The Right Place At The Right Time

When you find yourself in the right place at the right time, the moment seems special, supernatural and beyond explanation. You know it is different from all the ordinary moments of life. It is a moment of time that reminds us that is very much alive and passionately in love with us. As I write this I am in the middle of experiencing the right place at the right time and all I can say is that Jesus is beautiful.

It was my plan to leave the Athi River Daystar campus on Thursday afternoon and then leave right away on Friday morning for Kiisi to visit with my friend James. However, God had other plans for me.

When I arrived back in Nairobi I spent Thursday night at the guest townhouse with Bette and Tom Wanous, two veteran missionaries who have spent a better part of their lives here in Kenya. As I walked through the door, they were entertaining an old friend of theirs named Solomon. Solomon had pepper gray hair and a warm inviting tone to his voice. As we all talked, I loved hearing his beautiful soft Kenyan accent. He has been out of work for 5 years which has been difficult for him. Although, he is quick to remind us that God is good and he will continue to serve him whether he is paid or not. I know that place of faith where your heart is deeply disappointed, yet your longing to serve Jesus still burns within you.

He had just returned from visiting some relatives out in the eastern part of Kenya where the minibus he was riding on was hijacked. As the hijakers approached the bus, Solomon saw two western missionaries shot dead by the side of the road. His 14 year old daughter was sitting behind him and he said that he started intensely praying, as he knew there was nothing he could do to protect her. The thieves took everything they had, but noticed that the minibus had very little gas, so they decided to take the white missionaries car instead. It was a terrifying experience, but God spared their lives. After telling us about his close call with death, he opened the Bible and read Psalm 119. He reminded us of God’s protection, love and might. It gave a whole new meaning to the strong hand of God. It seemed fitting then to pray for this beautiful man. I closed my eyes and asked the Lord to bless this man with a job, to hold him close—to protect him always. This prayer had power just as my father said it would. My dad told me that God had impressed on him that as I loved others and prayed for them that God would inhabit those prayers. God was so close, I could almost feel him next to me. It was the right place at the right time.

The next morning I spoke with James and due to a recent death in his family, I would not be able to travel to Kiisi until Tuesday at the earliest. I was not expecting to stay here in Nairobi for 5 more days, so I walked over to the Daystar Visitors office right away to ask if I could stay in the town house. Coretta was thrilled that I was extending my stay and even set up an account for me to eat at the college cafeteria. I wondered how I would fill my days, as I didn’t really have anything planned.

I went over to the college cafeteria for lunch and sat at a table by myself. As I ate I watched the students come in laughing with friends, talking intently about important ideas, and rushing out to get to their next class. It was then that Majok entered the cafeteria and to my great delight he came and sat down next to me. Majok is from southern Sudan and is now pursuing his Masters in Education. He escaped by foot at a very young age from Sudan into Kenya when the fighting was at its worst and lived in a refugee camp. As he was literally running from the rebels, he said that they Lord came to him and told him that he would be safe and to not be afraid. This experience was so powerful that he decided then and there to spend the rest of his life serving Jesus. Up to that point he had never been told about Jesus. It was God who revealed himself to him. He is now finishing his degree and going back to southern Sudan to be the Minister of Education. He is passionate about educating the children of Sudan, creating peace and telling others about a God who will come to you even as you are running from murderers. My jaw dropped to the floor and I felt tears well up in my eyes. God is bigger than I thought he was. I was in the right place at the right time.

When I left lunch with Majok, I wandered back to Coretta’s office hoping to find something to do. Coretta was not in, but there was a woman sitting in the waiting area. I sat down across from her and we began to talk. Her name was Pamela, she was 36 and had four children. I asked her why she had come to see Coretta. Pamela then explained that Coretta often helped her when she was desperate. I looked at her sympathetically but said nothing. There was silence for a moment. Then she said quietly, my husband beats me and the abuse is very bad. He won’t give me any money and he scares me. Our eyes met and we stared intensely at each other. “I’m sorry” was all I could say. She went on to describe the abuse she endures, her fear for her children, her inability to feed her children, her poor health. She now has migraines, high blood pressure and stomach ulcers. Before the worst of the abuse, she finished 3 years of a 4 year degree at Daystar. Now her husband is unwilling to finish paying for her degree which leaves her unable to find a job suitable for supporting her four children. She is desperate to find a sponsor to pay for her last year at school, so that she can become financially independent. She has tried to call the police and has a case pending in court, but there is no one yet who is able to protect her. I could feel the intense pain of this woman. My heart began to ache for her. She then talked about how she had become a Christian and that she knew God would rescue her, but then she asked me how long will it take him to rescue me? How do you answer a heart’s cry like that? What words can you say to encourage a heart that has been abused? All I could remember was my sister’s story of rescue. I did tell her how my sister was rescued from the pit by Jesus himself. She asked me to tell her story again, as it gave her comfort to know that God would come into the most vile of places and rescue his beloved. I told her that she was Jesus’s bride, his beloved. That he held her in the palm of his hand. We talked for 3 hours and finally I asked her if I could hold her and pray for her. She melted into my arms. As I held her I prayed that God would show his immense love for her in tangible ways this week, that he would rescue her soon from this violence, that a sponsor would be found to help her finish school. I prayed for her children, for her health, and I recited scriptures that talk about how deeply God loves women and how fiercely he will protect them. It was a holy moment—too holy even to reflect in words on a page. All I could think was---God has to be big enough to stop the violence and redeem this woman. God called me here to love and I realized in that moment that my ministry had begun. I was in the right place at the right time.

