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.