Crazy busy blessed beyond measure

Imagine beginning the day yesterday in a primary school packed with kids and having the privilege of worshipping and sharing Jesus (public school!) for thirty minutes in each age level- Michael wowed the kids in his age level with his proficiency with "rap"- he had them jamming! Then imagine a whole day of six GKC people madly scrambling on sessions for our conference in one small room- this one talking with that one, and then that one talking with the other one- amazing unity! It was a beautiful work of the Lord. We did have a break to go eat Swahili food and visit the Beacon of Hope gift shop, and then back to work! At 3pm, we felt we needed ten more hours, and then by God's grace, we finished by 6pm. It is going to be a great conference!! God is good! Hey, did I mention we really love each other? Not that we didn't before! But the team is like a well-oiled machine, working, laughing, loving, praying- it is a beautiful work of God!! Now we are packing up to head to our conference center where we will live until Saturday, all together. We are supposed to be cohabitating the space with giraffes, elephants, monkeys, etc. We will let you know if we find one in our bathroom!

Let the Little Children Come

Monday was a long day, filled with many tender moments. We started our day at Beacon Of Hope. This is a ministry to mothers with HIV. Beacon teaches the mothers a skill so they are able to go out and get a job. The skills include rug making, bead work, sewing and creating fine woven cloth. Within the facility they have a preschool to free the mothers up to learn their skills and work on projects. The preschool/pre-kindergarten also helps prepare the children for primary school.

After a visit to the facility we went into the Kware slum-where most of these mothers live-to visit a grandmother and a mother who is so ill she is bed-ridden. Grandmother Ruth is a very dear woman who takes care of several of her grandchildren. Ruth is supported by Beacon of Hope as the grandmother of a daughter with HIV.

Helen is the mother we visited whom is bed-ridden. They say she has improved greatly since she has sought help from the ministry.

On our way out of the slum we were raided by a school of little children shouting "How are you? How are you?" They all wanted to touch us. Chuck was taking pictures of them and then showing them the picture. They would all scream at the sight of their picture. It was a very precious sight.

Following our home visits and a visit to their new 8 acre plot of land we headed to Cheryl's Home. This is the school and orphanage where Grace Kids Company and Grace Kids Camp raised money to support two of the children through their education. The children's names are Dominick and Betty.

All the children greeted us with many songs including, "Blessed Be The Name of The Lord", "Be Bold. Be Strong.", and "This is the Day." They are fantastic singers! It was a blessing to be able to hear about their program and tour their classrooms. A one acre plot of land next to them is for sale. The owner said he would give them first rights to it, but they are waiting for the money to appear.

It was a long day, but a blessing to see some great ministries in action.

Pictures of the Dominick and Betty will be posted soon.

Michael's thoughts on last Saturday

I wanted to share with you a scripture that HIT me yesterday while here. Then after i read it we went to a salvation army home in the slums and then to a girls school in the slums. It was very humbling. I had the honor and priveldge to pray with Mary, a sixteen year old girl, at the girls school. I prayed for her success, salvation, and God's blessing on her.

Phillipians 2:1-4 ---"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."

It hit me that we can be one with our brothers and sisters in Christ all the way across an ocean and that as Americans even thoyugh we don't verbalize it we think we are better than others.

Then I went and saw all this poverty and know that I am not better than anyone. I need to look after others and there welfare.I was also thinking and wondering that if these people and kids even feel sadness at there circumstances. Pastor Bea (the children's pastor for Nairobi chapel) said this is their home and they don't feel sad about it. They feel sad about the lack of food but not their circumstances. We really need to change our mentality in the US from "Oh, poor africans in poverty" to "oh, poor Aficans that don't know Christ."

It is amazing the community they have here. This is their family and they would not want to leave family. We met a guy, Jospeh, who helps at TULIP (the girl's school) who grew up in a slum and is now giving back to the community. It was SO refreshing to see his passion and that he could leave the slum but is intentionally staying the help out and give back to his "family".

The Chicken Coop

Jamie and Cyndy followed their host, Agnes, to the chicken coop to check on the 200 chickens being fattened for slaughter. You stoop down to get into the coop gingerly so as not to startle so many chickens. Agnes stepped in first, then Cyndy. Just as Jamie stepped in, Agnes's cell phone rang with a ringtone of praise music. Behind me Jamie says, "OH, (with a tender tone), they even have praise music for the chickens." Once I explained to Jamie that it was Agnes's cell phone, we fell over laughing. Even Agnes had tears rolling down her face. Can you imagine- saving the souls of chickens before they go to slaughter!?

Weekend in Pictures

Saturday morning we went to Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, and Korogocho, the slum where the TULIP program is in place. TULIP is a program for teenage girls.




MaryBeth with the TULIP girl she prayed for. Each of us were able to match up with one of the girls and pray specific prayers for them.

Sunday we worshipped at Nairobi Chapel. What an awesome worship service.

Nairobi Chapel LOVED the video greetings from Grace Community Church. They even started waving back at the video.