Coretta arrived back at her office and Pamela went in to see her. As I sat in the waiting area another woman named Grace came walking through the door. She was older and looked as if life had been hard. She was somewhat hunched over and was blind in one eye. She sat down next to me to wait for Coretta. We easily started a conversation and she was pleasant and warm. I asked her the same question I asked Pamela, Why are you seeing Coretta today? She told me that her daughter had finished two years at Daystar, but was now unable to finish due to financial difficulties. Then she burst into tears. I leaned close to her and rubbed her arm as she cried. She then apologized and I said that there was no need. I then asked her to please share her story with me.

She said that when she first was married her husband beat her and her life was very hard. However, a couple years later they both learned about Jesus and it changed both of them dramatically. Her husband stopped hitting her and became a new person. He eventually became a pastor and lead many people to know Jesus. Their life was so good and God seemed to bless them in many ways. In 2000, her husband became very ill and was bedridden in the hospital for two years before he died. To clear all his medical bills, they sold all their household items and her daughter dropped out of school. His care bankrupted them. They were left with virtually nothing. She went to her husband’s family for help, but they refused her. It was a painful rejection and she wept as she related the story to me. Grace makes the equivalent of $28 per month which is not enough to take care of her four children, pay the rent or even have enough food. Still she believes that God takes care of widows, so she waits for the Lord to meet her needs.

When her daughter first went to Daystar, Grace took a loan of about $300 from the Kenyan government. It was not enough to pay the tuition, but she pleaded with the admissions office to let her daughter come. She told the admission counselor that she depended on Jesus and that he would come up with the rest. The admission counselor let her daughter start classes, but only for a short time as the rest of the tuition had to be paid. Grace prayed and fasted. At 3 am the Lord woke Grace up and told her that $1,000 would be coming from the US. Three days later a bishop from their church came to her with $1,000 from an anonymous donor from the US. It was an absolute miracle. However, the money eventually ran out and she cannot take any more loans from the Kenyan Government. Now her daughter cannot go back to school. Currently her daughter is volunteering with an organization that helps vulnerable and orphaned children in Kinyago, a slum of Nairobi. Grace loves her children and wants them to realize their dreams. She wants to be able to feed them and clothe them. She misses her husband. Here is a mother who loves her children and can not give them what they need.

When I asked her if I could pray for her, she immediately said, “please, please.” We stood up and held each other. She held me so tight I could barely breathe. She seemed to be hanging on to me for dear life and maybe she was. I prayed that God would remind her again of his faithfulness to the widows that he loves so much. I asked the Lord to hold his beloved bride when she mourns for her husband. I asked for sponsors for her children to attend school. I felt her tears run down my face. I quietly kept reciting scripture of God’s love for widows and the poor. She kept saying, “I love you, Jesus.” When we finished, she thanked me and said, “surely God has meant for you to be here today as my encourager.” Emotion felt like it would come pouring out if I opened my mouth, so I just smiled and nodded. Then she said, “My dear, please tell me your need so I can pray for you.” I thought for a moment and then said, “Please pray that I love people well while I am here and that I remember God’s faithfulness.” She held me very close and began to pray for me and the most interesting thing happened. I heard her say, “God please send a good Godly man for this woman. Send her a husband that loves you and will love her. Remind her that husbands are a gift from you and that she can trust a man. God give her this deep desire of her heart. She yearns for it and you are preparing her for this man who will love her.” I cried. I never told her anything about myself, let alone the inmost desire of my heart. She said the Holy Spirit put those words in her mouth. So here was this privileged white woman in the middle of Kenya clinging to a widow and hearing her pray for my most private desires. Here was another holy moment full of the tangible presence of God. Again I was in the right place at the right time.

