SEWING 101

I've been in a lot of classes in my 56 years...

from Sunday School to Traffic School...

but never in a SEWING CLASS.

So my friends from African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries (ALARM) took me to a sewing class to meet some new friends in Goma, Congo...

And you just never know who you are going to meet along the journey...

At the ALARM women's training center, young moms who have suffered through terror and personal abuse I cannot describe here, are being trained to sew and market dresses so they can feed and support their families. It is a way for these ladies to gain back some sense of control and dignity, that has been so savagely taken from them.
These are women who do NOT want to fall into a 'refugee' mindset...they want to take care of their babies...to see them thrive and someday go to school...and see those children break this generational curse of tribal clashes and so...here they are in class...babies in tow...learning to sew.
The head instructor is all of 4'8'' and trying her her very best to keep me from distracting her students and disrupting the lesson...this has been a lifelong struggle of mine...but this is a photo BEGGING to be taken.
If you'd like to know about the wonderful work ALARM is doing, inside Congo, go to their website...

visit    http://alarm-inc.org/

good Christian folks giving encouraging tools to local pastors and their church members...

 You don't have to sell your house and move to Congo to be an advocate for these ladies...you can pray...you can encourage...you can write...you can donate so they can buy some fabric...you can buy a sewing machine...you can be a voice in a thousand ways...

then again...if God is telling you to go...better do what He says...

A 4 YEAR OLD PRISONER...FREED !!

Meet Augustine...

He's 4 years old.

His mom is in a Kenyan prison for life.

She is a murderess.

Augustine was born in jail and has lived every day of his life in prison.

By Kenya law, a child of a female inmate may stay with his mother until age 4.

So Augustine has lived his entire life inside the walls of Kitale Prison.

Until a few weeks ago...when Augustine turned 4...everything in his world was women and prison.

It's all he has ever known...

The inmates...all women...

The guards...all women...

The staff...all women...

It's all he's ever known

Enter Jana O'Guin, a woman who has served faithfully in Kenya and Ukraine for many years, on many teams.

One day, as she was teaching a step group of Celebrate Recovery in the Kitale Prison, one of the inmates walked up to Jana and handed her child, baby Augustine, to her...

She wasn't saying, 'please hold my child' or 'please comfort my crying child', she was saying 'TAKE MY CHILD'
Through the last months, with alot of time and effort and concern, Jana has arranged for baby Augustine to live and be cared for and educated at Purpose Driven Academy...a ministry of Deliverance Church, in Kitale, Kenya...a school of 500+ kids run by Margaret Wanyonyi.

I had the wonderful opportunity to be at PD Academy with Margaret, the day that baby Augustine went from living behind bars and barbed-wire and brick walls...to living with nurturing and caring teachers and 500 new siblings...

As the transition was taking place, Augustine's lips were quivering...he was looking around the room for ONE familiar face...but there wasn't one...tears were welling up in his chocolate eyes.

But by the end of that day, Augustine was already settling into a new world...laughing and running and loving his new school uniform.

• Please pray for Augustine as he begins this new chapter in his life
• Please pray for his pre kindergarden teacher
• Please pray for the foster parents...Pastor Joel and his family...who have lovingly taken baby Augustine into their home
• Pray for more advocates like Jana O'Guin
• And please...please pray for a young mom,  sitting in a prison cell in Kenya, who is feeling very much alone tonight.

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.

Inauguration Days

WASHINGTON DC!!!

Friends asked me why I was going to DC for the inauguration...I said, 'its WOODSTOCK, MARDI GRAS, MARTIN LUTHER KING JR on the Lincoln Memorial steps, and Pastor Rick leading in the Lord's Prayer !!!!' HOW CAN YOU MISS THAT??? 

I thought Promise Keepers was a huge crowd on the Mall, but this was over the top. Solid pack of people from the Vietnam Memorial to the Senate steps...some say 2 million ...

Can you see Rick Warren, up on the stage, waving to me?...
During the James Taylor, Bono, Garth Brooks fest...I made my way around the city...the Vietnam Memorial will always be the one that grabs me most...thought of Danny Daniels and Rocky McElveen fighting as kids and coming back as men.

The crowd was SO:

• Filled with a Spirit of Celebration
• Filled with Pride for our FIRST African American President
• COLD !!!!!
• Kind and patient and downright happy 

My close personal friend, Bono, took a brief moment to send me a personal  shout-out from the stage. He likes to embarrass me in crowds.

The highlight of my trip was PRAYING the LORD's PRAYER on the national mall with 2 million people...TV coverage didn't show the folks throwing their arms around the people next to them or holding hands and audibly saying together...

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name...thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtor. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil...for thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever and ever...AMEN !!!!!!

If You've Given Up Hope...Read this

If you've grown cynical in 2008...

If you are still sick that your 401-K is now half what it was in 2007...

If you're upside down on your mortgage...

If the human resources person at your work keeps staring strangely at you...

THERE IS A REAL-LIFE GOOD NEWS STORY GOING ON IN KITALE, KENYA.

Meet Emmanuel...no last name...babies who get abandoned at Sister FREDA'S COTTAGE HOSPITAL don't really have luxuries like clothes or last names or birth certificates or moms or dads or a family...one day, you just notice there's an extra baby in the nursery and he's very sick...

As you can tell, Emmanuel was SO sick that his ribs showed through his tiny chest. His body had sores all over...he couldn't hold down the smallest amounts of fluids...death was as present as a circling buzzard.

But there is this sweet Ukrainian missionary named Tanya.

She came from Ternopil, Ukraine, to teach Kenyan children about Jesus Christ.

She and 4 other Ukrainians who come and volunteer at Sister Freda's couldn't get Emmanuel out of their minds...so they started doing what they COULD do...praying for him...and rubbing his little body which was smaller than their hand...and trying to feed him with a dropper and a mini spoon.

Well guess what...prayer and love conquered cynism and death...

Sick baby Emmanuel has become THRIVING, and GIGGLING baby Emmanuel.
Tanya's unending prayers and love and care for this one child are a perfect example of the power of one person refusing to focus on what she couldn't do, but concentrating on what she COULD. Tanya became a living ADVOCATE for a child that couldn't speak up for himself.

You don't have to sell your house in Orange County and move to Congo or Ukraine or Oaxaca or Kitale to be an ADVOCATE for the hurting of this world.
Just decide to do SOMETHING for someone...

2009...it just could be a good year to reach beyond ourselves...

If you want some ideas on where to start...look over some of the past year's blog and ask yourself (or the Lord) where you could begin in a tiny way.

Plant the seed...

water it...

watch it grow...