Sweet Friends and Ministry

Happy New Year!

Our friends the Maier's came for a visit between Christmas and New Year's.  It was a wonderful visit filled with much encouragement and ministry work.  The Lord has blessed us greatly with this family through friendship and discipleship.  We met them our first Sunday in Rogers, AR in 2007 and have been so thankful for them ever since!  I asked Mark and Mary Claire to write a blog update about their visit so you could hear about Kenya and Gachie from their perspective  (I did not edit it MC:-)).  The pictures are not cooperating this morning so I am going to paste a link to my facebook photo album with many pictures from their visit.  Thank you Mark & MC for writing this!


https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2822009184980.2142686.1101475402&type=3&l=f5152144a3

To write a blog entry about our trip seems very overwhelming.  How in the world can we possibly formulate our thoughts about our time in Kenya into a few paragraphs?  But since Adrienne asked, we will do our very best.   So here goes…

A LITTLE HISTORY

Tim and Adrienne have been dear friends of ours for several years now.  It has been such a blessing to watch them in their journey of faith and see such bountiful fruit produced in their lives as a result.  When the opportunity came for our family to visit them in Kenya, we jumped at the chance – and we are so glad we did.  God paved the way for us to go and made it abundantly clear that He had big plans for our family.  We are so humbled God allowed us to take this trip of a lifetime.   We hope that by sharing a little of what we learned, it will help encourage you, as well as shed light on what God taught us along the way.

SCHEDULE

We had 3 full days in Nairobi, and boy did we make the most of them!  The first full day, we went on a safari, went to the market, and enjoyed some much needed time with our sweet friends.  We experienced a little of the culture, the driving, and the toilets – or lack thereof in some cases!  We enjoyed seeing Tim, Adrienne, and the kids just live life in Kenya.  It was so amazing to see how well they have adapted to a new culture and humbling to see the sacrifices they have made for their Lord.  But we’ll touch more on that a little later.  The second day, Mark headed to Tim’s office with Tim, while Adrienne and I held down the fort at home.  We kept the kids busy preparing gift sacks for our ministry time in Gachie and enjoyed watching them hang out together.   That afternoon we headed to Gachie and met some of the key leaders, did some last minute preparations for the ministry day, and caught a glimpse into the lives of the people living in the Gachie community.  The third day was spent in Gachie – from sunup to sundown.  What an exhausting yet exhilarating day that was!

GACHIE

To be honest, when we decided to make the trip to Kenya, we didn’t know what type of “real ministry” our little family of five would be able to do.  We didn’t want to add any stress to Tim and Adrienne by making it about our “missions experience”.  If all the Lord called us to do while we were there was to encourage the Terrazas family, we would be thrilled with that.  We were hopeful that we would have an opportunity to teach our children a little bit about missions, but we wanted to be flexible and sensitive to Tim and Adrienne.   We thought maybe we might pass out a few salvation bracelets to some kids for an hour or so at some point in the trip, and that maybe that’s all we would have the opportunity to do.  HA!   Were we wrong!  God had big plans and wanted us ALL to be a part of it.  He began to open up doors for a ministry opportunity in the Gachie community.  You may have read a little bit about this community in the blog already.  It is a community that is made up of many children, and it is a community in great physical and spiritual need.  

As we entered Gachie, we were amazed at what we saw.  We had seen pictures of poverty, but after we smelled it, heard it, touched it, and tasted it, we gained such a better grasp of the situation.  Although these sweet people seemed to be in survival mode, they were smiling, grateful, and REALLY enjoyed having their picture taken!   During our day of ministry, we were able to lead them in worship, Mark preached the gospel, they were all fed a great meal, our kids helped the Gachie children with crafts, and we were able to have time to just get to know them.  We were originally told to expect about 50 adults and 100 children at this event.  But that day, we had around 500 people show up.  Wow!  Thankfully, there was enough food for everyone, each child got to make a craft, received a salvation bracelet, heard the gospel message, and enjoyed receiving a small gift and piece of candy at the end of the day.  Three adults responded publically to the invitation to receive Christ as their Lord and many children indicated their desire to follow Christ as well.  

This event was able to help the Gachie church identify families who have not yet been reached for Christ.  On the Sunday following the ministry day, the church had 7 first time adult visitors and 40+ children.  Praise the Lord!  Thank you to FBC Rogers for donating the resources to sponsor this day of ministry.  Your investment went very far and was so much appreciated by all.  Please pray for Tim, Adrienne, Nicholas, Katherine, and Nathan as they continue to work with the Gachie church and preschool. 

OUR TIME WITH THE TERRAZAS FAM

Spending time with Tim, Adrienne, and the kids did our heart so much good.  We are so blessed to call them friends and appreciate them opening up their home and their lives to us.  We learned so much through our experience in Gachie, but we equally learned as much through the Terrazas family.   They would not want us to expand on this – and I hope they don’t edit this part out of the blog :-) - but they are making tremendous sacrifices to serve the Lord in Kenya.  Their basic needs are being met, but what many of us consider a “need” in our culture, they now consider non-essential.  Our family was humbled by their attitudes of contentment.  We were impacted by the fact that the things that are so simple for us are actually complicated for them:  having fresh, non-contaminated water on hand, having dependable electricity, and preparing a basic meal (EVERYTHING is made from scratch).  They are content to have just enough food, clothing, and toys to make life doable in Kenya – and they ALL have smiles on their faces and have the love of God flowing from them.

WHAT WE LEARNED

This is the hard part.  What we took home from this trip is very hard to put into words, but we’ll try.

1.     GOD CAN USE FAMILIES TO FURTHER HIS KINGDOM.   Preparing for this trip and ministering together as a family alongside the Terrazas family is something that we will treasure.  It has truly grown our family.  All of our children literally did the work of ministry right before our eyes…and enjoyed it!  Sometimes we tend to make ministry too complicated, but we learned that God can use anyone.  We hope to continue to look for opportunities to serve as a family – both locally and abroad, and we encourage you to look for ways to serve the Lord together, too.

2.     KEEP IT SIMPLE.  We have already made some changes in our daily life as a result of our trip, but still have a long way to go.  We experienced a good dose of perspective, and pray that the Lord will keep that perspective fresh in our memories. 

3.     SUPPORT OUR FRIENDS SERVING AROUND THE WORLD.  Many of us know those who have made commitments to serve the Lord in various ways around the world.  Praying for them is so essential because they are a huge target for Satan’s attacks.  And don’t forget to encourage them along the way.  Even a short note of encouragement will help make a difficult day a little more doable.   We hope to do a much better job at supporting our missionaries.

4.     GO.  The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.  Go where He asks you to go.  Give when He asks you to give.  And serve when and where He asks you to serve.  Go to Kenya if you can – it will change your life.  But also go across the street.  Lost people are everywhere and need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.  I pray that we will look for more opportunities to share Christ with others each day.

     

Thank you for taking the time to read about what the Lord is doing in Kenya.  To God be the glory - great things He has done!

    

Mark, Mary Claire, Hannah, Seth and Morgan Maier