Saturday happenings

Our lodging at Rosa Mystica has turned out to be very nice.  It's priced a bit cheaper than our regular abode of Scripture House, and each team member has their own room with a shower and commode. Breakfast was good after a short night's sleep. We headed out to Lake Naivasha for a safari with 3 vans, stopping at a Great Rift Valley scenic overlook for pictures and souvenirs. We had a very adventurous boat ride as it took many attempts to fight our way through thick weeds in the river as we made our way out to Crescent Island.  We tried to help an injured bald eagle sitting on the surface of the weeds, saw hippos and many interesting birds including pelicans along the way.
On the island we saw zebras, water bucks, wildebeests and other animals.  We got off the water in time to avoid a rain shower. A nice lunch followed with chicken sandwiches and real Cokes made with sugar cane as the featured drinks.
Upon our return to town, we stopped at the Nakumatt for some shopping, got freshened up and then had an evening service led by Pastor Goodwill. Our friends, The Conquerors came over from Kawangware and supplied incredible music. Also, Double Dave, from past missions in Kawangware, was there with his group called Acoustic Zeze (which means guitar in Swahili). It was great to see all of them.
Catherine informed me after dinner that we would not have a pastor in Kiambu Sunday morning and that I needed to prepare a sermon, so I spent the rest of the night working on that. More to follow as time and Internet access permit.  I hope to post some pictures soon. As always, this blog gets cleaned up once I am back home and several hundred of the best pictures will be available not long after that, so stay tuned!

Arrival in Nairobi

When we landed at Heathrow we were told that there were no open terminals and so we had to disembark via a portable stairway into two buses at a time.  They didn't have enough buses ready so it took about 7 buses and way too much time to clear our fully loaded 777.  We didn't have a lot of extra time to make it through immigration and the security check before we had to board our flight to Nairobi. Some of us were pretty well torn apart, but we all made it onto the plane in time. We are looking forward to meeting up with our last team member, Elizabeth, at the Nairobi airport.
We are about 25 minutes from landing in Nairobi and this trip has been pretty smooth for the most part.  I am hopeful that we get through immigration and security in a timely manner and have a quick drive across town to our lodgings.
Nairobi touch down was right on time at 9:20pm.  Getting our visa took a little while longer than usual and by the time I came down to change the team's money, most of the footlockers were already on the ground, ready to be arranged and counted. We ended up several short due to circumstances we discovered later. They are en route to the correct destinations as of this writing. Arrival at Rosa Mystica, our lodging for the weekend for the group of 60, was at midnight and I was showered and in bed by 1:15am after calling Adrienne to let her know we made it OK.  She passed the word on to Pastor Kevin. Thanks be to God for another safe journey.

Travel notes

November 8, 2012
The morning started out with a phone call a little before 7:30 from Pastor Kevin letting me know that he had been ill all night and would see if he felt well enough to join us in Houston in time for our flight to London.  I immediately headed for his place, where Tammy was waiting with the leader's packets for both Redeemer teams.  I went to the church a block away and retrieved the autorefractors for my team and the petty cash we would need for our on the ground expenses at Kitengela and Kiambu.  Allison from Wichita Falls arrived first, followed by Kay, Beth, Chris and finally Cecilia. We drove my truck and Beth's car to Brenham where we met the rest of our group for our traditional Blue Bell ice cream.
We caravanned to Bush International Airport in Houston and broke bread together, having one last American meal at the Hot Biscuit. After parking at Fast Park, we made our way to Terminal D and waited for the Vision Kenya Project's 60 footlockers to arrive by truck from Tomball. Check-in and our journey through airport security went very smoothly, with the only problem I was aware of being Beth and Chris needing to be reticketed because their full names were not on their boarding passes, thus not matching their passports.  We had just gotten done with security when Pastor Dave called saying that Kevin was definitely not going to make it.  A little later, even though he was still not feeling too well, Kevin graciously called and wished us many blessings on the mission. I feel bad for him, knowing how much behind the scenes planning and work goes into fielding a mission team halfway around the world twice a year.  From just about the time we return from one trip, we are already taking inventory of the remaining supplies, guestimating what to order to replenish our kits, recruiting new as well as experienced missionaries for our next adventure and the list goes on and on. We are very blessed at Redeemer to have a core group of committed people who are constantly volunteering to help with every detail and are always looking for ways to improve our processes to make us more effective witnesses for Christ. Everyone on both of our teams and all who know him from the other churches are praying for a speedy recovery and are hopeful Pastor Kevin might still find a way to get to Africa.
As I write this, we are at 37,000 feet and traveling at about 550mph. We are approaching Boston and will be over the Atlantic Ocean soon. There is some turbulence due to the northeaster that is hitting the East coast and the Fasten Seat Belt lights are on. Veterans of these missions know that it works for the best if you get some good sleep on the flight to London and then try to remain awake for much of the London to Nairobi leg of the trip. This usually results in a little less serious jet lag. It's almost 8pm at home, so I'll be off to Never Neverland fairly soon now.
It's now about midnight back in Texas and 6am London time as we've just been served a light breakfast and are about an hour from Heathrow. I did get some sleep as planned and am getting ready to stow my electronics, including this Android tablet I'm writing this post with. After the choppy air off the eastern U. S., the rest of the flight was very smooth.

