As we wrap up this trip, I was reading through my notes and reflecting on some of the things we’ve heard folks say. It’s incredibly inspiring (and humbling) to be around the folks we get to hang out with. Here are just a few of their comments:
“Disciple-making movements is a lifestyle. It doesn’t matter if you are a mama at home with the children or driving a boda boda. We have dedicated our lives to Matthew 28.”
“My wife is really going for it. Women are the best. Every day they are sharing something with other women.”
“We commit to meet with the 40 leaders at least once per month.”
“When we go up there to West Pokot, you must really prepare your body and your mind. There is, for example, one danger that disturbs me so much. That is the snakes. During the dry season the snakes fight with the people for water. When they have a small container of water, they must leave that container outside because the snakes will come.”
“God does miracles. Recently I reached out to some in the African traditional religion. They don’t bathe, or shave. They tie their hair with a certain kind of material. Now I can tell you I have reached some of them.”
“I’ve seen in the movement that God does wonders because he can bring enemies together. I’ve seen tribe going to tribe, even those who traditionally are fighting each other.”
“I am hearing and seeing today that men and women are equal in God’s eyes. The disciple who is a woman is the same and can even do the same baptizing as the man. I can tell you now that I am free, completely free and so very happy.”
“Even where people have refused to go, we are now going. This means this movement is growing.”
“Because of farming, we are getting money. This money gives us transport to go and tell others and also help our family.”
“I’ve learned so many things today. We must accept and also respect the culture that is different from ours. For example, in discussing burial—in my tribe you must place the body lying on the side inside the casket. Other people, they put the body lying on the back. In Pokot if you are not married, they throw you somewhere out there with no burial. In America, it is ok to even burn the body.”
“We use the audio Bible so much and others come to listen. Men and women even sit together to listen to that Bible. This is not normal in our culture. Because of the message of Jesus Christ now the men sit with women and even the children are allowed to sit with us. When we listen to that audio, then we stop and ask questions. Each one can speak. We ask the questions: Repeat the Bible verse. Say the verse in your own words. What did the verse speak to you? How will you obey what you have heard? This message is changing our lives and giving us hope.”
“If you are old, don’t worry. You see these old men here and they are doing very great things for God.”
“I am in Kajoro. The people there carry arrows and spears. If you see them jumping up with their arrows, it means they are happy. This place is very hard. Please pray for this young work that is just starting.”
Indeed, please take a moment to pray for these amazing 21st Century Believers who are serious about their faith and want all to know the powerful redemptive message of Jesus Christ.
Veronica, like so many women we meet, is a widow. Her husband was killed in the 2007 tribal clashings over the presidential election. She lives in the tough, tough region in northwestern Kenya called Turkana. It’s dry, barren and has temperatures at night of a still hot 85 degrees. There’s little rainfall; safety and security are always an issue because of tribal warring and stealing of cattle and possessions. Typhoid and diphtheria are rampant because of contaminated and often scarce water.
Weapons are common and used frequently for protecting and also taking of cattle. The piece of wood at the end of the rifle is used as a seat or a headrest, depending on if you are sitting or sleeping.
Traveling by matatu for two days from that distant land, Veronica met us for a week of training. Vibrant and engaging, she excitedly greeted me, “I love God so much. Life is very hard, but God has helped me.” It’s easy to see why she does what she does – starts and makes new relationships, shows love in practical ways and shares the Good News of Jesus Christ with people who are living very hopeless lives.
These are some of the things she shared with me:
“In the evenings when the kids play around my home, I call them and bring them together. I sing and sing and sing with them. Then, I begin to tell them so many stories from the Bible. They love to hear those stories. Also, sometimes after the daily duties and people are at their homes preparing food, I go to the home of a woman and I share with her and ask her if I can pray for her. Others will come and see, so we talk about many things together and I pray for them. I ask them if we can do a DBS (Discovery Bible Study) together. I tell them how they can experience Jesus Christ in their lives and how their lives will change. Now, I have women I meet with two times each week, on Wednesdays and Fridays. When I meet with these women on Wednesday, we do DBS together. We discuss so many things from that DBS. We also share what we will do to obey what we have learned. They go out on Thursday to share something with someone and then when we meet on Friday, they report how it is. They are strong disciples and they are helping others to become disciples. We are also teaching them how to take care of their children and their homes.
“There was a lady who was so angry in our village. She was always disturbing people and fighting with them. She had a weapon called a tribal knife you wear on your fingers. She would use that weapon on anyone. One day that lady was passing by my home and she heard that audio Bible speaking. She was outside listening, so I asked her, ‘Why don’t you just take those things you have for fighting and put them aside. Just come and sit with us and listen.’ So, she did. When I stopped the Bible to ask the questions we had been taught so each one can share, that lady, said, ‘Veronica, why won’t you open that machine once more so I can hear what it is saying.’
