ODE TO ALLIE's RINGWORM

When our recent Kenya missions team arrived in Kitale, we were greeted by our friend and my hero...Allison Hibbard. 

Allie had been serving orphans and run-aways and throw-aways for 7 months in Kenya and just days before we arrived, this sweet case of ringworm joined her facial family...to her complete dismay, since so many friends would soon be seeing her and greeting her with...'What's that about?' looks, and various unspoken messages of disgust.

I wrote this poem to dear Allison and consider it some of my better work... I am so proud of her and her choice to come to Kitale.

There are signs that mark our journey,

As we move from land to land

Some are told and some are written 

Some in ink, on back or hand

One such marking I will carry,

Of Kitale- home with me

It's a circle--it's a virus

On my cheek, for all to see

I won't cover or deny

This tiny 'O' upon my face 

It will be a sweet reminder 

Of these people...of this place

I will never forget this journey 

Or the changes that I see

Tho' this mark will some day fade, I pray

I KNOW, that these children stay with me.

 

The ringworm has now, in fact, faded....but Allison wears her red badge of courage elsewhere, in her heart.

POINTERS

There are some photos that just don't need any explanation or commentary...I simply call them 'POINTERS'. 

Join us in UKRAINE this summer...

Last summer a team from Saddleback took 100 kids off the streets of Mariupol, Ukraine, where you can buy the strongest of painkillers for less than a penny...and took them to CRIMEA for a summer camp.

What an unbelievably fun and inspiring time it was ...living and laughing and singing and praying with these kids who live in dark alleys, and under buildings, in a world you and I will never know...seeing them come out from behind their walls of defense...

Pastor Ghenady from The Church of Good Changes (awesome name) invited us to join them and serve alongside his church staff and the Pilgrim Orphan Care Ministry.

We're going back to UKRAINE this July 16th -30 and taking kids to the CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS this year...kind of like a soviet version of Big Bear...100 'run-away' and 'throw-away' kids...enjoying a Christian camp setting...it's the best... 

Just being with these kids, breaks your heart and also fills you with hope and respect for the work Pastor Ghenady and his staff are doing in their 27 group homes...Every night they go out on the streets and rescue drug addicted little kids who are just trying to survive.

Kids who shoot street drugs EVERY DAY...ALL DAY...just to deal with the abuse and the homelessness and the abandonment...
Camp is a contrast for sure...darkness to light...just ask Ashley and Nadya.
If you're interested in joining our team...13 days that will change your life... e-mail Carolyn Betts, our team co-ordinator at carecgb@yahoo.com or leave a comment and a contact at the bottom.
When you reach beyond yourself to the least of these people, you are following Christ's command...'love your neighbor as much as you love yourself' and making some lifelong friends in the most unexpected places.

After AIDS...DISCOVER to RECOVER

Meet Patricia Sawa, from Kitale, Kenya. A mom and wife, a ministry leader, a counselor and an encouraging friend.

A few years ago Patricia and her husband, Francis, were about as down and out as two people can be.

• They discovered they were HIV positive
• Their employers fired them out of fear of having infected workers
• Their friends began to stigmatize them
• Their neighbors treated them like lepers
• Rumors, like moving shadows, haunted their family 
• There was no income 
• There was no food

Patricia could have just curled up...quit living...and leave behind a family of orphaned and homeless children.

But that is not her nature, and that is not what she chose to do.

She decided to go public...to fight this illness and to help others affected and infected with HIV.

Patricia began a simple ministry outreach in Kitale called DISCOVER to RECOVER...a great name...first of all DISCOVER your HIV status by being tested...Until you know for sure what that status is, many live in a world of denial and fear and danger to themselves and others.

And then comes the RECOVER part...Patricia teaches families that HIV is NOT a death sentence and there are pro-active things that can be done to build up your immune system...like anti-retrovirals...ARVs...and healthy and Godly living.

Patricia spends her days helping men and women, boys and girls get to VTCs (Voluntary Testing and Counseling Centers)...where a quick and painless test can let a person know if they are, in-fact, HIV positive.

Patricia has also opened a wonderful center for the care of children who have been devastated by the AIDS epidemic.

• Some of these kids have HIV
• Some have been orphaned by parents who died of AIDS
• Some are at-risk kids because of the lives they lead or are born into...
• All of them need her help... Today Patricia Sawa lectures all over the world about the battle against AIDS...how we have to behave in ways that do not put us at risk, how to treat folks who have AIDS lovingly , as Christ would..

