May 13, 2010

Entry Thursday May 13th, 2010
From Sibanga, Kenya
I am writing tonight in place of Dawn who is very tired. I have just erased many paragraphs about all the things we did yesterday. Once again I tend to get focused on what I can “do”. What I think I am learning is that there is a fine line between being a part of what God is doing and how He would have me participate. Getting into God’s flow is a little bit like driving into a roundabout. You have to get into the flow of the traffic or you will just sit idle and not go anywhere. We need to be connected to what God is doing or it is just idle effort.

Today as we tried to ease into that flow, we have visited two schools where New Life Hilliard and Ekklesia sponsor five children. I got to encourage all the children. While I was going to the schools Dawn was attending a funeral of a church member. The funeral was ‘cut short’ after 4 hours. Dawn was able to speak to the 500+ attendees and encourage them. Meanwhile I was praying with a retired Christian police officer who was ill, then spending time with a pastor and his wife listening to them talk about their lives and ministry. In the afternoon I met with the leaders of the Kipsonga Bead Ladies who live in the slum. I was listening to their situation and working through how the bead sales might help them. Dawn went on to attend the weekly fellowship with the ladies living in the slums. I went on to discuss with Justus how to effectively move the Watergate Cyber Café to Kitale so the revenues will improve. At that point we located a taxi and piled six of us in for the ride back to Sibanga. We bumped along while we tried to get our 2 year old friend Valentine to “kuja” come to us. We parted company with the pastor’s family to have a brief time to regroup before joining our hostess and sharing our days. We had tea, prayer time and eventually to bed.

This trip I have had a question constantly coming to my mind – “What is the church?” I hope we were the church today as we traveled in this place. I am seeing that the church is not a building, not an institution, not a program, and maybe not even a group. I am the root of the church. We are the root of the church. We need to be the walking, breathing church of God whether we walk the soil of Kenya or we are taking dinner at Chipotle. Kenya is a wonderful training ground to have God show me His church. ec