Finger knife that can easily be hidden
“After listening and discussing, that lady said to me, ‘So you have something very good here that it seems it can change how someone is thinking. What do you call that thing? Is it from God or where? I told her, ‘We are hearing the Word of God and yes, it can change our lives.’ You see, all of us suffer. We are experiencing so many problems in our homes and have little. Then that lady she said, ‘Yes, it’s true. My children are just at home. They are suffering. There is no one there. There is no food and no one has cooked for them anything.’ I told her, ‘Come, just sit down, we listen, we listen and we will see what God has to say to us. She even told me, ‘I will not leave your home til morning. I will listen and listen til I am tired.’ She listened to that story about Jesus when he was chasing the demons that was in the pigs and how he chased them and made them go away into the ocean. She said, ‘Ah, it seems I have the demons.’ I told her, ‘When you believe, those demons, they will go away.’ So that lady used to come to me and say, ‘Do you have that radio?’ I would have to tell her, ‘No, that radio is somewhere. Let those people use that radio for one week, and then, I will call you and we can listen.’ You know that lady, she left my place and she went and told those other drunkard ladies, ‘Let’s go to Veronica. There is something good there that can change our lives.’ That lady had chased her husband from home and there are so many things that were bad that had happened in her life. So now that lady is being discipled. She told me that now she has changed her life and God is helping her. Now she even wants a new name. She is now waiting for baptism and her life is really changing. She wants her name to be Elizabeth. She says when she will be baptized, she wants to take that new name.”
Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. Always rescuing, always restoring, always giving hope to those who need it the most. Thank God for the Veronica’s who are not ashamed of the Gospel or afraid to share it with others.
Getting outside of trainings and out into the villages is always a joy! Last week we spent some time checking on the progress of various projects in a couple of counties over in Western Kenya. It was such a great opportunity to get to meet some of the people who are being reached, hear about their Discovery Bible Study groups and house churches and especially to learn about what’s actually happening in their lives. It’s all very exciting to see what God is doing.
A picture’s worth a thousand words…right? Check out some of the things going on:
Inside Karen and Samson’s hut is a list of DBS’s, house churches, leaders and unreached areas they pray for each day.
Just one page from the planning meeting with the Kenya team. Their vision, their mission, celebrations for the last six months and some of their challenges.
This humble, elderly man and his wife and some of their grandkids pray with others for the movement in Kenya.
Some of the leaders of the strong women’s movement in Western Kenya. You guys have helped them start businesses for making and selling soap, farming vegetables, chicken farming, making and selling mandazi (donuts) and samosas. Giving them farming skills and a borehole has made much of this possible.
Life in the village
Receiving another chicken to add to my little flock I’ve collected over the years.
Borehole dug by a pulley system dropping a man inch by inch as he manually digs out the well inch by inch til he reaches water.
A finished borehole. People use a jerry can and a rope to get water.
These boys are kindly filling jerry cans of the neighbors who will then carry the water to their homes.
Amina, a widow with 10 children, who lives with her mother-in-law. They are Muslims who have been reached and now have a house church with other women in their home.
This is just one of the flourishing farming projects. Groups of house churches work together to produce vegetables for their families and for selling at the market.
Children are “off school” right now as their school year has ended, so bored, they were all too happy to pose for us!
David has a bicycle that he uses for a taxi service and also an opportunity to share practical love and the gospel of Jesus Christ with his customers. One day one of his clients was a man named Sylvestre. By spending time and developing relationship with him, David influenced Sylvestre to become a follower of Jesus. Sylvestre has now shared with his family and many in his community, and is currently also a missionary to Sudan. Jesus changed his life and now he’s passionate that “all should know.” He has little, but what he has he wants to share with the world. Never having been outside of his province in Rwanda, here is just some of Sylvestre’s story as he traveled north about 1,000 miles, from his home all the way to Sudan.
“We prayed for a long time before going to Sudan, but we Rwandans felt God had given us a heart to reach outside of our nation. We believe that Africans must be the ones to reach Africans.
“We didn’t even know what to do or where to go. It took us so many days to reach Sudan. When we finally reached there, the people saw us as civilized people and took us to sit with them at the fire. They brought us food on a traditional plate with local bread. First the chief ate and then each one after. They use their hands to clean themselves, their noses and other body parts and then they eat with the same hands. Everyone is eating from the same plate. But we told ourselves, ‘We will have to just do what they do,’ so we ate the food, because all the time we were thinking at any moment we might be killed.
“We got up very early and talked with them and agreed on how much to pay for them to take us to an even more distant village. There were six mountains to climb. By the time we reached the seventh mountain, we put up our tents. We found people there. Their homes were built of mud and sticks. We were received and given the home to stay in where a witch doctor had lived. It was broken down so we used our tarps to put over it for a roof. All the witch doctors in that place came together for a meeting to discuss how to deal with us. They called on their gods to kill us and they sacrificed and killed chickens and threw them into our house. In the morning they were so shocked that we were still alive.
