When A Kenyan Says Run . . .

First and foremost, thanks to everyone who's keeping track of us, and all of those who wrote such encouraging notes on our last blog. We really love the comments, and the tracker tells me we've had over 400 visitors since last month, which is so cool.

As some of you may know, I officially got older last week. I am now a 23 year old! Which is actually very exciting because, as Rachael, my math-loving sister reminded me, I am now "prime." Michael took me out for a nice dinner on my actual birthday, and then some friends said they wanted to take me out again the next night. Much to my dismay, the little outing with friends turned out to be a magnificent surprise party that my wonderful husband organized! Karis, Abby and Lydia did a great job of distracting me all day (I went with them to an aerobics class they teach in a high school in the Kibera slum) while Michael shopped, cooked, and got everything ready at the Tiptons' house. I was just thinking I was going to run inside to grab something and all of a sudden... "SURPRISE!" and I saw (quite literally) every single person I know in Kenya standing in the Tiptons' living room and telling me happy birthday. It was so great. And yes, I was SO surprised even though Michael assured me that it had been "so obvious" and that he "couldn't believe I didn't know." So either Michael is great at surprises or I am really oblivious, not sure which. :) The salsa, guacamole and hamburgers were overflowing, and it was just a great evening being with friends.

Okay, now Michael is taking it from here. . .

The past two weeks have been absolutely incredible. We finis

hed the forming all four of our new groups (200 farmers!), and delivered the sunflower seeds and fertilizers to the groups. It was so much fun to see all the farmers picking up the seeds, loading up their bicycles, and heading back to their homes to plant, so obviously excited about the project. These meetings also gave us an opportunity to make sure that the monthly savings

 portion of the project started out well, and also to plan our next meetings to begin doing the training.

And speaking of training, Rebecca, David Gitari, and I did our first training together

 with one of the sunflower groups in Meru. In addition to the trai

ning on small business management, we've decided to do some preliminary training on group formation and management from some Chalmers Center material (the Cha

lmers Center develops and distributes information and training on church-based economic development around the world. They're based out of Covenant College). So last week, Rebecca and I did a participatory activity on "tabia njema," or "good habits." The purpose of the activities was to help the

 group think through the importance of forming and following good group policies even during difficult times in order to succeed in the project. This involved us facilitating the group in group discussions, scenario skits showing what would happen if the group didn't follow good habits, and Biblical discussion on how God calls us to be disciplined in our lives. It was really fun, and both of us got very excited about continuing these kind of activities with the other groups.

Meanwhile, some of you will remember that I spent close to a week visiting farmers who were not delivering fruit (either because of crop failure or because they are selling their products outside the group to avoid repaying their loans) with the leadership of our passion fruit group to try to get everybody back on track and to assess our situation. Manua, Chege, and Monene, the three primary leaders in that group, are the dream team of group projects, and I had a great time just being with them. But by the end of the week, all of us were a bit discouraged, and I think we were all wondering if any of our meetings had done any good.

But this week, I met with them again, and the last two weeks the farmers have doubled their yields in passion fruit, with many of the farmers we met with making good deliveries these last two weeks! Our work is literally and figuratively yielding fruit. How about them . . . passion fruits. The guys seemed really encouraged, and Rebecca and I definitely feel like we're really building rapport with the leadership and generating new energy from within the group.

Then this week, Rebecca and I played host to a team of predominately retired Brits who have supported one of our aloe vera groups, and who wanted to come and help the farmers actually do the planting. They came through an organization called Hand In Hand, which partners with Christian development work internationally. Check them out online. 

Rebecca and I were totally amazed by how chipper and excited these guys were! In this particular project, 30 farmers who have little or no land of their own are planting together on a demonstration farm run by our local partners, Christian Community Services (CCS). So Monday, 16 Brits, 30 Kenyans, and Rebecca and I actually rolled up our "trousers," threw the aloe vera stems in the "boot" of the truck, and planted 2,400 aloe vera plants. It was "brilliant," and gave both of us the opportunity to really get to know these farmers well. Because I had to play errand boy for much of the day, Rebecca in particular made a huge splash with the farmers, who renamed her "Wawera," which means "working woman" in their native language. It was a truly beautiful day.

The next day we went back out to individual farms to help plant more aloe vera. The Brits were totally overwhelmed by the generosity and care of the farmers, but none of us knew on Tuesday just how much we'd need it.

