Loitokitok

Loitokitok sits at just over a mile high right on the slopes of Kilamanjaro and the border of Kenya and Tanzania.  There are probably 30-50 cinder block shops, a vegetable and clothes market on Tuesdays and Saturdays, a hospital and three or four schools.  I would guess the population to be about 3,000 or so people, widely spread out among the town area. 

To see a drive around our town on market day click here!

Loitokitok is one of the 2 bigger towns in about a 2 hour radius and has a newly paved (about 5yr old) road from the main highway to the town.  Most of the roads off of this road are  just dirt.  It is pretty easy getting around town, just a 20 minute drive down to Kimana where there are a few restaurants and another market place, as well as where many of our Maasai friends live. 

A lot of times we will walk from our home to the town center which is only about a mile or so away and do most of our grocery shopping for the week.  We enjoy taking walks with Mozzie around the neighborhood and try to visit with neighbors as we do so a couple of times a week.  It has been fun to hear the children call to us as they are learning our names, lately I have heard a lot of Cheese! and Chess! Although they have Mozzies name down pat.  Right now we have been in a cloudy and cold season, but hopefully things will start to warm up soon.  To see a bit of our town and a market set up watch the video included here.

Making our Beds

           Over our months here in Oloitokitok Audrey and I have had the great pleasure of visiting many local Maasai villages of friends and acquaintances.  While doing so, we have been able to ask cultural questions, practice our language, and even observe some exciting and interesting cultural practices and rituals.  We have seen everything from cows giving birth, local warrior villages, and recently got to observe the creation of a traditional Maasai bed.

            I always knew that the Maasai were creative and thrifty in using every single part of an animal they had slaughtered as they distrubute different cuts of meat and organs for different members of the family and community.  They boil the head and other left over bones with meat for soup.  They use the tails for fly swatters and such.  I knew that they use the skins for things, but I had never really observed what for.  In our recent talks we learned that often the Maasai use the smaller skins (enchoni, such as goat) for shoes, and the larger ones (olchoni, from the cow) for making their mats for beds. 

            My mother always used to tell me to me to make my bed, little did I know the cultural context this would take as we entered the village to observe and help out.  Now, I am being awfully plural in this because Fred Foy and my role in this was very minimal, but of course very important. We sat as the rest of the men did on the outside of the circle and “supervised”.  Audrey & Cecily had the opportunity to roll out the skin, cut small holes around the perimeter of the skin, then make wooden stakes and drive them through the outer holes to stretch the skin out flat along the stony dirt ground, so that it could dry for a couple of days in the sun. 

To watch a video of Audrey and her hard work on the bed click here!

            They then, along side and with the help of their Maasai tutors worked on scraping of the ruminants of meat, muscle and tissue off of the skin so that it could properly dry and cure.  After the skin sat in the hot sun a couple of days it would then be ready to use as a new bed mat.  

Heart of Worship

One of the hardest, yet most joyous things Audrey and I have the opportunity to do every week is to visit varying local churches in the bush.  It is exciting to get to see firsthand what God is doing among His people in different denominations and cultures.  However, at the same time it can be hard to feel a part of a worship service at times that is so different culturally (as well as in a different language) where many times you are left wondering exactly what has been said. 

Yet, at the same time I have learned definitively, that you do not need to know what is being said, or even understand completely what is going on, to join alongside fellow believers to worship the One who has created and redeemed us all.  It has been a delight to stand alongside our fellow Maasai brothers and sisters in Christ and see the depth and beauty of their hearts as they worship God. 

It is also hard culturally because we are expected (as missionaries and pastors) to often sit at the front of the church, give a greeting, a brief word (or a longer sermon), and are wanted to sometimes take over the rest of the service.  That can be a struggle because they want to honor you and your position as "missionaries" but at the same time, you are trying to empower these very pastors to see value in themselves, and what God is showing them, to share among their congregation and culture.  I worry sometimes that this may be a result of laziness on their part, or even perhaps feeling unequipped or inadequate, but we are slowly and steadily trying to encourage these pastors and affirm them in their identity in Christ and as leaders in the community. 

To see our Maasai church introduction click here!

Please pray for us as we rejoice with our brothers and sisters as we worship in our new home and cross-cultural context.  Pray also for us, as we struggle to feel a part of the church as a whole here and for our praying for our dear brothers and sisters in leadership roles in the church here as they grow in Christ and their roles as leaders of the church. 

