Together, we are Empowering Lives!
“Together, we are Empowering Lives, and this is the month of fellowship and teamwork!” These were the words I chanted with our staff this morning at the end of our meeting. We huddled up, swung our arms together, yelled our chant, and then cheered as we each high fived everyone in the room. I sat amazed as I looked around at the incredible team God has placed me in. These thirty Kenyans and two Americans have become such a real family to me in 3 ½ short weeks. And what a team we make! Every person plays their role and serves with all their heart. Truly, there is no way we could keep up with all God is doing here without each team member serving with the passion and sacrifice that they do.
Let me tell you a bit about ministry here. It’s pretty out of control. I knew that God was doing great things through ELI before this summer, but I had no idea the magnitude of what goes on here each day and week.
First of all, there are the major trainings and retreats that we host. Last week we held a five day retreat for 40 of the alumni who have gone through our 6-month training program. The alumni came for a week of leadership training, follow-up, special skill training, fellowship, and spiritual development. The day after they left, 20 pastors in our Pastor Empowerment Program arrived for a similar 4 day conference. During all of this, we also had a short-term team from William Jessup University living and serving with us. The day after William Jessup and the pastors left, a team from Life Bible Fellowship Church arrived. They left this morning, and a few hours later, a group of 8 women caught up in the commercial sex industry arrived for their three-day retreat. This is a group of 8 women who would like to leave their jobs of prostitution, but don’t have any other way to feed their children right now. This is all they know. We have been meeting with them once a week to build relationships and to see how we can encourage and empower them to leave this line of work. We are excited to have them here for the next three days to share Christ with them, get them dreaming a bit, re-instill value into them, and give them some ideas and skills to find new work. Right after these women leave, we have a church coming for a week of Home-Based-Care and AIDS training. These church members will learn about AIDS, how to educate their community, how to bring testing and counseling to their village, and how to care for those who are infected in their area. These trainings are extremely powerful as we equip the church to move out to the front lines to fight this deadly disease, the fear and shame associated with it, and to care for those dying in their villages.
And the list goes on and on with these retreats and trainings. The Training Center is always full of people getting empowered, trained, and taught the word of God. But this is only a part of our ministry. While these trainings are going on, let me tell you what else is happening simultaneously.
First, there’s the Children’s Home that will soon be home to 96 orphans. Construction will be completed in two weeks and on June 20th, we will start bringing in our first children. Our social worker has been going through the cases of the children who have applied and has been making sure we have all the needed paperwork (death certificates for both parents, etc). Today the house parents are going out to meet their children for the first time. Even though the children won’t move in for another 2 weeks, the parents are meeting them and getting their pictures and stories so that we can begin to find sponsors in America for each child.
Then, there’s the Home-Based-Care ministry. Every day is packed for this team of 8 people. Mondays are providing AIDS education, testing, and counseling in a new village. Tuesdays are sharing at a school in the morning, and then training other communities and churches in Home-Based-Care in the afternoon. Wednesdays are educating in more schools. Thursdays are providing testing and counseling at a local church. Fridays are taking the positive patients to the clinic for their treatment, and then delivering food to all the patients’ homes. Saturdays and Sundays are often either AIDS Campaigns or follow-up at churches where we have done the training. And, free-time each day is spent visiting the sick in their homes and providing physical, emotional, and spiritual love and care to these “untouchables” rejected by their communities.
Then, there’s the unexpected ministry that God brings our way each day. Yesterday, it was a woman in labor who desperately needed a ride to the health clinic. A few days ago, it was a mom with her dying baby knocking on our doors at 2:00 am needing to get to the hospital. We drove her the hour to the hospital, but it was too late, and the baby died the next day (her fourth child to die). Today, a staff member went to pay the hospital fees that the mom couldn’t afford in order to bring home the baby’s body for a proper burial. As our main driver went to the hospital, that left me to go and pick up the women working as prostitutes and to bring them here for their retreat. As Pastor Peter and I drove to get them, we came across a woman waiting for us to give her and her son a ride to the doctor in town. Her 10-year-old son is crippled with a disease that I’m guessing is polio or cerebral palsey. She had already carried him 5 miles to get to us, and had no way to get the remaining 30 miles to the doctor. Unfortunately, we had to pick up the other women who were waiting for us, so the best we could do was pay for a taxi to bring the mom and her son to town.
I’m telling you, the action never stops around here. The needs are so great, but it’s amazing to see God meeting those needs through this ministry. It’s exciting to watch the church actually be the church. And to watch the body of Christ actually serve as the body of Christ. For truly, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a body imitate the actions of Christ so clearly. When I look at Christ, I see a man who healed the sick, fed the hungry, made disciples, preached the good news to the poor, ate with sinners, loved and re-directed prostitutes, touched the untouchables, cared for the orphans, and let the world truly experience the love of God. This is this Kingdom of God. And this is the Kingdom that I watch people experience each day in this village. Oh God, may your Kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven! Continue to establish your Kingdom here.
Thanks for all your love and prayers!
