A day in Kipkaren

I thought I’d write you tonight to give you a little glimpse into my daily life in Kipkaren, Kenya. Sorry I haven’t had much time to write personal e-mails to those of you who have written me, but maybe this update will give you a bit of an idea why. My days here are definitely full: full of surprises, unscheduled events, and God. I love them, and I think you’d love them to, so I want to invite you to experience my Thursday this week:

6:15am- My alarm goes off and I crawl out from under my mosquito net to meet with my King and allow Him to prepare my heart and mind for the day. After some instant oatmeal and good God-time, I’m ready to head out (no time for a basin “shower” today).

7:30am- I’m off with our two interns to make the 3-mile walk to the Kipkaren market. It’s market day and we have a special vender to visit! Mary is one of the ladies who we led to the Lord last summer, gave a loan to, and helped leave prostitution. With our help, she was able to start her own business of selling food in the market and has been paying the loan back ever since. Yesterday she proudly came to the training center to make her LAST PAYMENT!!! She has now successfully paid back the entire loan and is still going strong: strong in her business and in her faith. She is still passionately following after God and I am loving doing a weekly Bible-study with her again.

8:00am- Arrive at Mary’s stand and buy chai (tea) and chapatti (sort of like a thick tortilla) from her for breakfast. I am blown away by how well her business is doing. She doesn’t even have time to talk with us because she has so many customers. She totally thought outside the box for her business and I’m so proud of her. Instead of selling the typical vegetables like every other vender, Mary decided to sell food to the men who come to buy and sell cows in the market. These men stay in the market all day (a couple hundred of them), and need some food to sustain them. Mary is now supplying them with chai, chapatti, & ghideri (beans & corn) and is getting an incredible response! Thank you Lord for the amazing transformation in the life of your precious daughter!

8:30am- After breakfast, I walk around the market to buy some fruit for the week, along with some gifts for the Compassion child that I sponsor. I get to visit him and his family next week, so I bargained for a few items to bring them: a blanket, a backpack for him, and a scarf for his mom. Then it’s off to make the 3-mile walk home. Along the way, I run into the mom and sister of my good friend Betty. Betty has AIDS and got really sick with pneumonia this week. They update me that she is back from the hospital and is doing better with the medicine she now has. Knowing that there isn’t much food in the home, I send my newly purchased mangos home with them for my dear friend and promise I will visit soon. So much for the fruit salad I had planned to make J.

11:00am- Still not home yet. “Why?” you may ask. Well because it takes 10 times longer to get anywhere around here than in America because you stop to greet every person you pass on the road. And greeting usually means hugging, asking how the day is, finding out where they’re coming from and going, inquiring about home, sharing where you’re coming from and going, and then sending greetings to their home. So you can imagine that a three-mile walk can be quite the long event when you pass a villager every 3 minutes or so (it is market day you know, so most people are out and about). But even amidst the numerous greeting breaks, I am able to enjoy a really good and deep conversation with the interns as we walk. I really love asking them questions, hearing their hearts, and helping them process all that God is doing here.

11:30- I make a quick stop in the ELI health clinic talk with the nurses there. We have a team coming from America on Sunday who want to do something special to bless all our women staff members. They’re going to give massages, pedicures, and manicures to each lady, and I’m in charge of scheduling each of our staff for an appointment. As I explain the idea to the two ladies who serve at our clinic, they break out in huge smiles and excitedly sign up for an appointment (I don’t think they’ve ever experienced anything like this before- so I’m really excited!!!) All of our staff pour and pour their lives out for the people of this village, and I am so excited for a team to pour back into them and for them to feel so special and loved.

12:00pm- I’m almost home, but then get stopped at my good friend Ruth’s house. She and her in-laws are getting ready to prepare cassava root for lunch and insist that I stay and try it. It’s not good to refuse food in this culture, and I also want to spend some time with Ruth, so I say ok and join them in the mud hut kitchen. 45 minutes later the cassava is finally peeled, cut, cooked, and ready to eat. The whole process is quite comical. Ruth had to go get beans from a neighbor and left me to cook the cassava with her mother-in-law who really only speaks Kalenjin – the tribal language of this area. I barely know any Kalenjin, but do my best to communicate with her. She keeps pointing to things in the room and saying their name in Kalenjin. I try to repeat what she was saying and she just laughs and laughs because no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to pronounce them the way she does. Then just when I think my eyes can’t handle the smoke in the kitchen any longer, the cassava is finished and we eat together. It’s really good to my surprise!

