Appleseed Travel Journal

— Anticipation

Anticipation is the electricity of childhood.Because of words that some of you have shared with us, along with the way God is stirring our own hearts, we are approaching this trip with a great deal of anticipation.

"New things are being stirred up that you will walk in."
"You will be raised up to see a higher perspective giving greater ability to see where the work is headed."
"You are multipliers and you will see many others walk in their destiny becoming multipliers."

God is so good to speak to all of us, as we listen to Him, pointing to what He is doing and how He is leading.

Perhaps anticipation, then, is our emotional response to trusting that God will do what He says to us.

Indeed, anticipation can be a powerful emotion. As I numbly watched movies during the marathon flights from Los Angeles to Nairobi, I was struck by the emotions stirred by stories based largely on anticipation: anticipating the return of a lost child, anticipating revenge/justice for a horrible crime, anticipating the consummation of the love relationship that is longed for.

Even more so, when anticipation comes from God's own guidance in our lives, the emotions can be powerful motivators to step out, to go where He is leading, and to do so with excitement and confidence.

Today I am just so excited to feel this anticipation knowing that God is up to something causing my eyes to be just a bit wider and my heart a bit more wonder-filled, childlike, and trusting. And, I feel so blessed to have people alongside of us who help create that anticipation by standing with us as His voice and support!

(Side note: if you have any words or encouragement that you sense God is giving to you for our current journey, and haven't had the opportunity to share with us yet, please feel free to comment here or shoot an email.)

— What I Love and What I Hate

What I love:

  • Meeting amazing people like Karina: willing to leave her present-day freedom and go back to her home region and live under Sharia law because she is so passionate about seeing her people reached and set free.
  • Immersing myself in the sights, sounds, and faces of a culture I've not been in before and eating new foods like chicken on a skewer with an amazing peanut sauce (chicken satay).
  • Being embraced by the hospitality of new friends whom I instantly feel connected to.

What I hate:

  • Staying awake for 48 hours through shuttles, planes, airports, layovers, taxis, only to arrive and feel tired for several more days while my clock changes over (whine, whine, whine).

What I love:

  • Meeting with people who are engaged, heart and soul, with seeing every person on the planet discovering what the real love of Jesus means.
  • Working together to find ways to make His love known, and the people of the earth lifted.

What I hate:

  • Being reminded, once again, of so many people in the world who live under incredible oppression and/or deplorable living situations, eking out an existence.

What I love:

  • Everything about traveling under God's direction, meeting, caring, loving, learning, encouraging, being encouraged, seeing new works initiated, seeing people's lives changed.

What I hate:

  • That I can't take every one of you with me when I travel!

Short trip! Will be home by the weekend!

Some sights and sounds from Indonesia:

— Volcanic Action

I (Roger) am heading off to Indonesia for nine days to do strategic planning with an international mission organization.
While we trust God for some significant fruit from this effort, the trip will not lend itself to:

  • Great photos (many people we will be working with live in secure areas of the world and don’t want their photos posted).
  • Heart-tugging stories of people’s lives transformed (though that is always the end result of greater fruitfulness from leaders such as these).
  • Stories-from-the-heart by Brooks (she remains at home this trip while I travel with a co-facilitating partner, Jack Herlihy).

Still, your prayers are appreciated and I will keep you posted on anything that might be of interest.

If you did not get the word, and want to be more involved in prayer for this specific project, your individual sign up is required here.

As a side note, the volcanic Mt. Kelud, near where we are going, erupted on Feb. 13.  We are trusting that, having spewed its fire, it will now behave calmly for enough time to get us in and out of there!

 

— Humor Along the Way

Here are just a few of the interesting things people have said during our time in East Africa:

A young child gently holding and caressing my hand with his little fingers, looked back at his mom and curiously asked, “But what is wrong with her? Is she really white all over or are there some parts of her that are black?”

On our arrival at John’s house in Kenya, “Ah, my good, good family friends! Welcome home to Kitale. where Jesus lives!” – John Wanyonyi

In response to moments of silence during an early morning training session, John Omondi said, “You see in the morning we are not very much bright!”

Noting the very commonplace occurrence of the electricity going out, Mary said, “We have no idea why it goes off or why it even comes back on. We only just know that it does.”

Trying to understand African culture and our increasing awareness of the Kenyans’ acute desire to say what they think we want to hear, John informed us, “Well, there’s the Pentecostal truth and then there’s the truth. Pentecostal truth, for example, is that there were 1,000 people at the crusade. Real truth is that there were 100 people there.”

We were sitting around with a few American missionary friends we continue to cross paths with here in East Africa visit after visit. One young man was telling us about his upcoming wedding back in the States and details of his courtship and plans for the future to continue to teach in an orphanage in Kenya with his new bride. Desperately trying to be a part of the excitement of the conversation and the “20 questions” we girls were bombarding the poor groom with, one middle aged man abruptly interrupted us all and asked, “So, what color are the bridesmaids?” Not realizing what he had asked when we all laughed hysterically, he kept saying, “But I thought that was the right question to ask about a wedding…what color are the bridesmaids …. Oh, uh, duh….I meant the bridesmaids’ dresses!” (the bride and the groom are both white, by the way!)

Omdoni, “OK, you see we cannot live in extremes. For example, in our place in Kenya it cost very much money for a lady to have her hair done, perhaps even 1,000ksh. This is very expensive, but she must have it done. One day we were at the church and they said this lady has come with a demon because the person who has fixed her hair put a demon inside her. You know they even wanted to shave that lady’s hair off. They pushed her down and were doing whatever to her head wanting to shave it all off. I told them to just call the demon out. You know the man wanting to cut off her hair was not even married and he doesn’t know the cost of that hair. It was very simple and now the demon has left her and the hair is ok.”

Wondo, “I want to say thank you to our interpreter, as he has been photocopying Roger.”

John waited patiently, intently reading, as every Kenyan male religiously does, the Daily Nation (the national newspaper). When I slid into the car, he announced, “Ah, Mama Brooks, I see now you have become almost half Kenyan. You are greeting someone and taking time and now you are not worried to be on American time. You are just now very comfortable with our African time, so I believe you must be adjusting in your body so that now you are half African and half American.” I told him it was true, that now I just relax and take the day as it comes. If I meet someone I know, I just stop and know that we will exchange information regarding children, husbands and work. The challenge is that now when I go back to America, I find I am late for everything. Relaying this to John, he explicitly told me to tell you, dear friends, that you must “just have some grace for this person who has been so traumatized living here in Africa!” So, there ya go, grace, please, both Africans and Americans for this poor schizoid traveler!

— You Put a Smile on a Child’s Face

We have come to know so many of the vulnerable children’s faces and seeing their smiles, during the midday meal, was more than heart-warming.

When most of these children first came to the school, their faces showed the tension from abuse or the sickness of malnutrition that could be seen in their tired eyes and withdrawn personalities.

But today, there were mostly bright eyes as they freely played and then gathered around tables to eat.

You put the smiles on these faces by giving each one:

  • A meal to eat
  • A family to be part of and teachers that love them
  • Medical care
  • An education which means a future.

Many of these children do not know that they are receiving one of the best educations in their community. Sometime in the future, when they realize this, it will put yet another smile on their face.

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