Commissioning Sunday brought many blessings

We were sent off by the congregation at all three services Sunday morning.  Each service was led by the high school youth of the church and it was very well done.  Not your grandfather's church service, but full of praise, worship and energy.  During the past week, we lost one team member to a medical issue and put out a call at each service for anyone that would like to go on the trip for a reduced price that would cover their on the ground expenses, since the airfare was non-refundable.  I had texted several members of previous teams the day before, knowing that whoever might be able to go at this late date would not only need to make arrangements with work, school, etc. very quickly, but would also need to already have all of the necessary inoculations for travel to Africa. Dan Zieschang was one of these folks.  He had really wanted to come this time, but just couldn't swing it for a number of reasons.  Our mutual friend Cecilia, a nurse working here in Austin, came to church and Dan immediately began working on her.  He had been with her at his son's high school football game Friday night with Cecilia.  She had him text me to ask where we would be serving when she heard that it was no longer going to be Kawangware.  When I replied that it was Kiambu, she couldn't believe it, that's where she's from!  In fact, she had been in Nairobi for a month recently and just got back about three weeks ago.  He asked her to come to Redeemer on Sunday to tell the group about what to expect there.  When she arrived, he told her she had to go, it was meant to be and that we would find a way to make it happen, both financially and in helping to handle the last minute details quickly.  She worshipped at 8am services, saw our commissioning and plea for a volunteer there and then went to an adult Sunday School with Dan during the second service.  By the time Pastor Kevin was praying a blessing over the team during the third service, she was with us as part of the team, holding hands during prayer.  The Sunday School class had helped raise the money needed to send her.  What a blessing!  She's already a good friend, she knows the area and the dialect where we will be holding our clinic and is a nurse with a big heart for the Lord and for people's needs.

Before every mission trip, I always pray that the Lord will once again surprise us with some totally unexpected experience or will bring a special person or circumstance into our path. This time, it happened before we ever left Austin!

Click on the link below to see pictures of our orientation last month and the commissioning.

https://picasaweb.google.com/103425019225851329391/KenyaFall2012?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCMGJ8Jf9rru_mgE&feat=directlink

Preparations almost complete for November trip

Our three days of cross-cultural training in late September were most welcome and allowed all of the Vision Kenya Project partner churches to develop closer relationships with our LCMS International Missions leadership team and their staff.  It was a real blessing to be able to learn from each other to further our common goal of spreading the Gospel through human care ministry.  We really appreciate the commitment that the LCMS showed by putting together such a large volume of quality materials and traveling to Tomball for this time together.  We are also thankful that all of the PowerPoint presentations and other documents that were compiled by Dr. Mike Rodewald and his people were shared with us for future use in our cross-cultural training.  We have been given a lot of valuable materials that we can now build upon as we train future teams for these missions.