Wednesday we went back out to finish the individual farms, and ended up having one of the most terrifying days of my entire life. Fifteen minutes after starting in one of the farms, I was standing a little ways away talking with  one of the CCS project managers, when all of sudden I saw everyone running towards me and shouting, "Bees! run!" Never having had much of a fear of bees, I naively paid little attention. "Typical," as my last entry pointed out. The next twenty minutes were filled with sheer, hellish chaos, as a swarm of thousands of angry bees literally attacked us. Most of the Brits made it to the busses with a few stings, but three of them were stung so many times that they became disoriented, and couldn't escape. I, who hadn't been stung initially, ran up to one man who had a blanket over his head, and was screaming for help in the midst of a cloud of bees, and dumped some dirty water on his head, helping him momentarily, but attracting the bees to myself. After escaping to a hut, I looked back, and realized that Roberta, the 72 year old matriarchal British team member, was still being viciously attacked. This was possibly the worst moment of my whole life. A Kenyan woman helped me fill up a bucket of water, and I ran out, dumped water all over Roberta, and told her to follow me, but then the bees swarmed me, and I was running, and she, I found out later, was too confused and shocked to even know which direction to go. The bees chased me for over a hundred yards, and then I dove on the ground, rolling around in the dirt, trying to get them off. But these bees were not going away. Finally the vans came back, and I managed to get in. 

I'm still putting together the pieces of what happened: of how the CCS staff personally made sure that Rebecca got away before returning to help the others, of how we shouted into the cell phones flying back towards the road trying to find which way to the hospital, of how the Kenyans literally risked their lives to go back and forth in and out of the chaos to rescue members of the British team, and how finally one of them managed to get Roberta into the van, semi-conscious. Rebecca and I worked together to get those worst effected into the emergency room, and we realized that at least five of us (including me) had been stung 50 times or more, and that Roberta had been stung over 500 times.

That was two days ago. We're all ok now, and since that time I've laughed and prayed together with Roberta, thanking God for her and all of our safety. It is truly miraculous that nobody was allergic. If they had been, they would have died. And it's truly miraculous that Roberta hung on after having enough bee stings to be life threatening whether she was allergic or not. God protected us. It was an awful experience, the scariest of my life, and as the guy responsible for the team, it was incredibly trying. But it was also a powerful reminder for those of us who came across the globe to try to help the poor in Kenya that we can't do it. We can't save "these people." Whether it's wondering whether the community will develop economically, or whether we'll survive the bee swarm, it is Jesus Christ alone who does the work by the mighty power of His Spirit. We're not brave enough, we're not strong enough, and we're too darned human in any case. And in this case, he didn't even do the saving through the white guys. Three of us tried to help Roberta, and ended up much worse off and her no better, but it was the Kenyans who, at great personal risk, were able to make sure that she got out ok. The British team is still pretty shaken up, and the temptation for all of us is to freak out and go into shell shock was real. But Jesus Christ protected us on Wednesday, and the Rhodeses sure as heck aren't going to let bees make us live in fear. No, we've had a powerful reminder of our own humanness and of the powerful, incredible, protecting love of God that was on us all. And for that we're grateful.

And we've got a ton of great things to look forward to. As I write this, we're preparing to head down south to the Masai Mara with our good friends, Karis and Abby. We're going with their mission team to witness and be a part of an evangelistic initiative known as "storying the gospel," where the entire Biblical story is presented in the epic genre which many tribal people groups use in the telling of their own religious stories. As an English/Com Dev major, this has always been immensely attractive, and I am totally stoked about seeing it in action tomorrow. Oh yeah, and it's the best place to see animals. The week after that, we're heading back to Ngare Ndari, and have actually been invited to stay in the home of one of our farmers. This is so exciting! Jedida is the woman's name, and we just feel that this invitation is a real sign of our building rapport with her group. They asked me to preach and Rebecca to sing on Sunday, so it should make for an interesting Sabbath either way.

Work is good. We are good. The Kenyan people are beautiful heros from here on in our eyes. And Jesus Christ is good. He is bringing His kingdom. Pray that we would continue to see that, and participate in it. Pray that we would continue finding new ways to do His good work. Pray for the British team who is still struggling emotionally. And pray that Jesus would be drawing us all to Himself in new and radical ways that challenge us to wade out deeper into the kingdom that He is bringing, that He has in fact brought in His life and resurrection, and that we will see come in full when He raises us up to new life in Him at the beginning of all things.

Peace,

Michael and Rebecca

P.S.- Keep commenting and emailing! We miss all ya'll, as we say in the South, and love hearing from you!