The Naz - Blog

Day Eight - 

Sunday - God's Day - in Kenya is ALWAYS my favorite!!  We headed to our sister church, Ewaso Nigro Church of the Nazarene, excited to worship with the people that we have grown to love over the last week!  As we arrived we were greeted with open arms and big smiles...as we always are here in Ewaso! The first sight we saw was our friend Moses leading the kids Sunday School class under the tree...and since last Sunday it's more then doubled in size!! He had 29 last Sunday and 70 this week!!! Wow! :)  He was SO excited! He took every childs name down in his book and told them he would visit their home this week! We started to gather in the church for our service and we saw faces of friends that we had laughed with this week, brothers and sisters that we had worked with this week and people we would never forget!  The service started with a song and the voices of the people were so full of joy and praise for our Lord!! It's one of the best sounds in the world! Then Pastor Daniel asked if anyone had a testimony...and almost immediatly a woman stood up and headed forward. She shared that she had been praying for her brother to come to Christ for a long time and at 6:30am this morning he called her and insisted that he needed to come to church with her. The brother was just a row in front of me and I could see as she spoke that he was visibly shaken! Pastor Daniel then asked the man to come forward and he received Christ in his heart for the very first time! After the service Jim Burgess went over to greet the young man and welcome him to the family of God and the man shared more of his story. He told Jim that all night the Devil was with him in his room. When the Devil would get closer to him he would call on the name of Jesus and the Devil would go back to the corner of the room. He said that all night he fought with the Devil and repeatedly called on the name of Jesus and as soon as the sun came up he knew he needed to call his sister! Jim encouraged the man that now that God was in his life he had no need to fear the Devil because he has the power of Christ in him! It was an AMAZING morning!  One in which we saw God in every moment!!!  

Day Six -

Today was all about the rain!! This morning at Ladies Bible Study when we asked for prayer requests the ladies asked that we pray for rain. The drought here has been very bad...the river is very low and they are struggling to keep their animals alive. So we prayed....fervently...for God to send rain! Just this week someone challenged me by asking “When you pray are you more surprised when God answers your prayers or when He doesn't?” So today, as we prayed, I decided to be a person that is more surprised if God DOESNT answer my prayers! We said goodbye to the ladies and went about our daily duties. As we finished up lunch I noticed some clouds starting to form...and then the rain started to fall. And it didn't just rain - it POURED!!!!! For three hours it down poured, so much so that we began to worry about what we would do for VBS...we had been meeting under a tree because the 240 kids wouldn't fit in the church. BUT guess what...20 minutes before we were supposed to start...the rain STOPPED!! Yep that's right....for the 2 hours of VBS the rain stopped and the ground dried up! We played and laughed with the kids and then just as we were leaving, the raindrops started again! :) What an awesome God we serve!!! I can't wait to go to Bible Study in the morning and see the ladies faces knowing that God was faithful to answer our prayers!!! There will be some SERIOUS praise and worship going on tomorrow!! AMEN!

Day five - 

Well...another day of “awesomeness”...and yes, I know that's not really a word, but I don't have enough words to use for how Great our God is!! :) We are seeing some AMAZING things here on this trip!

We have a very solid Ladies Bible study every morning at 9am that they have told us they will continue after we leave...YAY! ;) This morning was a very emotional group time. Melissa Nelson shared the story of the Isrealites and how God provided Manna from Heaven. Then she asked if any of the women had a testimony to share, after much prompting and encouragement from the other Maasai women, one lady began to tell her story. She said that just a few months ago, her three year old daughter went missing. They searched for 4 days for the girl and couldn't find her. They prayed and prayed for God's protection on the child and she had faith that He would bring her home. On the 4^th night they heard several lions roaring after a kill and the village was convinced that they had killed the little girl. But this mom had faith in God and He had told her that her daughter was still alive. Everyone thought that she had lost her mind from the loss of her child...but SHE still believed! On the 5^th day a man saw a child laying down by the river and went to her but thought she was dead...it was the girl!! She was alive and returned to her mother! The woman said she and the others praised God all night for the protection of the little girl!! What incredible faith and courage! I can't even imagine....