Gifts which flow from the Heart

“A gift is not given because it is enough, it is given because of the joy we have and wish to share.”

When there is rampant need and you have limited resources how do you decide how to give? Do you take each request, pray, and give as you see fit? Or is it all just first come first served? Or can one take a middle road of giving an item instead of money, food for the hungry or a blanket for the cold? Is giving a material thing even the only way to give? For me, unsolicited giving, taking others by surprise, and meeting ones need at a deep level is one of my greatest joys. Yet, when it comes to a personal request of people struggling asking me for specific things, I start noticing how hard it is to give, and how my heart often hardens. I would rather hear about a need at a distance and give large and anonymously than to have someone approach me on the street and ask me for something small. Part of this, I think, is at a distance I have time and resources to research and plan a helpful attack. Whereas when it is personal and immediate, I have no way to know if something will be put to good use or abused. And the most frustrating part is I don’t know if my mental philosophy is just me being a good steward or using that as an excuse to not trust people, and not give generously. This all becomes even more complicated and difficult our fast paced, impersonal, materialistic society.

Ideally for me, I would like to invest in these people personally. But then what happens when you run into need outside of your community where it becomes difficult if not impossible to personally invest? I believe it is my responsibility to find people in my immediate community in need and come along side them to help with a more long-term and sustainable solution to meet those needs. To build a relationship where there is trust and love, so things are given freely out of love rather than of obligation. However, what happens when this is not possible? What happens when these people are outside of the realm where we can realistically invest in their lives? Is it only our responsibility, or does it require something more, from other communities in other areas, other “churches”, and other individuals trying to do what is right? For many it may seem like an unrealistic thing, can’t we just write a check and move on, we did our giving for the month? I don’t think we can. Throughout Scripture we are called to love, “Love God first, love your neighbor”, “Love is the fulfillment of the Law” (Romans 13) and in case you were wondering I am pretty sure the loving God part perpetuates the loving neighbor part. I also believe a lot more goes into love than just giving what is asked for or required. Even Maslow in his hierarchy of needs has the first few taken up with things that have to do with being showed love and respect.

 
Lastly a misnomer that I believe keeps people from giving is that they do not have enough, or cannot fully meet a need. Recently, we went to visit a Maasai village and were trying to bring something small (tea and sugar) that would be a gesture of kindness and something that would help them. However, just before we arrived we were told there were over fifty households in this village, and we could not take the amount of tea or sugar needed for the whole community so we best just take money instead. While I was struggling with this cultural issue in my mind and trying to communicate why I would rather not take money to give to a chief, which may never be seen by anyone else. Unfortunately, giving money creates a perception of being a source of money rather than the idea of being present for relationships, which is what we were trying to establish for ourselves.

 I was reminded by a Maasai friend standing nearby, “A gift is not given because it is enough”. We do not give simply because we can meet a need, nor should we neglect to give if we cannot meet a need. I believe we give because we have joy in our hearts, and we wish to share that joy with others, even more so with those especially in need of some joy. One of my favorite thoughts on this came from one of John Piper’s earlier books, Desiring God. He says if you go somewhere and have the best hamburger of your life, you are not going to go back home and pretend that it never happened. No, you are going to tell everyone about it. Especially those who you know would appreciate it, or are in real need of that juicy hamburger! The joy we have experienced can only be fulfilled and expanded upon when we share it with others. It is my prayer that we all learn how to give joyfully, sacrificially, and personally in ways which show the unconditional love that has been bestowed upon us by our Creator.

The Language Helper

It’s hard to believe we’ve been in this house for almost one month. This of course included a trip to Nairobi to get some furniture and other household items and ended up being an extended stay due to a motorcycle running into our car. Fun times! (Thankfully we had a wonderful Kenyan friend help us sort it all out!) We’re glad to be back home. Our responsibility for these next months is to be diligent in language learning and we are thankful and excited for a space where we can do that more regularly instead of being on the move. When we moved in, our landlord, who is Maasai, said that he would look into finding us a language helper. Not sure if this person would be the right fit, we agreed, and he came into our home to help us a couple of weeks later. This young man introduced himself as James and I found out that he was about the same age as my brother, James. I have to say it warmed my heart a bit.