1:00pm- Praise the Lord, I finally make it home and have a little free time to catch up on work and e-mail! The to-do-list on my computer keeps getting larger and larger and has definitely been stressing me out a bit. So I’m really thankful to have some time to cross a few things off.

2:00pm- Time to take a break from work to wash clothes with one of the interns. Seeing how we are both on our last pair of clean underwear (sorry if that’s too much information), we know this project can not be put off any longer. I have a great 30 minutes sitting out in the sun, washing clothes in a basin, hanging them on a clothesline, and chatting and laughing with a good friend.

2:30pm- Back to computer work.

4:30pm- I head to the Children’s Home for a Bible study I just started there with one of the house mom’s and a teacher at the school. Both ladies are going through some really hard times right now and I’ve been so blessed by the way they have opened their hearts up to me. Both jumped at the idea when I suggested getting together regularly to read the Bible, pray for one another, share our hearts, and encourage each other. Both are really hungering for friendship and support right now, and I’m so excited to see what God will do during our time together each day.

5:30pm- I should have known better. Even though our Bible study was supposed to start at 4:30, we didn’t actually start till 5:30- the ladies were definitely on Kenya time (at 4:30 I found one woman getting her hair re-braided, and the other was still at school). But by 5:30 we are reading John together and I am so blessed by their questions, insight, and application of the passages we read. I am going to learn so much from them during this time!

6:30pm- Maggie (the house mom) invites me to stay for dinner with their family. I gladly accept and crack up as I try to learn the nicknames for all the 24 kids around the dinner table (aren’t 24 first names and 24 Kalenjin names enough? Do we really need to add nicknames for me to memorize too? J). As soon as we finish eating (oh, by the way, dinner is always ugali – kind of like really thick cream of wheat- which I’ve really come to love!), the older kids go back to school for 2 hours of preps (kind of like tutorial/monitored homework time) and the little kids and I spend the evening dancing and singing together. Their favorite song tonight is “If you’re happy and you know it.”

7:30pm- It’s now family story and prayer time. As the kids sit on the floor of their parents’ hut, I get nominated to be the story teller tonight. I tell the story of Jehosephat (2 Chronicles 20:1-30) and get the kids to act it out as I share. If you haven’t read this story, you definitely need to- it’s one of my favorite stories in the whole Bible. It was so powerful to watch the kids act it out – especially the part where the Israelites start marching towards the enemy as they sing praises to God. As soon as they start singing, their enemies start killing one another. Their worship releases God’s power and He fights on their behalf so that by the time they reached the enemy, not a single person is left alive. There are a lot of big battles facing these children that they are powerless to fight against, but if there’s one thing they can do, it’s SING! It was so cool to watch them act out a true story where God gives the Israelites victory over a powerful enemy simply through their singing.

9:00pm- Back in my room. I work a bit more on my computer, read a little bit, and then give in to my closing eyelids. As I drift off to sleep, I smile as I thank God for another incredible day here and all that He did and showed me.

I hope that gives you a bit of a picture of life here and what kind of activities fill my days when teams aren’t here. When teams are here, I am really busy hosting them, plugging them in with the different parts of our ministry, debriefing and praying with them, etc. Our next team arrives today (Sunday) and I’m excited to see what God has in store for their two weeks with us!

Thanks again for walking this journey with me,
Kierra

A Jewel Dropped from Heaven

“He knows my name. He knows my every thought. He sees each tear that falls and hears me when I call.” I woke up with this song on my heart. We were going to see the ELI Christian Academy in a couple of hours, and I had such a sense that truly, God knew each child’s and teacher’s name that I was going to see. I wanted to assure them that they were not forgotten.
With a message in my heart from the Lord for them, I felt prepared for the day. But nothing could have prepared me for the surge of emotions that overwhelmed me as we neared the school.
You can spot the school from miles away. Keredi slum is located in a valley, and in the school is in the heart of this slum. As we walked into the slum, the white school buildings shone brightly amidst the dirt and the sewage. It stood out from the poverty stretching for miles on every side. But this morning, it wasn’t just the buildings that shone brightly; it was the 500 students in their bright blue and white uniforms singing praises to God. Praises filled the valley and tears filled my eyes as I beheld this “jewel that has fallen from heaven,” as the community calls the school.