I got a chance to work more on the building project today...it is going VERY well!! The food storage facility is almost finished and they are putting the roof on the pastors house tomorrow! It has really been a great chance for fellowship both with the Kenyans as well as with each other on the team! Today I worked with Darrin Madden and Pat Boomer on the steel beams. It was very hard work but we had such a great time talking about God and how great it is to be used by Him. We also laughed with our friend Moses (a Maasai) as we taught him to say “Booya” :)

Finally it was time for VBS...now we are never sure how many we will have, but today we doubled our numbers again!! We had 230 kids!!!!!!!!! SO AWESOME!!! They learned about Sin and how Jesus died so that they could go to Heaven. We also played with them for almost an hour after just running around, playing Soccer (which they call football) and having a great time! We then said “ikeydoatiesari” which means “see you tomorrow” in Maasai. It was a day of AWESOMENESS!!

Day Five -

WOW....that's all I can say about today....WOW!!!!  God is SO AMAZING! :)

We started the morning with our third day of Ladies Bible Study and we had 15 ladies...all on fire for God and anxious to spend time together! Carole Burgess shared the story of Esther and then asked the ladies to share their stories and that's when the Spirit really started to move! One of the Maasai ladies, Joyce, told us that her son had measels just a few weeks ago and she thought he was going to die. But she told us that she prayed to God and trusted him to heal her son.  After three days he was healed and all the doctors gave God the glory with her for a miracle! WOW...what an amazing women of God!

We had a chance to go to our Maasai friend, Moses' house. He was excited for us to see his home and share with us the Maasai way! It was an honor to be invited into his world and see, in better detail how they live here in Kenya!

The last thing we did today was our VBS and we went from 28 the first day to 145 today....WOW!! AMAZING! They came early and we played soccer and volleyball outside with them for almost an hour! It was SO fun! 

One girl really bonded with me, her name was Mary. I had such a cool time bonding with her. Everytime I tried to set her down...she would put her arms up for me to pick her back up. She loved to touch the skin on my arm and try on my sunglasses! :) SO CUTE!

We shared a Bible Story, songs, and a craft with the kids, but the BEST part of today was giving the kids care packages. It's the most amazing feeling to see the kids faces light up with joy as they opened the bags to see candy, toothbrushes, stickers and all kinds of goodies! It was an AMAZING DAY! :)

Day Three -

Our first full day on the site was quite an adventure! We went with BIG plans!! Plans for a Ladies Bible Study with the local Maasai women, a VBS with the kids from the vilage and of course getting LOTS of work done on the building project! 

When we arrived, Charles (our Kenyan construction boss), started the day by getting all of us, Kenyan and American alike in a circle and introducing ourselves and praying. It was a PERFECT start to our day! First thing, the guys got partnered up with a Kenyan and the women went into the church to prepare for the Ladies Bible Study.

As 9am rolled around, the suggested start time for the Study, we had one woman...but she encouraged us that more would come...just to trust God! (Ironically, her name is FAITH :)  She was right after about 20 minutes they started to come! They told us that they needed to get water before they could come...which is slightly more complicated then just walking to the kitchen sink! We opened by asking them to teach us a Maasai song, WOW, can they sing and worship! They sang with such energy and their WHOLE heart! Even though we didn't understand the words we FELT the meaning from their voices and seeing their hearts!  I was the first guinea pig to lead and boy was I a nervous wreck!! I had NO IDEA what to expect...but I started by sharing my background as a wife and mother and how hard we work as women...especially them!! :) They immediatly opened up and soon we were sharing stories, laughing over commonalities in men and children and just really having an incredible time of fellowship! We finished by praying both in Maasai and then in English and you could just feel the Spirit of God settle on that room! When the ladies left we felt so encouraged that GOD HAS A PLAN for that Bible study this week and I think we will learn so much from one another! Please pray for that this week...here the women do SO much and are truly the biggest influence on how the families here will mature in Christ!

The ladies then joined the men for a few hours on the worksite. We carried block for the pastors home and lifted steel beams for the food storage building! It was hard work but we saw instantly the connection the men were making with their partners. So many of our guys said that evening that they were shocked at how quickly they bonded with the Kenyan's and were sure that GOD HAS A PLAN for the relationships they are building this week!

Finally we did a VBS for the kids! We had lots of plans for singing and crafts, games and soccer...but we forgot the soccer balls, didn't have all that we needed for the craft and couldnt get the CD player to work!! ;) But...GOD HAD OTHER PLANS! We were able to just share the Bible story with them, and play...which was GREAT! We are so excited to see all that God will do this week in these kids!