So here begins my journey. I told all of you that I wanted to come to Africa and learn to love well—like Jesus loves and to serve the least, the lost and the left out. Today that became a reality. God has changed my plans and I am not sure if I will even be in Kiisi by Tuesday, but God does. One thing is sure no matter where I am, I will be in the right place at the right time.



MST: I know CPC will be ready to sponsor more students at Daystar, as these two graduate. I recommended that we look at Debora. Now I would ask that you also consider either Pamela Khafafa # 03-0485 or Linda Omanya #04-0554 (Grace’s daughter)

Hope Deferred Makes The Heart Sick

Hope deferred makes the heart sick. The wise writer of this proverb had certainly experienced the pain of longing for something that forever seemed out of his reach. He must have intimately known the pain of hard work towards a goal that is never actualized. Dreaming of one day knowing the joy of experiencing what you hope for and then finally able to leave the deep disappointment of that intense longing behind you. The writer’s hope seemed fragile. One day his determination seemed all encompassing and the next day it seemed to flicker like an ember in a fire long gone out. It is in those times that the heart feels sick--weak—unworthy—depressed.

My Kenyan friend *Debora knows deeply the pain of longing and hoping for something that forever seems out of reach. I recently met her on the campus of Daystar University. She had come to help host my visit although she was no longer an active student. She longs to be educated and to use her knowledge to serve her people. It is a longing that resides deep in her soul. We spent the last few days together spending our time exchanging stories, laughing at my attempts to speak Swahili, and talking about the God we both love. (*Debora is in the picture on the right and is wearing a yellow shirt.)

Life has been difficult for Debora. Her father disowned the family while she was still quite young leaving her mother to care for her and her 3 siblings. Her father was an alcoholic and had no intention of caring for her or her siblings. It was a rejection that bruised her young heart.

Her mother sold local brew to others in the village to feed her children. This was not lucrative and Debora has been paying her own school fees since she has been six years old. She said that it was very hard, and by the end of her primary years she almost quit school altogether. It was just too much for a young girl. My mind could barely comprehend it all. I couldn’t even fathom myself as a six year old child working to earn enough money to put myself through school. Her only comment was that her deepest longing was to learn and become an accountant, so she spent her childhood working for her neighbors.

She scored very high marks on her primary school exam and was accepted to a nearby high school. It was an absolute thrill to begin to see her dream become a reality. However, she had no money to pay for her high school education, so in desperation she went to her father to beg for help. She told me that she spent days in prayer before approaching him and relied totally on God’s mercy, as that would be the only reason her father would help her. That desperate day she went to her father’s house and as only God can do, her father agreed to pay her tuition. It was a miracle she will remember for the rest of her life.

Mid-way through high school, her little brother died. It was a traumatic event for the whole family and pushed her father deeper into his depression and alcoholism. The help he was so miraculously providing ended soon after. To finish high school Debora worked at a local kiosk selling simple items and relied on her older sister for some assistance. By the grace of God and incredibly hard work, Debora finished high school. She scored well and longed to go to college and realize her dream of being an educated woman. Earning a college degree will give Debora a way out of poverty and give hope to her whole family. For her, college is the way out of poverty. It is her only chance.

In 2004, Debora applied to Daystar University and was accepted. Hope was alive again! A sponsor had come forward and offered to pay her tuition and her dream seemed so close she could almost touch it. She went to freshman orientation filled with renewed excitement. After this first blissful week, her sponsor told her that he could not pay her tuition. It was a devastating blow and she said that she cried for weeks. Then the next semester she applied for a loan from the government. They gave her a quarter of what she needed and she had to again go home and put her dream on hold.

Finally, the next semester she had been able to raise enough cash from friends to register for classes. She did not have enough money to pay rent or buy food for herself, so she took a night job in Nairobi an hour away from the campus. Sometimes she went to class all day and worked all night. It was exhausting, but it renewed her hope of achieving her dream. Sadly, all that work was not enough and at the end of the semester she was not able to pay her bill and again was sent home.

As if to add insult to injury, her mother contracted TB and needed constant care. Therefore the only family member working to care for Debora and her siblings was her oldest sister. She earned about $700 salary in which she pays rent, buys food for all of them, pays for the youngest brother to go to primary school and for the youngest sister to finish high school. Therefore this last semester, Debora did not even try to register again as she has no money and is barely surviving as it is.

Her heart is aching. She firmly told me that her only hope is a miracle of God. She has been meeting with the counselors at Daystar who are encouraging her with scriptures about God’s power and might. She is trying to hang on, but her heart just feels sick.

As I held her in my arms and prayed for her yesterday, I was reminded of God’s intense love for broken hearted people. The Psalmist reminds us that the Lord comes close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. As I called down God’s blessing on her life and pleaded for the Lord to raise up someone to alleviate her sick heart, tears welled up in my eyes as I felt her pain, her courage and the deep ache of a longing unfulfilled.