James is a high school graduate who made average grades, his mother passed away some years ago, he is the 5th of 8 children, and helps his father in the garden (shamba) day to day. He hopes to go to college to be a teacher, but can’t afford it. We have both been so thankful for James. He is humble, patient, and just has a sweet spirit about him. Our eighth time with him, he informed us that he was being drafted to the police force in Nairobi because of the recent Garissa attacks and security issues. I was shocked by the news. All of a sudden, this would be our last day with him as our teacher. I was shocked with just how I sad I was for him to not be our language helper anymore.

Corruption is very common in police work and my heart prayed that James would be able to be stand for the right things despite the temptations and difficulties that awaited him. I wanted so much to express our thanks on his last day. We all shared our daily hot beverage, and James showed us a list of things that were required for his entry to training and I remembered the many toiletry items that our dear friends the Espys had graciously gifted us before their departure in December. It was all that I had to express our thanks. But it brought me such joy to be able to give him some small things to check off his list. We dropped him off in Kimana that day, and tears started rolling down my cheeks. “He’s so young to be going into the police force,” I thought. There was just something special about his willingness to help and the friendship the three of us had already created in two short weeks. 

After this, I e-mailed a few folks to pray for James and for us to find another language helper that would be a good fit for us. We traveled to Nairobi, arrived back, and found out that not only had the government changed the police recruiting, but unfortunately, he hurt his foot and was unable to participate in the running portion of the tryout. So other than James’ hurt foot which seems to be doing fine now, we are thrilled for the good news. Ultimately, I hope to find a woman to help me in language learning too, but he has really been a great teacher for us both. Thanks for all the prayers you’ve prayed for God to bring people alongside us in this community. James is truly an answer to our prayers. Pray that we would be a blessing to him, too. Next Saturday, Chase hopes to go and play football (soccer) with him and his friends to meet more youth in the community. We think this is the beginning of a long friendship.

Whirlwind Wishes

Well, I think I’m way overdue for a blog post! First of all, there are so many thank yous to be uttered that they can’t be counted. The numbers of prayers, words of encouragement, and emails to uplift us through this whirlwind has been such a profound blessing. As many of you know by now, we’ve been traveling for a long, long time. Even though a few of those weeks we were with family in Martinsville, Chattanooga, and Anderson, our “life in a few bags” began at the end of July. After July, we set out on our road trip full of goodbyes, see you laters, hugs, last stateside conversations, sharing about the work we were moving toward, and preparing for our new life here in Kenya. It was a packed, but joy filled, few months. We traveled to Bristol TN, Columbia SC, Marion NC, and then between in Martinsville, Chattanooga, and Anderson. I spent four weeks in additional training. I remember wanting to move to our “next” journey, but I also remember being a little afraid. What would more “long term” life look like on the other side? What will we do? Who will we meet? Where will we go? How long will we be here? I remember vividly being in Anderson and realizing in was the last night before we were set to fly out of Greenville. I tried not to be sad, but really that couch at Grandma and Grandad’s has become one of my favorite places on US soil. And, suddenly, I was overwhelmed with just how much I loved the people God has so graciously placed in my life’s walk. Chase, and through being an Arndt--two sets of incredible grandparents and in laws, wonderful Usry extended family, my extended family, my Forest Hills church family, our Blacksburg family, our very large King, First Pres, Bristol family and church family, all of the churches and individuals who understood our calling and decided that they were about it too. I stand it awe when I thank God for the people in our lives who love us so well.

We landed here completely exhausted, but encouraged, and set out after four days to stay in Kona Baridi for two weeks with our friends Jeremy and Becky. That seems like AGES ago, my friends! Since then, we have stayed in numerous places. Other missionaries have graciously housed us during times we’ve needed to be in Nairobi. We’ve stayed at guest houses, a hostel, visited Tenwek Hospital to see friends, lived in Olepishet for a month, stayed with a missionary for nearly a month, rented a missionary family’s place for nearly a month, and camped on (yes—on!) the car on multiple occasions. In every. single. circumstance. God has provided a place for us to be. There have been days when the next two days are unknown to us. Our time thus far has been oh-so-full of relationship building, language learning, car purchasing, and house searching. I have been humbled with the generosity of local Kenyans and fellow missionaries who have been so willing to take weary travelers into their homes! We have witnessed God’s loved poured out on us. He has been faithful through each phase, each useless worry, each night we lay our heads on a new pillow. And, even though this has been difficult at times, I truly wouldn’t trade it. When we get comfortable, that’s when we stop relying on God and stop experiencing the ways he longs to show us His overwhelming love. I am so guilty of being too comfortable. It’s so easy to worship on Sundays and forget those around us, our very neighbors (and I'm not talking necessarily about the guy right beside your house). When you’re moving about, you have to be somewhat alert of your surroundings. You make choices about where you will stay, what you will buy at the duka (“store” in Swahili) down the road, how long you’ll need X amount of supplies, where you’ll store your other supplies while you’re doing X. By it’s very nature, moving around causes us to be a little more aware of those around us. But, a constant relationship or friendship that can be depended upon and nurtured isn’t really in the mix. That’s what I’m really missing, but I'm thankful for God's (and Chase's) constant companionship.

