. And that’s something we can all be a part of in our lives.

Peace,
Michael

*Our explanation of our work on the blog is technical because we assume that people that go to the blog want to know more than those who just read our update emails. If you ever have questions or want to know more, please drop us an email at michaelandrebeccarhodes@gmail.com

**Agnus is also part of a cottage ministry that makes beautiful greeting cards. These have authentic Kenyan artwork on the front, and are made out of recycled materials. The proceeds go directly to benefit people who are doing honest work to provide for themselves instead of turning to all sorts of immoral alternatives or giving in to the despair that surrounds them. If you are interested in placing an order, we’d love to facilitate that. And seriously, they’re really cool.

Kanisa Linajengwa Na Kina Nani?

"God's church is being built by who?"

That's the question the congregation of New City Fellowship sang with great joy this past Sunday morning, followed by the exuberant response: "God's church is being built by old men, by mamas and papas, by children and youth, by all people from everywhere."

The worship debates rage as strongly as ever in the US, as far as I can tell. Pentecostals perpetuate a theology of power, based on teachings of the Holy Spirit and the Apostles' miraculous signs and wonders that marked the ministry of the early church. Many Catholics might counter with a worshipful theology based on brokenness, centered around the crucifixion and echoed in the humility and suffering Paul and the others experienced in the early church. Presbyterians love to quote the passage about "orderliness" in worship, while members of all traditions turn instead towards the Psalms which call God's people to dance and sing, to bang on tambourines and drums and whatever else we can find in mad joy over God's presence. My Easter and Christmas services were marked by the overwhelming mystery of the Incarnation and Resurrection, a mystery symbolized in the high church worship of 2nd Pres, but we never talked much about Paul's command to the church to make sure they have an interpreter when, as part of corporate worship, people were to speak in tongues and heavenly languages. Probably a similar oversight among charismatic churches would be neglecting the passage where Paul makes it clear that tongues are not to be considered among the higher gifts.

Paradox marks our faith at every turn. Funny thing is, most of our churches are based on theologies that make their stand on only one side of the Bible's many apparent conflicts. "Your worship doesn't reflect the joy of the lord, it's so bound by tradition, it's so dead," says one side. "Your worship is too focused on people, it's distracting, it doesn't show God enough respect or reflect the majesty of the King," says the other. And with a total lack of self-awareness, we shout scriptures at each other, using God's Word to fight God's Word.

While the worship team cried out, "Who will build God's church?" I noticed that one of the Kenyan singers was wearing a traditional Indian outfit, while an Indian percussionist was wearing a traditional African shirt. The singer is a young girl who has been pseudo adopted by an Indian family in town while she goes to school, the percussionist an Indian elder who has learned how to serve God amidst a congregation that breaks all the rules. Kenyans and Indians don't get along. Not in Nairobi, anyway. But in this church, they share clothes.

In fact, sharing clothes, food, and other cultural activities is simply part of what it means to be a Christian at NCF. And maybe a survey of what the Bible says about worship would reveal one stunning, overwhelming truth: the biggest mistake a church could make in worship is to do it all one way. Maybe the idea that God allows his people to pick their favorite worship type, and more tellingly, their favorite social demographic to worship with, is a lie from Satan. Maybe God created culture because we're His image bearers, and He's too big to be captured by any one group. That's the way New City sees it. That's what our church is teaching us. And when Paul talks about sacrificial worship, we know a bit more of what he means. From not understanding every third song (we sing in 5 different languages), to sacrificing "excellence for God" to stylistic diversity and all the chaos that results, to dealing with the much deeper issues that result from embracing the "ministry of reconciliation" in a community that actually physically demonstrates why reconciliation is needed, worshiping at NCF is neither easy nor simple. But neither is God. And neither is the worship that He calls us to, worship that includes rich and poor, black and white, young and old, liberal and conservative, every tongue, tribe and nation, not because "they" need it, but because He demands it. Maybe it's time to put on someone else's clothes for a change.

Peace,
Michael

*Sorry about another post that focuses on our church! The truth is, our experience at NCF has been one of the most amazing experiences of our lives (much as our time at ICF in Memphis!), and we just want to talk about it! Look for a general update later this week!

Hospitality and an Upside Down Community

When we arrive at a meeting, or just whenever we see our farming Kenyan friends, a typical greeting is "Mimea yako inaendelea?" ("How are your crops continuing?"). Until recently we would get hopeful but discouraging responses about how they were still looking for the rains that just didn't seem to be coming. But in the last few weeks, all of that has changed.

Michael and I are now frequently going to bed to the sound of rain pounding on our roof, we are overwhelmed at the beauty of the renewed green rolling hills of the Kenyan countryside, and some of our farmers are saying that these are the best long rains they've received in years! Bwana Safiwe!! (Praise the Lord!!)

We had a particularly encouraging experience with our Kirinyaga group just this past week. Out of the group of 50 farmers, 30 of these are landless, so CCS is letting each of these use a small plot on their demonstration farm to plant their 80 aloe vera plants. So there are 2,400 aloe vera plants growing very well, and the farmers are delighted about having a space and a crop of their own to care for (that's me being so excited about the growing aloe vera plants). After the meeting (which many were not able to attend because of the rain and mud issues), Michael and I got a tour of the nearby village where these landless farmers live. Most of them are renters in very small, closely spaced rooms, but they were so excited about showing us where they lived and worked, and were so hospitable to us.