As we parted ways, she asked me to tell her story to whoever would listen. Hoping that God might raise up one person to meet her desperate need. Truly, hope deferred makes the heart sick, but hope restored helps us soar on wings like eagles. So who restores that hope? Are we waiting for God or is God waiting for us? If we are to be like Jesus should we not come close to the broken hearted? Should we not save those crushed in spirit? Be the very presence of God in their lives?

God is the great hope giver, but we are the ones who get to be God’s messengers of that great hope. Will you be that messenger? Will you give your resources so that Debora can know the God of hope?

If you want to help contact Stacy at Daystar University US home office at 952-928-2550 and ask to help sponsor Debora Akiso Omuyako, student number 05-0247

CPC Mission Stearing Team: Two of the students we are sponsoring are graduating this year, so if the budget allows us to pick new students, Please, please, please consider Debora. Also our two kids from Rakai are doing fantastic and will graduate next year. Dartiva is already planning on going back to Rakai this summer to do her community development internship with World Vision. She wants to use her degree to help other orphans and the poor in Uganda. It was so encouraging to hear all that God is doing!!
Daystar also just launched their HIV/AIDS policy. Students have been actively involved with I Choose Life, an AIDS awareness, prevention and after care group. Recently a group of students went into the slums of Nairobi to spend time with those infected with HIV. They handed out clothes, made food and ate with them and listened to their stories. It was moving to hear the students talk about how God had broken their heart for those with this disease.


I am leaving for Ogembo, a rural village in Western Kenya, in a couple of days. James built a school there for orphans and had a container of books shipped over for the school. I will be helping him catalog and organize the books. Please pray for James as his nephew, a 12 year old boy, died suddenly last week. It has been difficult for the family and they are still grieving this incredible loss. Please pray for me too as I enter into the loss of this boy with the family this week. I want to love and support them with the love of Jesus!

I may not be able to connect to the internet when I am out in Ogembo, so please be patient.

Much love,
Kari

Without Love I Am Nothing: A Grandfather’s Legacy

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” I Corinthians 13: 1-3

I have been loved. My grandfather died on Tuesday and my heart sank into a melancholy state. I miss him. My thoughts are filled with memories of how my grandfather loved well. He loved his wife through a dark valley, he loved his children deeply from the heart, he loved his workers at Montgomery Ward by creating justice for them, and he loved his fellow soldiers by earning 3 bronze stars for bravery. He loved his mother and took care of her until she died. As his grandchild, He loved me completely and unconditionally. He believed that I was a beautiful unique creature worthy of honor and respect. He lived his life in service to those he loved, so this week we remember him and his great capacity to love.

In remembering his capacity for love, I am reminded of God’s great love for me. Without knowing it my grandpa showed me how God loves sacrificially and deeply from the heart. Stirring within me are also memories of my own attempts to love others. How will I carry on my grandfather’s great capacity for love?

Over the years love has grown slowly in my selfish heart. It’s not that I am a grinch with a cold heart. In fact, I am no more selfish than the average person. I love those that love me—my family, my friends, strangers that show me kindness. It is just that Jesus keeps asking me to love deeper, to love strangers who aren’t kind, to love those I can’t stand, to love those that are uncomfortable to be around. To continue my grandfather’s legacy in my life will be allowing Jesus to create a deeper capacity to love others including the least, the left out and the unlovely. Taking a journey of love like this one scares me. Can I do it? Will I do it?

This last winter, I was hurrying through my local grocery store. I was tired. I had more errands to run and I wanted to get home. With a strong single-minded focus I sped my cart up and down the aisles filling up the cart with all my favorite foods. I even started dreaming of how good that chicken terryaki was going to taste. Somehow, I always choose the slowest checkout line. Today was no exception. I started to grow impatient and literally began to try to use mental telepathy to speed up the process. It didn’t work. Finally, it was my turn. My items were scanned. I paid what was due and began to quickly bag my groceries. As I quickly put the items in the paper sacks, a quiet whisper spoke inside of me. “See that lady. She needs help. Pay for her groceries.” I tried to shake the thought out by shaking my head slightly, but as I did it I looked up I saw her. This woman was awkward, a little too loud and someone others might not approach. I looked down and kept packing the bags. I wanted to get home. I had things to do. I had to be at church in two hours. Still this same compassionate whisper came, “See that lady. She is my beloved. Buy her groceries.” It was harder to shake this time. As I looked up I heard the clerk explain that her credit card had been denied. She looked frantic all of sudden—embarrassed—a state of panic on her face. When I looked at her suddenly, I felt a deep compassion for her—a brotherly love. I stopped what I was doing, rushed over to her, put my hand on her shoulder and asked if I could buy them for her. She sheepishly said yes and begged for my address so she could repay me. I told her that would not be necessary as this was an act of love on her behalf. We held each other in the grocery store and there was real love there.