Even though this phase has brought us a new awareness of God’s very real ability to provide abundantly, we are very ready for community. We are ready to surround and encourage a community. To learn from a community. To pour into people and let them pour into us. We are ready to put some roots down. And although I believe we are getting closer to that time, God still tells us to wait. We want to be faithful in our language study so as to serve people well. And even though I’m itching to know what our roles will be, I’m committed to trying my best to communicate in the language of the people we came to serve. I’m trying daily to be obedient to God’s call, knowing that nothing is wasted and knowing that He is faithful. We westerners don’t like waiting. We like being productive, having something to show for our efforts. If there is something that serving in Kenya ISN’T, it’s that last sentence RIGHT there. And, quite honestly, if earning my latest degree is only used to lighten people’s burdens and point them to the Creator, I am more than content with that.

In my experience, relationships are where true service comes to fruition. Without relationships and knowing people deeply, what do we have? Without intentionality, what do we have? Without a commitment to something, what do we have? Without learning about those around us, what do we have? Without honesty and openness, what do we have? Please pray with us that there will be people committed and ready to help us connect with our community as we stand ready to learn from them. Since language learning is our primary objective for the next six months, please pray for our minds to be able to absorb what they can and not stress over what they can’t. Pray that we will take times to rest and that we will spend time working diligently on language with the help of a language helper. Please pray FOR the people will be our language helpers. We don’t yet know who those folks will be. But, pray that we will love them well. Pray that above all else, we will be Christ to the faces we see in our community. During this season of lent, let us remember that relationships go hand in hand with sacrificial love. Lord, continue to love and teach us how to love sacrificially.

Ann Voskamp says the following and I pray it is true for all of us today and in the days ahead:

By Grace, today I fast from the lie that my calling
isn't great enough because God isn't calling
for people great in skills, schooling, or spotlight -
He's calling those simply great in community,
in confession, in communion, in courage, great in Christ.
Today I will do ordinary things with extraordinarily great love.
We repent of wanting to be great
instead of loving greater.

Inadequate and Useless

Before I begin I want to preface that this is not a pity party, nor is it a cry for help. My self-esteem is fine and I know where my identity lies. However, talking to Audrey the other day, we came to the general consensus that in our current transitional point in life and ministry (in traveling, and language learning), we have begun to feel a little useless and a bit inadequate in our service. Which got me thinking, how does one prepare for ministry, especially a long-term ministry? It would be easier (not easy of course) for one to leave their home, jump into another culture, start ministering, go hard at it for a couple months, then go back home into their normal field of work, feeling tired and worn out, but accomplished none-the-less. This is the way most of my mission’s experiences have been; we come in, jump into a project, conquer, and head home. A feeling of satisfaction, but the question arises, what happens to the building, project, or people once I am gone?

This brings about the thought of long-term missions (which I am going to call mid-term missions) these are the one or two-termers (maybe 2-6 years) who have the idea of a longer vision, hoping to develop something that can be adopted and owned by the people they go to serve (this is where I would say we currently fall). It is the awkward stage of missions, as I think my wife would call it (Similar to her transitional lens glasses, somewhere between regular glasses and sunglasses, which is almost-but-not-yet. The look that always leaves you feeling super confident….). The reason I say this type of mid-term missions is awkward is because of the unknown. We want to learn the language to be more effective and speak to the hearts of the people we are coming to serve in their own tongue; however in order to do that it takes up an inordinate amount of time that could be spent ministering, especially if you pick a small obscure language that Rosetta Stone does not cover and cannot prepare before hand. You work on building relationships in the community, but people are unsure how much to invest in you because they are unsure how long you will be around. So you end up having very few real connections on the ground, and the ones you once had at home are fading a bit due to distance. If you are early in your years and career you have the tendency to be plagued by thoughts of how will this effect my resume, or what about the years I am missing in experience and savings? What about family, and having and raising kids, do you plan them for a furlough, or begin your family abroad, and what effects does that carry over into your family back home, and the young ones you will raise? Therefore, if you do not have proper training, you feel underprepared and inadequate at times, and if you spend your time preparing, you look at all the time that is being “lost” and may feel useless (a lose-lose situation).