I know we keep saying this in our blog posts, but it's just such a powerful example to us - Kenyans are so hospitable. The chairman of this subgroup of farmers, Florence (the one in the middle, between Michael and Priscilla, the secretary of the group), had us come into her home and served us avacado, arraroot (kind of like potato), and cokes, Veronica offered us chai in her home, Joseph bought ground nuts for us, John let us hold his newborn baby, and each one of them introduced us to their families and made us promise to return to take a full meal with them the next time we come.

So our work "inaendelea” (it is continuing). We are meeting with the Meru groups every two weeks to continue the PBB (Prepare a Better Business) trainings, and we’re going once a month to Embu, Kirinyaga, and Embeere to do the same trainings. So far we’ve had sessions about examining a good business idea, talking with customers to test ideas, and planning our production. Michael and I usually teach the lessons together but a few times we have split the groups up into men and women and that has been great.

When I am with just women they tend to be more vocal, they have great ideas and many questions, and they seem to latch onto the concepts really well. One of the lessons goes through all the character traits of the woman of noble character in Proverbs 31, and it was a very encouraging time to discuss and learn together.

I think we've mentioned this before, but we are so blessed and amazed by the New City Fellowship church body that we are a part of here. Last Sunday both Michael and I were almost brought to tears as we saw these lovers of Jesus show us what it means to be the body of Jesus. As usual we sang in four different languages (Kiswahili, English, Hindi and another Indian language).

Shafkat, our assistant pastor, really brought the Word in his message, talking about the truth of God's promises - His love and His grace - so powerfully, and then after the service we had a potluck feast consisting of foods from all around the world. But what really got Michael and me that day was that we had brought our Kenyan neighbors, Josh and Emma, with us, and I think just about every single person in the church came up to them, greeted them by name, asked them about themselves, and were just so kind. As Michael pointed out, possibly our most powerful form of evangelism as Christians is simply how we love one another ("They will know us by our love," check out 1 John), and I think New City Fellowship was a powerful witness to that love to our friends last week.

There are many things we love about New City Fellowship, but something that stands out the most is this church body's obvious belief in 2 Corinthians 12:9 where it says that God's power is made most perfect in our weaknesses. Right now our pastor is recovering from major eye surgery after a freak accident, and he has been coming to church on painkillers and with a patch, but he's still there, shepherding and leading the people (and also regularly making jokes like, "I've always wanted to be a pirate.") Our assistant pastor, Shafkat, is a compassionate and passionate pastor who happens to be in a wheelchair. Mimi, the young woman in charge of slides during singing, has a physical handicap that makes it hard for her to communicate. We have Indian Kenyans and African Kenyans who typically don't get along who are worshipping together as members of the same family, and a bunch of Congolose refugee folks who don't know a lick of English but come with huge smiles and big hearts to be an intricate part of this body. And even though they can't understand much of the sermon (which is in English), the Congolose (28 of them) get up and sing a song almost every week, which sounds like it must be a taste of heaven. All this to say, New City Fellowship is made up of so many different kinds of people from so many different places (nationally, ethnically, and socio-economically), and it just doesn't seem like it should work. What in the world are we all doing together? The answer is simple. Jesus, our Redeemer and our Brother, has called us to each other by calling all of us to Himself.

Just this past Sunday we got to go visit our Congolese friends' homes. They are two families who have been here in Kenya for 5 months after long years of living in their war-torn country and seeing many family members and friends suffer and die at the hands of inexplicable violence. First we went to the home of Donata and his wife who have their seven children, one sister-in-law, two nieces and two nephews staying with them, and then we visited Victor and his wife who have 12 children, five of their own and seven adopted (I think most of those adoptions happened as a result of many being orphaned by the war in Congo). Again, we were overwhelmed by their generosity to us, serving us lunch and practicing their English with us, and letting us practice our Kiswahili with them.

Obviously I'm still regularly amazed at the hospitality and kindness of the people here, but maybe I shouldn't be. I think the source of my continual amazement is my basic assumption that happiness is necessarily linked to a person's financial status, but according to Jesus - that's totally wrong! I can't believe how often I forget the backwards and upside down things that Jesus promised, things like blessed are the poor, and blessed are those who hunger and weep now, and blessed are those who are hated and excluded. He says to those people to rejoice and leap for joy. And then he goes on: he says woe to the rich, woe to those who are well fed, woe to those who laugh now, and woe to those who all men speak well of, for that is how the false prophets were treated (Luke 6). I don't understand all of what that means, but I do know that we are getting to see a glimpse of the fulfillment of that in the lives of the poor here.

This group of ragtag followers of Jesus who make up New City Fellowship (the Indians, Germans, Kenyans, Americans, Congolose, and others) do not have it all together, but the difference between them and many other Christians are that they do not pretend to have it all together. Maybe that makes them more “put together” than those of us who are always trying to put on a good face and trying never to appear like we are hurt or angry or sad about things. Jesus says that all who are weary can come to Him, and He will be our rest. His promises are bigger and better than the emptiness of more wealth, more things, or more power; He promises His presence to us, He promises to be our Peace, and He promises to be our Rest. For now, New City Fellowship is showing us glimpses of the fulfillment of those great promises. May we continue to learn with them and continue to be challenged and changed to conform evermore to the radical calling of Christ on our lives.