Slowly, God is chipping away the selfish parts of my heart and increasing my capacity to love. God is showing me that nothing I do is worth anything if there is no love behind it. The true beauty of my moment with that awkward woman was not the money spent on the groceries, but the love and compassion that was created in between us in that moment.

This Sunday I am leaving for Africa instead of attending my grandfather’s funeral. This was his request of me before he died. At the end of his life of loving others, he told me to go out and love those who need it. So in honor of you, Grandpa, and because I desperately want to continue your legacy of love, I am following the author of love into the heart of Africa.

The Ugliness of AIDS & The Beauty of Love

I want to honor a courageous woman named Loreto who has AIDS and is currently living at a hospice center in Johannesburg, South Africa. I met her last summer and it was an encounter I will never forget.

As I walked into the nondescript room where Loreto was resting, I was struck by her beauty. Despite the outward appearance of skin draped on bones and of arms and legs that looked more like toothpicks, she had an intangible beauty. She was captivating. I couldn’t look away. As we introduced ourselves and began our conversation, I noticed that she would grimace and rub her motionless legs from time to time. Clearly she was in pain most of the time. She was sitting propped up by her scrawny arm wearing a stocking hat that seemed ten sizes too big. She was a young woman, only 24 years old. As I gazed at her I thought, “She is so young. She should be starting her life not wasting away in a bed preparing for death.” I took a sharp breath in and fought to hold back tears. I was suddenly irrationally angry. I wanted AIDS to be something I could kick, punch, scratch at and beat to death. This kind of injustice made me furious and at the same time painfully sad.

Cherie is an American who came to South Africa with her husband to love those who were infected with AIDS. Cherie had been coming to this hospice center for over a year now. She came often and painted the women’s toenails, gave them foot and back massages and listened to their stories. She grew close to each woman and inevitably arranged their funerals too. Loving these women and loosing them one by one was and is excruciatingly painful for her, but she loves them too much to stop coming.

Cherie had brought us to meet Loreto. After entering the room, Cherie noticed a tattered Bible sitting next to her bed. “Wow, you have read this so much it is almost worn out. I am curious what is your favorite story in the Bible?” Without skipping a beat and with incredible confidence Loreto said, “Job.” “ I just want to honor God and give him glory through my suffering just like Job,” she said. My mouth dropped to the floor and my emotion came close to the surface. I felt suddenly confused. How in the world is Job’s story encouraging? Isn’t Job the book of the Bible we get in and out of a quickly as possible for fear that his suffering might rub off on us?

Loreto continued to explain that she loved Jesus and even when the pain is too much and she feels like giving in to death, she remembers God’s faithfulness to Job. She remembers that God made the heavens and controls the rain. She knows that God may choose to heal her and to allow her to walk again, but even if he doesn’t and her short life is only marked by the painful disease of AIDS, God will still be sovereign. He will still be glorified and he will still love her. It took everything in me to remain calm and peaceful. Can she really believe what she is saying? How does one still believe in the goodness and love of God when you are in excruciating pain and dying from AIDS?

The only part of Job I could relate to was his angry bitter rants against his intense suffering. Job was angry—bitter. He lashed out with violent words and a cry of injustice!! How could God give such unbearable suffering to some and let the wicked live? Job rode the emotion of deep disappointment, of intense bitterness and unthinkable despair. That Job seemed to understand the tragedy of being told you are dying of AIDS at 24, of being confined to a bed in a hospice center with death the final destination. That Job I understood. That kind of anger felt more natural to me. It seemed to make sense, but that wasn’t the Job Loreto was talking about.

Loreto was talking about a Job who trusted completely in God’s sovereignty and believed in God’s loving character despite his circumstances. Somehow in the midst of that intense pain God showed up and Job-and Loreto- changed. They stopped being angry and learned how to be loved by a God who is in control. They seemed to understand that maybe, just maybe, their lives weren’t their own. She had a deep understanding of giving up her life to honor Him. She loved him. Loreto said that God and her had fallen in love, a deep kind of real committed love. The kind that grows out of great pain, perseverance and deep despair. She trusted him with her life totally and completely. She said he was good and nothing in her circumstances could dissuade her. In this painful place God had given her part of himself and that intimacy had given her strength and courage. She may never know why God allowed her to have AIDS but, she said in never knowing she will still love him. That is monumental—the stuff that rocks me to my core and makes me wonder if I could be that intimate with God. Could I know deep despair and still believe that God is good and that he loves me? Could I still love him? I know Loreto does.