Then comes the big, ever-question of sustainability, something every missionary longs for, what supporters want to know more about, but truthfully one of the hardest things, it seems, to accomplish. If you are going to leave at some point, it seems best to have a successor, for success without a successor, is failure. Or is it? Is a mission only successful if it carries on after the missionary is gone, or could it all be about the one person it touched? Do numbers matter in the long run, or are all the finances, work, and hard times worth it for only one? It is hard to justify to a room full of donors, but I think deep down it is definitely worth it, just hard to justify it in your mind sometimes. In my mind it seems the very thing we are called to do is to make disciples, to train up followers that can train others, thus perpetuating itself and becoming a sustainable mission. However, what do you do when the people you have come to serve won’t take initiative? What if they don’t buy in? Or what if they do buy in but do not want to put forth the effort? In our short time here in Kenya we have seen dozens of mission projects that were started with the best of intentions to meet a need in the community, the people were trained on how to carry about the mission, and to continue the good work of the project, but yet when the missionaries left, shortly after the project crumbled and disappeared. Yet, when you go into those same areas, with some of the resources still there, although a bit worse for wear, the people say, “Have you come to start back up the project? It was so good! It helped so much. Someone really should start it again…” The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Whose responsibility is it to perpetuate these “good works”? Occasionally, you may find a local individual with the skill and some vision to carry on (we recently met a 80 something year old Maasai man who is carrying on the torch of some missionaries of the past, but he is the only one, no one after him has caught the vision, or has the spark to take over in his old age). It seems these individuals with vision and gumption are few and far between.

If inspiring and discipling does not work, then the only other option is for the LONG termers. These are the missionaries who have committed their lives to serving abroad. These are the ones who have settled in their places of service, whose homeland is not the same as their children’s. They have learned the language through and through, seen scores of people and tried many a project, some have succeeded and some still floundering, but they are committed to the people and committed to their vision. In the wake of no successors they carry on trying to do the most good for the most people while they are still around, hoping the things they do and the people they touch will one day light the spark for another to carry the torch in their absence. This may not happen in their time there. These individuals may not get to see the fruit of their labor or their efforts blossom. However, as Paul says in Corinthians, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God causes the growth.” These seeds that have been planted, whether from short, mid, or long-termers, God may use them all and grow them into something far beyond our scope of vision. However, that may not always be comforting when we are hoping to see growth now, to see fruit, and abundance.

Bringing me to my longwinded point. In no attempt to pity myself, it is easy to feel useless and inadequate. We are young, inexperienced, somewhat unequipped and in our preparations sometimes it feels like we are wasting valuable time that could be spent working. In the wake of “failed” projects, broken people, and everyday trials it is easy to get discouraged. However, we deeply trust, as long as we are seeking Him, He will use all that we pour in, if we are faithful, to further His good work. It is just hard to see sometimes in the thick of it. Today I saw a picture that illustrated this point well. It had a man on a bike with a straight road and a finish line in sight, and it was captioned, “our view of life/ministry”. Then next to it there was a picture of the same man on the bike, a very short straight section of road, some hills, curves, ditches, mountains, oceans, cliffs with sharks at the bottom, and a finish line, and it said “God’s call to ministry”. It’s not that God wants us to suffer, but God prepares and equips us. Life, contrary to what we wish, is not a simple easy road. It is full of bumps, curves, trials, excitements, and disappointments, but God prepares us and guides us along the way, testing us and producing endurance. It’s just hard to see sometimes when you are in that ditch. And yet, we persevere and pray for those who will come along side us and carry the torch when we can no longer. We are all inadequate at times, and there are times I am sure we all feel useless, but the encouraging thing is that there is One greater than us working in and through us, even in our times of weakness and inadequacy. We have our confidence in this, in He who started this good work in and through us, will continue it until His perfect completion. While it may take a while to see we have faith that He is making all things, including us, new.