We were welcomed to the school by 500 children singing and dancing, while throwing gorgeous flower petals at us. As we walked through their neatly organized rows, I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing down my cheeks as I thought about how God knew each of their names and had not forgotten any of them. I thought of how I had persevered through the half marathon for these children, but knew this day that my perseverance was nothing compared to theirs. These children have persevered through war (their slum was right in the middle of the fighting), the death of their parents, sickness, hunger, coercion into child labor, and so much more. And here they were singing praises to God with radiant smiles.
After the singing and dancing, the children performed a powerful drama they had written. The drama told some of their stories. It started with the mother of a family getting raped by rebels in the forest and then dying while giving birth. The father then decided to remarry, but his new wife accused the children of being witches and kicked them out to the street. They found some other street children to live with and quickly learned the rules of the street: You do whatever it takes to survive: stealing, even killing. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you survive. But then one day the kids learn that there is a new school in the area offering free education, uniforms, and food. They excitedly run there to see if they might be permitted to join. As they come to register at the ELI school, the secretary asks them their names. They tell him their names: Anger, Cemetery, and 6000 Demons. He says that they will now get new names at the school because that is no longer who they are. They receive uniforms and greatly rejoice as they go to their first class. School isn’t easy at first. They still have street kid mindsets and attitudes, and they have never had any schooling before, so they don’t even know the answer to 1 + 1. But slowly they learn and begin to find new hope and life.
This is the type of story that each of these children have. I don’t know them all, but God does. And He chose to step in to bring healing, hope, and the assurance of His love through the ELI Christian Academy. What a joy to be part of His hands and feet bringing beauty from ashes in this forgotten slum.

Moments of Hope

ELI is targeting 20,000 people in the village of Chihonga to receive goat and cassava loans, helping the people begin to rebuild their shattered dreams and community. What a joy to be welcomed by these extremely grateful villagers!



Villagers receiving high-yield cassava plants, the first hope of sustainable food since the destruction of their crops by the rebels.


ELI hosted a Cultural Festival of the Arts for the youth of Bukavu. Messages about AIDS and peace were shared through incredible music, dancing, and drama.

Not Forgotten

As we took a two-hour boat ride to Bukavu, D.R. Congo, the Lord clearly placed Isaiah 49:14-16 on my heart. Though the people of this land have been ignored by most of the world, God has not forgotten them: He knows each of their names, stories and their pain.
We visited many people throughout the Bukavu area, and I was overwhelmed with emotion each time I shared this message.
The fighting throughout D.R. Congo has left the country with thousands of orphans, internally displaced people, rape victims and widows. Most of the people living in the Keredi slum (where ELI is working) fled there within the past two years after rebels burned down their villages and massacred their families. They fled to the slums for safety and now spend their days looking for food or a way to make as little as 30 cents a day.
Life in the slums is similar to that in a refugee camp; however, these people haven’t fled from another country—they’ve fled from places within their own country. Yet they cannot seem to get far enough away from the war. The area is still unstable and everyone knows that fighting could break out at anytime again.
It was such a blessing to sit with these people, to listen to their stories, and to assure them that they matter, that their stories matter, and that they’ve not been forgotten. I reminded them that God has engraved their names on His hands; they are ever before Him.
As I sat with six internally displaced women and their babies (see photo above), I asked them if it were possible for a mother to forget the baby at her breast.
“No!” they all responded emphatically.
“You’re right,” I responded. “It doesn’t seem possible. But even if it did happen, God has promised that He will never forget you. His love for you is even greater than what you feel for your child.”
As I shared with these women, God began stirring something in my heart for all the forgotten people of the world: refugees, discarded people in the slums, those still without the gospel in their language, and so many more.
God has not forgotten his children, and as His church, we cannot forget them either.