As I stood there and listened to this frail young woman talk about the glory of God even in her desperate pain, I realized whose beauty I was really seeing. The Lord was there in that moment and it was indeed holy and captivatingly beautiful. Truly the two had become one.

AIDS is a terrible disease killing millions just like Loreto. Who will hear their stories, massage their aching backs and remember them when they die? I know Jesus would, I know Cherie is, will you?

To get involved in Minneapolis contact Open Arms: http://www.openarmsmn.org/ or internationally you can contact World Vision: www.worldvision.org

An Update on My Upcoming Adventure to Africa

In 6 weeks (on Easter Sunday) I will be leaving Minnesota’s winter wonderland for the tropical sun of Africa. A blizzard is raging outside at the moment and I couldn’t be more excited to leave all the cold behind for warm sun and sandals.

Over the last few weeks, I have been working hard to get everything ready for my departure. I have done my taxes, found someone to take my car, hired a long-term substitute to take my place at school, acquired international travel insurance, purchased my airline ticket & Visas and confirmed my itinerary. Needless to say, it has been a very busy couple of months, but so exciting. The only thing left to do is rent my house. I have had some interest in it and if all goes well it will be rented by next week. Please pray that the person I offer it to decides to live here.

As it turns out the details of leaving are much easier than the emotional and spiritual transformation that needs to take place as one leaves their home to love the least of these. Over the last year I have been asking God to help me learn how to love him and how to love others. There have been times where I feel my heart might burst with the love I feel inside and times where my heart feels empty, angry and consumed with selfishness. And I think how can I go out into the world and love the most vulnerable with such a divided heart? I am scared that I will not love well. But, I also know that God’s perfect love inside me casts out all fear of inadequacy, so I am stepping into places where my love for God and my love for others will be my only security. My deepest desire in leaving is to love well, so if you pray for me, pray that I learn to love deeply from the heart.

The second reason for this African adventure is to listen to the stories of the most vulnerable. God has told me that he has something to say about himself through these dear people and that those people are his beloved as well as our responsibility. I have felt this longing to be God’s storyteller. I don’t know where it came from or why I feel that way, but I feel the closest to Jesus when I respectfully tell the stories of the least, the lost and the left out. So, I hope you follow my blog and read the stories of the people I encounter. It is my hope to honor them by showing the beauty of God inside them. It is also my hope to encourage you to become more deeply involved with the widows and orphans of the world. Please pray that God uses these stories to wake the church up to the plight of the poor and the sick.

Where am I going?

April 8-15—I will be visiting Christ Presbyterian Church’s sponsored students at Daystar University.

April 15-May 5—I will be in Ogembo, Kenya. (A small rural mountain village) My friend James lives there and has started a school for orphans there. James has now sent a container of donated books, school supplies & Bibles to his school in Ogembo. I will live with James’ family and help organize and donate these materials and books. The school has previously been without books and the church without Bibles, so this will be an incredible blessing to the community.

May 5-August 15—I will be in Kampala, Uganda living with Simon Kabi at Corner Stone. Corner Stone is a ministry that cares for street orphans. They have several guardian homes in Kampala & Gulu that house girls and boys who had previously been on the street. At these homes they are loved, educated and discipled. I will be developing relationships with these children. It should be exciting to see how God uses me to love them.

Mid-June—I will visit my brother and sister-in-law’s sponsored kids.

July 18-19—I will be in Rakai to visit my own sponsored kids.

I will also be visiting Opportunity International and International Justice Mission while I am there. Dates for those visits are still in process. I will also be spending time with Veronica & Johnson, dear friends of mine and of CPC.

It will certainly be a beautiful, painful, inspiring and challenging adventure. Thank you for supporting and encouraging me. It means more to me than you could possibly know. If you want to contact me while I am gone you can use my regular email address. I hope to hear from you!

Love Is More Than a Pear

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:16-18

Love. It is a mysterious, powerful emotion. There is an innate wildness to it, yet when enveloped in it one feels safe and protected. It is tender and at the same time strong enough to conquer all fear. It has the power to heal deep wounds as well as create them. If you have ever loved and lost, it is a pain you know all too well. With all its contradictions we spend all our lives yearning to love and be loved. It is as important to our survival as the air we breathe. In the deepest part of who we are, we know we were created to experience love in all its fullness.

My whole life I have been trying to understand how to experience love in all its fullness. I have read books about what love is, stories of great love and dreamed of what deep love might feel like. However, at some point love has to come out of that dreamy state and into our everyday lives. We can read all the beautiful words the poets have crafted about the powerful tenderness of love, but at some point we have to ask the question, “What does love look like in real life amidst all the errands we have to run, bills we have to pay and meetings we have to attend? ”

I went to Swaziland because I wanted to see the HIV/AIDS crisis up close and personal. I longed to meet those who were suffering from this disease, so that I could comfort them with the love of Jesus. In my own life, God had been showing his love for me in real and tangible ways and that same love wanted desperately to flow out to others. Love always seems on the move, as soon as you experience it; you want to give it to somebody else.