Years ago, Patricia was the first recipient of one of our HOLY COWs...milk cows we give to folks who are in need of the income and nutrition that milk brings them...

She has also guided us to needy families and folks through DISCOVER TO RECOVER who have been blessed.

 

This was another HOLY COW that Caroline, Allison, Megan, Andrea and Chris got to deliver to Patricia...Rather than renting a pick-up truck and transporting it...we walked it across town...what a crazy day...I think the cow thought we were taking her to the butchery shop.

I'd love to give 10 Holy Cows to families in Patricia's ministry this year...it takes a family or small group saying, 'We want to buy a cow and help an AIDS affected family, through Patricia's ministry.

Maybe that's you...give me a call or e-mail me at stever@saddleback.com or leave a comment to this message. Simple things sometimes reap huge results...it did in Patricia's life.

A Little Girl Named Regina...

We were in our van, leaving the city of Narok, Kenya after 2 days of clinics and schools and orphanages...

I was busy talking with Stonic about the details of the next few days...

We pulled into a gas station and things changed forever for me...

It didn't come in the form of a cloud of fire...or trumpets blaring...or angels sitting on the van.

There was this little girl...selling bananas...and things couldn't be clearer to me if the Lord had tapped me on the shoulder and said, "do something'.

Her name is Regina...and she was standing at my window with this bunch of bananas...

And all I could think was 'What is this cute little girl doing here at this gas staion when little girls should be in school?'

I asked Stonic to find out why she wasn't in school and she began her story...

'My mother and father live in the Mara...we are Masai...but with the drought, there is no food for my 9 brothers and sisters.'

I started leaning in...like I do when I'm about to hear something that is going to break my heart...

Regina went on, 'My parents sold our last cow and we fled here to Narok to try to save our lives. Each of us do what we have to do to live. I sell bananas.'

Stonic asked Regina if she had ever been to school...she said NO ONE in her family, except one sister had been to a day of school...but she got pregnant and had to quit...

'Would you like to go to school, Regina?...'yes, but who will sell the bananas?' 

I asked her to have her parents meet us right there the next day.

And sure enough...the next day...there were Regina's folks at the gas station ...wondering what these Mazungus wanted with their daughter...

the most interesting answer to all this came after we explained that we would like to send their daughter to school and Regina's mother asked, 'who will sell the bananas?'

WOW...

After about an hour of discussion, Regina's parents saw that us sending their daughter would be a help in the long term...to their whole family.

Fast forward 2 weeks... 
With the incredible background work of Stonic, and Allen and Charles...we got 9 year old Regina into the NAROK TEACHERS TRAINING SCHOOL !!!

Just look at her in her uniform !!!!!!

Who knows just where God will take this little girl on her journey through life...but one thing is for sure...
She knows that there are some people that are pulling and praying for her to succeed.

Please pray for Regina...

IDP CAMP in Goma, Congo

I traveled by plane and LandCruiser with Dr. David and Cherry Haymes, from Dallas, Texas and my protector/friend Stonic Koipah through Rwanda to Goma, Congo to visit some of the many refugee camps stretched along the Congo/Rwanda border. From this hill, you can look out 360 degrees and see nothing but humanity. This IDP camp (Internally Displaced People) has around 29000 people who fled the clashes between the Laurent Nakunda-led rebel forces and the Congo government armies.

There is just no way to describe the indignities that the women and children of Congo have suffered at the hands of rebels and government troops and even peacekeeping troops from the UN. It is way too impolite to discuss in this blog, but we spent hours with ladies in Goma hospitals, listening to them painfully recount the terror inspired accounts of their attacks and their attackers. These poor ladies are damaged physically beyond repair and will never know normal body functions again.

When everyday people get drawn into evil terror and clashes, the consequences are so terribly sad and unexplainable. These ladies and little kids need loving counsel, and medical care, and whatever help we, in PEACE RELIEF can supply. 

We give blankets and food and clothing and cooking pots...they need and deserve SO much more...

'Catch the Muzungu"

OK...my favorite game in Kenya...CATCH THE MUZUNGU...

It has all the elements of great drama...

A field full of very fast future Olympic marathoners...

and across the field...a group of very white, very slow Americans...running from the kids. 