Mungu Akubariki,
Kierra
p.s. I attached some pictures for you. The first is this incredible place that I am living. The second is some of our 6-month alumni working to put a puzzle together for the first time. They loved this!!! No one had ever seen a puzzle before, and then we debriefed about teamwork, leadership, and learning. The third picture is Pastor Peter and I. We are partners in crime together as we host these American teams that come. Together Peter and I coordinate their time, debrief with them each night, etc. I am so blessed to have this amazing disciple as my partner. I learn so much from him every day!
Let me tell you a bit about ministry here. It’s pretty out of control. I knew that God was doing great things through ELI before this summer, but I had no idea the magnitude of what goes on here each day and week.
First of all, there are the major trainings and retreats that we host. Last week we held a five day retreat for 40 of the alumni who have gone through our 6-month training program. The alumni came for a week of leadership training, follow-up, special skill training, fellowship, and spiritual development. The day after they left, 20 pastors in our Pastor Empowerment Program arrived for a similar 4 day conference. During all of this, we also had a short-term team from William Jessup University living and serving with us. The day after William Jessup and the pastors left, a team from Life Bible Fellowship Church arrived. They left this morning, and a few hours later, a group of 8 women caught up in the commercial sex industry arrived for their three-day retreat. This is a group of 8 women who would like to leave their jobs of prostitution, but don’t have any other way to feed their children right now. This is all they know. We have been meeting with them once a week to build relationships and to see how we can encourage and empower them to leave this line of work. We are excited to have them here for the next three days to share Christ with them, get them dreaming a bit, re-instill value into them, and give them some ideas and skills to find new work. Right after these women leave, we have a church coming for a week of Home-Based-Care and AIDS training. These church members will learn about AIDS, how to educate their community, how to bring testing and counseling to their village, and how to care for those who are infected in their area. These trainings are extremely powerful as we equip the church to move out to the front lines to fight this deadly disease, the fear and shame associated with it, and to care for those dying in their villages.
And the list goes on and on with these retreats and trainings. The Training Center is always full of people getting empowered, trained, and taught the word of God. But this is only a part of our ministry. While these trainings are going on, let me tell you what else is happening simultaneously.
First, there’s the Children’s Home that will soon be home to 96 orphans. Construction will be completed in two weeks and on June 20th, we will start bringing in our first children. Our social worker has been going through the cases of the children who have applied and has been making sure we have all the needed paperwork (death certificates for both parents, etc). Today the house parents are going out to meet their children for the first time. Even though the children won’t move in for another 2 weeks, the parents are meeting them and getting their pictures and stories so that we can begin to find sponsors in America for each child.
Then, there’s the Home-Based-Care ministry. Every day is packed for this team of 8 people. Mondays are providing AIDS education, testing, and counseling in a new village. Tuesdays are sharing at a school in the morning, and then training other communities and churches in Home-Based-Care in the afternoon. Wednesdays are educating in more schools. Thursdays are providing testing and counseling at a local church. Fridays are taking the positive patients to the clinic for their treatment, and then delivering food to all the patients’ homes. Saturdays and Sundays are often either AIDS Campaigns or follow-up at churches where we have done the training. And, free-time each day is spent visiting the sick in their homes and providing physical, emotional, and spiritual love and care to these “untouchables” rejected by their communities.
Then, there’s the unexpected ministry that God brings our way each day. Yesterday, it was a woman in labor who desperately needed a ride to the health clinic. A few days ago, it was a mom with her dying baby knocking on our doors at 2:00 am needing to get to the hospital. We drove her the hour to the hospital, but it was too late, and the baby died the next day (her fourth child to die). Today, a staff member went to pay the hospital fees that the mom couldn’t afford in order to bring home the baby’s body for a proper burial. As our main driver went to the hospital, that left me to go and pick up the women working as prostitutes and to bring them here for their retreat. As Pastor Peter and I drove to get them, we came across a woman waiting for us to give her and her son a ride to the doctor in town. Her 10-year-old son is crippled with a disease that I’m guessing is polio or cerebral palsey. She had already carried him 5 miles to get to us, and had no way to get the remaining 30 miles to the doctor. Unfortunately, we had to pick up the other women who were waiting for us, so the best we could do was pay for a taxi to bring the mom and her son to town.
I’m telling you, the action never stops around here. The needs are so great, but it’s amazing to see God meeting those needs through this ministry. It’s exciting to watch the church actually be the church. And to watch the body of Christ actually serve as the body of Christ. For truly, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a body imitate the actions of Christ so clearly. When I look at Christ, I see a man who healed the sick, fed the hungry, made disciples, preached the good news to the poor, ate with sinners, loved and re-directed prostitutes, touched the untouchables, cared for the orphans, and let the world truly experience the love of God. This is this Kingdom of God. And this is the Kingdom that I watch people experience each day in this village. Oh God, may your Kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven! Continue to establish your Kingdom here.
Thanks for all your love and prayers!
Mungu Akubariki,
Kierra
p.s. I attached some pictures for you. The first is this incredible place that I am living. The second is some of our 6-month alumni working to put a puzzle together for the first time. They loved this!!! No one had ever seen a puzzle before, and then we debriefed about teamwork, leadership, and learning. The third picture is Pastor Peter and I. We are partners in crime together as we host these American teams that come. Together Peter and I coordinate their time, debrief with them each night, etc. I am so blessed to have this amazing disciple as my partner. I learn so much from him every day!
posted by Kierra Higgins at 4:56 AM
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