One day I walked to the corner market to buy some lunch as I had missed breakfast. I picked up a few pears, a loaf of bread, some cheese, a tub of butter and some juice. I was so hungry I couldn’t wait to get back to the house and cook up some grilled cheese. I walked down the red dusty road back to the house enjoying the African sunshine and the voices all around me speaking Saswati. It was a glorious day. It was at that point that a young boy approached me. His legs and arms looked like little toothpicks sticking out of tattered clothes. He was barefoot and dirty. He asked me very politely if I had any money so that he could buy some food. I looked into his pleading eyes and realized that this was the middle of the day. He couldn’t afford to go to school. I felt bad for him and reached into my grocery bag and gave him one pear. He thanked me and we parted ways.

It only took a few minutes for the weight of my grocery bags to send a shameful message to my heart. Suddenly, tears filled my eyes and I choked back sobs. I came here to love as God had loved me. Jesus had given up everything he had to love me. He had sacrificed his time, his resources even his own life to ensure that I knew in tangible ways that he loved me. He didn’t just love in words-- he loved in action. Now, God had given me an opportunity to love someone in the midst of my busy day in a tangible way. I saw that the boy was hungry and in great need and instead of giving him all the groceries that I had—I gave him one pear. I thought of my own hunger even though I am well fed and could of easily turned around and bought more food. I didn’t love that boy. I threw him the crumbs off my table. Jesus says that when we love the least of these we love him. My heart crumbled as I realized that I had given the one that saved me only what I didn’t want for myself. I had only loved myself and no one else. When I got back to the house, I collapsed on the ground and sobbed. I was so ashamed. I couldn’t even look at the food I had purchased.

Something I had read in the Bible came back to me. John, the apostle that Jesus loved, said “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18) In the midst of that incredibly painful moment, I realized that love is denying my own needs, wants and desires for the needs, wants and desires of someone else. It is giving my time, my talents and my resources to someone that needs them. Love is giving more than a pear.

Just like the Velveteen Rabbit, we want love to change us and make us real. The rabbit wanted to live life to its fullest and experience love in its grandest form. The fairy told him that becoming real would pull out his whiskers, rub off his beautiful velveteen fur, and create tears in his seams. Love would change his appearance forever, but sacrificing himself would make the rabbit real. He would have love in its purest form and it would satisfy his deep yearning. I believe we are all like that rabbit. Learning to love as Jesus did will cost us. Some of our spots will have to be rubbed off and we might loose an eye, but in the midst of it all we will learn how to love and be loved. Love will no longer be a dreamy eyed state but a real everyday reality.

Love the one God puts in front of you and by all means--give them more than a pear.

Love, Valentines & Growing Up

“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner love is swirling in the air and yet do we have any better understanding of how to love deeply and purely then we did yesterday? When the people in ancient times asked Jesus what the most important spiritual truth was, he said to love God and love your neighbor. Yet 2,000 years later, we still struggle to understand exactly what it means to love an abstract being and how to love the imperfect people around us. It gets so confusing when you can love pizza, your new vacuum and your mother. Intrinsically we know that there are chasms of difference between loving your new vacuum and loving your mother, but love still seems like a word that everyone knows but no one can really define. However, when we have been loved deeply from the heart, we know it.

It is true we love best when we have been deeply loved. The apostle John went so far to say that our only capacity to love comes from the fact that God loved us first. I was told my whole life that God loved me, but it always sounded a little like Santa Claus seeing everything I did. It seemed like a fanciful abstract idea that held no weight in real life. I wanted to believe that God loved me but how would I ever know that. I know he died for us, but that included everybody in the world. I could understand how God loved mankind, but did he really love me—in all my faults and uniqueness? The church told me I was supposed to feel full of God’s love, but secretly I wondered how would I ever know if God really loved me—just me?

Several years ago, I lived in Arlington, Virginia. One day in early spring as the cherry blossoms were bursting out of their buds, I decided to go for a run at a local community center. I loved coming home from work, putting on my running shoes and heading up to the center especially on beautiful spring days. The center had an outside track that circled an open grassy park where people often played Frisbee or sat on blankets reading the paper. There were no trees or plants of any kind; it was just a wide-open grassy plain with a track that surrounded it. The park was completely fenced in with only one way in and one way out.