Diesel fuel can have an effect on some people.

Decorate Your Life

Michael opened a Dove chocolate this afternoon and the wrapper stated "Decorate your life." That's just what we are doing here. MaryBeth's thoughts below show a little of the excitement and decoration we are experiencing. Cyndy did a fabulous job speaking this morning. Thank you for praying for her. Kuddos to those of you who woke up at 3 am to pray for her!

Here are some thoughts from MaryBeth: (by the way-for those of you wondering about her toe, in her words, "It's not holding me back. I'm not limping, but it still hurts.")

I’m falling in love with Kenya, and especially the people here. As I’m writing, the wonderful sound of worship surrounds me. You can’t keep still here when you worship! The Holy Spirit is among us.

We have spent the last 2 days in a networking conference, ChildNet, of children’s workers. This group is amazing. They represent 22 churches and this is the very first time that they have met together. There is such a heart to share the responsibility of reaching every child in Nairobi. The passion and love for God is oozing! The personal stories have touched my heart and the needs of children in this country are overwhelming. I am humbled to be among these servants of God.

The rest of the conference went very well today. Tomorrow we are doing some ministry visits. On Sunday, we will be at Nairobi Chapel. Cyndy has learned her two minute "bring greetings" has turned into 10 minutes of greetings.

Usiku mwema (good night).

Pictures from Paris

After looking at some of the Paris pictures we thought we'd share a few.

Enjoy.



How would you feel after less than 4 hours of sleep crunched up in two seats on an airplane?

The "Dudes" of our team.

Our team picture by the Eiffel Tower.

Swallowship

It's a new word our team thought Grace should adopt. When people at Nairobi Chapel get together, they get together for fellowship and swallowship. We all thought that was a pretty clever term for eating together. Granted, each of us had five hours or less sleep in us, but I think we'll still think it's a fun word tomorrow after a good night's sleep.

Well, as you can read, we made it!

I think all of us are still having a hard time believing we're in Nairobi, Kenya. Perhaps once we have a few more hours of sleep in us we'll feel it. For me, Julie, it's a little hard to believe, especially since I just ran into Lynne Padget at the coffee shop. How strange is that!?!? (for those who don't know, Lynne is a fellow Grace attender in Indiana.)

We had a little adventure at the Paris airport last night. We were close to missing our flight. However, had we not had the luggage identification issue that we had, some other luggage of ours would have been left in Paris. God works in mysterious ways. :)

The flight to Nairobi was pretty smooth, but none of us slept really well. Once we arrived in Nairobi, we went to one of the host homes for breakfast and to freshen up. At 10 am we left to attend the children's ministry networking conference. We survived through tea, but I think we all struggled to stay awake until lunch time. The session after lunch was more interactive and I think we all were doing pretty good.

Pray for Cyndy on Friday around 3 (Indy time) in the morning. Ok. If 3 am is too early for you, you can pray for her tonight too. She is speaking tomorrow around 10:20am, I believe. Pray the technical stuff will work ok too, as she wants to show them the "Who will...?" video we used for recruitment. We had a few technical issues with another speaker's video today, so we are going to try her video on my PC tomorrow.

I was trying to upload a couple pictures from Paris, but it didn't work. The first time, the power went out in the coffee shop. The second time, it decided I needed to add something. The third time, it was just taking too long. So, I will try to add a few in the next day or two. I hear Chuck has some good pictures, so I'll work on getting some of his up on the blog.

That's all for now. Goodnight.

We made it to Paris and now onto Narobi

Our flight to Paris was good-a little bumpy for an international flight.
Paris was great. It was a beautiful day to do a quick tour of the city. We saw the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, ate at a restaurant on Champs d'Lysee, took pictures outside the Louvre and finally took a few quick snapshots outside of Notre Dame as we were advised to leave the city before a transit strike began.
We saw lots of great architecture and wonderful things, but do not know the history of what we saw because our driver only spoke French. Despite the language barrier he did a great job.

Sayings we've begun to adopt:

Go for the gusto!
Suck it up Buttercup.
It's a beautiful day.
Wow.

And now onto Nairobi.

Two weeks and counting

In 16 days Grace Kids Company begins its physical trek to Nairobi, Kenya! Although our team (Chuck, Cyndy, Jamie, Julie, MaryBeth and Michael) has already been preparing mentally for this trip for months, (For a few of us, the mental preparation started a couple years ago!) most of us can hardly believe the trip is right around the corner.

While in Kenya, we will be working with our partner church, Nairobi Chapel. For the first few days of our visit we will be part of a conference for children's ministry leaders. Then we will visit some of the ministries of Nairobi Chapel. The following week we will be leading a conference for leaders in children's ministry. We will end our trip surrounded by animals as we debrief our experience and enjoy watching the animals in their natural habitat.

We will be posting to this site as often as we can while on the trip to keep you updated on our travels. We will also be sharing any praises or prayer concerns from our trip.