“There was no bathroom anywhere. We didn’t know what to do and we really suffered. Finally, we went into the bush but our team went together for safety and the people they watched us. To be like the people, we wore the same clothes for the whole time we were there. Their children wear no clothes and many of the women were wearing no clothes.
“Being a missionary is about praying. When we are on mission our total focus is on our mission. We are not thinking about our wives or our children. All we had on our minds was helping and sharing God’s love with people. We only had our Bibles. Those people they had so many guns and I told my fellow missionaries, ‘Are we going to die here?’ Even the chief said, ‘These people will die here.’
“Slowly we started sharing with them. We began with Mark 6. Some received our message and wanted to be baptized. There is very little water in that place, so we walked for three hours to find a hole of water. It was a small pool that brings water down from the mountain. We baptized 18 people that day, even some of them were witch doctors. They learned by seeing that our God is more powerful than their idols.
“Then we moved on. At the new place we were given an old abandoned house that the government had built as a youth center. The people would not allow us to leave that house even if we had to go into the bush to the toilet. We had to wait for the soldier carrying a gun to take us. Those people had so many spears and machetes and guns. The witch doctors use intestines of animals for their sacrifices to chase away our God. The following day there were 23 children baptized. They couldn’t read or write, so we used storytelling. Even one time I climbed a tree to tell the story of Zacchaeus. Many of the children don’t even know their own names or their birth dates. If there is any problem there, they will kill you. We kept telling them, ‘We always pray and do what our God tells us to do.’”
As Sylvestre gave his report, his compassion and love for the Sudanese was obvious. Right now he and another disciple are traveling back to Sudan for another three months. Finishing his presentation, he encouraged us, “Please pray for these people in Sudan. It was their very first time to hear anything about Jesus.”
Any chance we get to spend time face to face with John Wanyonyi is a blessing. Not only is he spiritually electrifying to be around, but he’s also incredibly funny. For example, in trying to break the news to us that, in addition to the 400+ children at Liberty School that he fathers, he and his wife Naomi are expecting their sixth child even though he tells us he has no idea how this has happened. We hear this a lot in Africa! But, in John’s defense, with big eyes, grinning and shaking his head, he told us that he had “made sure she was closed up after the last one.”
This time we met up with John in the Central Business District (commonly known as CBD) of Nairobi, where traffic is crazy and crowds are intense with people from all over Kenya, and indeed, from all over the world trying to make a buck from panhandling to world marketing. Finally, finding a quiet spot to visit, John could barely contain himself. Dreaming for over 20 years to go to America, he literally shouted, “God has answered our prayers!!” Over the years and multitudes of trips to Nairobi from his village home out in Western Kenya, at last today was the day that the American Embassy had granted him a visa to visit the USA, AND the visa was good for five years.
So, why today? John reminded us that in December of 2017 God began to speak to him about new beginnings. He felt the Lord was inviting him to spend quality time seeking and spending more time with Him. He told us he was highly motivated to do this because of his desperation for the serious needs of the ever-growing children of Liberty School, and in particular, to see a secondary school built. So, he decided that out of the 365 days in 2018 he would spend 120 days praying and fasting for many issues, and that he would also invite his prayer partners to join him.
So, he purposed to pray 21 days every two months. He told me that currently by God’s grace they are praying another 21 days, the fourth time since January. “We have seen and experienced many breakthroughs that had stagnated since my 26 years of ministry. God has opened doors for us this year more than any other year before. We have been able to purchase the land for the secondary school to be built on. He has protected us and our friends. Bad things have happened to us and our friends, but God has fought our battles and we have won. We are expecting Him to do even greater things. Our guide is 2 Chronicles 15:1-2, ‘Then the Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded, and he went out to meet King Asa as he was returning from the battle. “Listen to me, Asa!” he shouted. “Listen, all you people of Judah and Benjamin! The Lord will stay with you as long as you stay with him! Whenever you seek him, you will find him. But if you abandon him, he will abandon you.”’”
So, here’s the thing. Whether you personally practice fasting or not, John’s persistent fasting this year has inspired me. Why? Because of his love for God and his love for people. He’s desperate to see God’s Kingdom come and his will to be done…in the lives of hurting, hopeless children and adults who are orphans spiritually and emotionally and physically, forgotten and hidden away in the mountains of western Kenya. But, not to John Wanyonyi! No, he answered the call when God sent him and his family to that little village ten years ago. With unbelievable challenges, he has remained obedient to the work God has given him. Whether it’s one child or 400, John’s heart breaks for them. He wants each one of them to know how important and valuable they are to the God who sees them and loves them. It’s this kind of passion, desperation and determination that drives him to his knees. John, himself has nothing, literally nothing. But, he knows the One who owns it all and that’s why he prays…and fasts. When there’s nowhere else to go, isn’t the same true for all of us?
Isaiah 58:6–7 6Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke? 7Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Brooks 