That warm day I started jogging and asking the God the question I had always struggled with, “Do you really love just me and if you do how would I know?” I then ran around the bend and continued down the far side of the track. I immediately noticed a very old African American woman sitting on a park bench beside the track. As I got closer to her, a strong, almost overpowering, thought entered my mid—“Go talk to her.” Immediately I shook my head and said no way. I don’t want to stop. I have a good pace going. What would I say to her? It would be too weird. Instead of this thought sinking back into the recesses of my mind, it got stronger and as I approached the bench where the woman sat this thought seemed to press hard into my mind. It was an odd feeling, so I stopped and stood still. I looked over at her. She was old with gray wisps of hair and a face that seemed to hold the wisdom of a life filled with joy and tragedy. Her face had a kindness to it and I realized as I stared at her that she was reading a large print Bible.

I walked over to her and sat next to her on the park bench. I didn’t say anything. I just sat there and looked at her. She looked up, smiled at me, and commented on the weather. I smiled and told her how much I loved the sunshine. As I looked up towards the sun, she grabbed my hands and held them in hers. I jumped slightly. I was not expecting her to touch me. I turned my head quickly toward her and opened my eyes wide and stared at her in silence. She then looked deep into my eyes and said, ‘Jesus loves you. He really loves you.” In a high-pitched squeal, I said, “What? What did you say?” She repeated it and I was so shocked I pulled my hands away, backed away from her and went back to the track. I started to run and it felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest.

About 20 seconds later, my impolite reaction caught up with me and I was suddenly ashamed of how I treated this kind woman, so I stopped, turned around and looked toward the park bench. She wasn’t there. I searched the grassy plain; she wasn’t there either. She hadn’t passed me on the track and she wasn’t walking in the other direction. My heart was beating so loud I could hear it my ears. I ran back to the bench and searched for her again. Then I began to ask others who were sitting in that area if they saw that woman. Not one person remembered seeing anyone like that. I asked everyone in the park. No one had seen her. Then I asked the front office if they had seen her. They told me that they didn’t remember anyone with that description. I searched for an hour for her and it was like she disappeared out of thin air. All I know is that the divine came into the ordinary in that moment and it still makes me shiver. I think I saw I an angel that day and I think God sent her to tell me—me—that he loves me. That was the first time God came into the reality of life to let me feel his love for me.

Just like most people the bizarre experience in the park eventually became a distant memory and the questions about God truly deeply loving me in the midst of all my mistakes and doubts came back to plague me once again. I was in Uganda in October 2004 visiting some widows who had been rescued by International Justice Mission. The day we were to see the widows was my 33rd birthday. I had told no one that it was my birthday and was relishing in the grand pity party I had created for myself. I told God that if I had a boyfriend, he would be giving me jewelry. I told him that if I were really his beloved, he would do something special like that for my birthday. Not my finest moment. The widow’s stories were powerful, beautiful and full of God’s mercy and I suddenly felt so silly and ridiculous for demanding a birthday present from God when clearly there were people in the world with bigger needs then my own. As the presentation ended, the widows said that they had made something for us. They asked me to come up first to see what it was. As the box opened, I saw the most beautiful necklaces. They asked me to pick the one I liked best. I choked back tears as I realized that God had given me jewelry on my birthday and straight from the hands of the widows he loves so much.

Like I said, when you have been loved deeply, you know it. I have had many more tangible experiences of God’s love for me including a valentine from Jesus sent anonymously to me a couple years ago. I needed to know that God saw my uniqueness and loved me as an individual. He has reminded me over and over that he is my beloved and that he will romance me for the rest of eternity. However, the story does not end there.

Some Christians want to stop the story there. God loves us. He really does and wants to show us everyday how much he loves us if we look past the ordinary into the divine around us. All true, but not the whole story. Infants are showered with love from the families that love them. New parents provide for all their needs, hug them when they cry, and rock them to sleep at night. Infants do not yet have the capacity to return the love lavished on them and so they grow up. God wants us to grow up too. We are not intended to stay spiritual infants. God’s love is meant to help us grow up into people who love with incredible ferocity and wild abandon.

Like any great love affair it grows as each person tries to out love the other. As God has loved me in tangible deep ways, I have now begun to ask the question—“How can I love him?” I want to die trying to out love God. In Matthew 25, Jesus says the best way to love him is to care for the sick, clothe the poor, to feed the hungry, to give a drink to the thirsty, to look after the stranger and the prisoner. In Isaiah 58 God says the best way to honor him is to love the poor and create justice for the oppressed. So, I have and will continue to love the poor, the sick, the oppressed and the strangers among us. Will you?

Let God love you and then give God a Valentine he will never forget…shelter for the cold, food for the hungry, justice for the oppressed, love for your enemies or healing for the sick.

“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19