As the saying goes, "you can run, but you cannot hide...' there have been some muzungu that did better than others at holding off the oncoming horde...Taylor Ishii comes to mind as one of the best, but I think his retreat included climbing a tree...or was that Chris Wohlers...

Anyway...a special treat awaits the individual who first tracks down and 'tags' the fleeing American...like a soccer ball or a frisbee...so the smile that comes across the faces of the kids waiting to pounce and the laughter that comes from watching the awkward and inevitable capture of the tortoise-like muzungus is .... hilarious. 

Simple pleasures...

One Swahili Bible....

Beatrice has never owned her own Bible.

She has heard her pastor read from it.

She has listened to traveling evangelists quote from it.

But she has never had her own copy of God's Word...

Until today.

The Bible was a gift from our church RECYCLING MINISTRY that turns 'bottles into Bibles and sodas into scriptures'.

It is so simple...folks bring their cans and bottles to the RECYCLING kiosk at church.

We buy Bibles and give them to folks like Beatrice...

Two hours later...after most of the folks from the mobile medical clinic were treated...there was Beatrice, standing in the thin light of the window...with her new reading glasses and her Swahili New Testament...

She had some catching up to do...

Choosing Service over Comfort

Let me tell you why Dr. David Haymes and his wife Cherry are HEROES to me...

At a time in this Dallas doctor's life, when he has every well-deserved right to be kicking back and 'enjoying the good life', he and his wife are spending weeks on dusty African roads, going to serve dying and desperate people, in conditions that would discourage even the rosiest of outlooks. 

Dr. David and Cherry Haymes are advocates for folks who suffer health indignities that most westerners will never see...much less understand. 

The Haymes have every right to be sitting on the back of a yacht somewhere in the Bahamas, but instead they are:

• visiting refugee camps in terror-stricken Congo
• carrying help and supplies to orphans of the genecide in Rwanda
• treating Kenyan patients in remote mobile clinics
• bringing life-saving meds to Sr.Freda's Cottage Hospital that would simply not be there if not for the Haymes efforts.

David should be on the back nine at Las Colinas Country Club, and Cherry should be on aisle 12 at Neiman's, but they are in West Pokot and the Massai Mara and Mt. Elgon.
And why do they do this???

Jesus Christ said, "All the commandments can be summed up in two...love the Lord with all our heart, and love your neighbor as yourself."

In doing what David and Cherry do...helping the helpless...they are following the teachings of the GREATEST TEACHER who ever lived.

Nothing Cooler Than a 'SLIP n SLIDE'

There isn't anything out there that is cooler than a good old session of 'slip n slide'...especially when you are doing it on the last day of camp in Kitale, Kenya with 100 of your favorite glue- sniffing street kids. It should be an event in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Katie and Allie and Jana and Jaime and Zack rolled out the 30 yard poly wall and then lubed it down and added water and...instant INSANITY !!!!
Just like dancing in Kenya, no two street boys 'slide and glide' with the same flair, but everyone cracks me up and everybody has a good time...watching or slip sliding away. Remember that there are no SIX FLAGS in Kitale, no water themed parks...Wild Rivers REALLY IS WILD RIVERS !!!

Hippos eat people here, they don't dance in cartoon tutus.

And the point of this camp...
Even when life has you turned a bit sideways...there is love and hope and real change out there...John 10:10

DR.ROB's POKOT EYE CLINIC

Dr. Rob Henslick is an eye doctor from Saddleback that has been bringing equipment and supplies and meds to Kenya for a few years now.

He and his wife, Michelle, and their cool kids, Nolan, Grant, and Josh, are all-out advocates for the sick and hurting and the dying in the Rift Valley of Kenya.

From the moment the Henslick family first touched down in Kenyatta Airport, they have been great examples of folks who use their voice to speak up for those who no one is listening to.

Rob and Michelle have taken a very simple but consistent approach to getting eye care resources to Sister Freda's Clinic.

He has trained dozens of non professionals to work alongside him and Michelle in testing and assessing and caring for the blind and the near blind.

The men and women... the boys and girls he treated on a recent mobile medical clinic to Pokot were typical of what he sees across the Rift...from Massai land to Mt Elgon to the desert of Kachleba.
Folks who lack the simplest eye care...

Eyes that have gone dark from very PREVENTABLE diseases...but there is no Dr. Rob to be found. 
Men and women who live in a very different world than those of us who take sight and light and health for granted.