Since the late September training, we have been very busy at Redeemer.  For one thing, we completed the inventorying and restocking of our footlockers.  Our frames, lenses and reading glasses orders arrived and we were blessed to have Pastor Kevin's "twenty-something" Bible study class around to help Martha, Louise and myself in the packing and weighing of the footlockers one recent Tuesday evening.  The energy and enthusiasm of these young people was infectious and I hope to have some of them join us soon on upcoming trips.  All of this was done early so that Pastor Kevin can transport the kit of 9 footlockers for one of our teams to Tomball before our November 8th departure.  They already have a kit ready for our Kitengela team at Salem.

Paul Althoff and Kevin Pieper of Salem have recently been to Kenya on the advance trip for the overall mission, which will have 60 participants working in many locations.  As has been the case for the last several missions, the LCMS and their private intelligence service have some security concerns about the usual locations we serve in the slums of Nairobi.  Redeemer will be taking two teams to Kenya for the first time, and each will be serving on the outskirts of Nairobi.  It has been our great joy to see the Vision Kenya Project grow as it has to this point and we are happy to serve wherever God places us.  What a blessing! 

Our whole team of 60 people from various churches will be staying the first Friday and Saturday night at a lodge called Rosa Mystica.  You can see what it is like at www.rosamysticakenya.org.

Pastor Kevin will be leading our efforts, as previously planned, in Kitengela, a rapidly growing suburban church near the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.  It is about 10 miles south of Nairobi.  Other teams have been there on past trips to get things started.  Redeemer has committed to continue work at this site from now on, since our heart is to do urban ministry, while other groups are called to work in the rural areas of Kenya.  His team will be staying at a very nice lodge nearby called the Kaputiei Safariland Hotel.  Their website is www.kaputieisafarilandhotel.co.ke This place looks so nice that I want to sign up to lead the team to Kitengela next time!  All joking aside, we are usually so tired at the end of each day, after seeing from 500-1000 people, that it doesn't really matter where we stay, since most any place looks the same when you're fast asleep right after dinner and evening devotions.  It's a good kind of tired that you get when working for the Lord and the sleep is always refreshing indeed.

My team will be going to Kiambu, rather than to our original planned clinic in the slum of Kawangware.  Kawangware is where there is a wonderful church that we have strong ties to through multiple missions over the past 5 years, through our working on the water well project to strengthen their ministry to the neighborhood and through our support of their ministry to the street boys and girls.  Kiambu is a daughter church, that was planted by the church in Kawangware and the ELCK, so we hope that some of our experienced volunteers from Kawangware will be able to join us.  The ELCK is the national Lutheran church body that we work in partnership with, and they have wanted us to work in Kiambu for some time now, so I'm viewing these changes as a God thing.  It is just north of Nairobi, in an area that is at about 4,000 feet elevation, surrounded by tea and coffee plantations.  Many affluent people, including the President of Kenya, live in this area.  Our dear friend and liaison for the LCMS in Nairobi, Catherine, said she would arrange for me to have tea with the President.  I'm not sure if she was joking, if anybody has the connections to make this happen, she does!  Our patients may include some affluent people, those who work for the wealthy and also we expect that some of our patients will come from a nearby slum, so we should be witnessing to the most diverse set of people we have encountered to date.  People have asked me if I'm concerned about going to such a different location this time.  I tell them that I had my doubts about helping to open up a clinic for the first time in the slum of Kibera in the spring of 2010, knowing that we would be serving a community with about a 40% Muslim population.  That site has turned into such a blessing that it feels like home to me now in Kibera, after 3 missions there.  I really don't have much of a comfort zone anymore, it's gotten pretty huge by being stretched out more and more with each mission trip.  So no, I don't have the concerns that a "normal" person might have, and of course we always pay attention to every detail that will make for a safe and effective mission, but in place of worries the Lord has given each of us an incredible sense of peace, knowing we are smack dab in the middle of his plan for each of us.  What an adventure each trip is, I always feel like a kid on Christmas morning, wondering what the Lord has in store for us this time.  How will we be a blessing this time and how will we also be abundantly blessed, as we have been every time we have served?  I can't wait to find out.  Thank you, Jesus!

We will be staying in a compound run by Africa Heart, an American non-profit that works with AIDS orphans.  Their lodgings can handle up to 25 missionaries at a time and just by our staying there, we will be helping to support their ministry.   You can see a little more about them and pictures of our lodgings at www.africaheart.com.  Our lodge is in walking distance of a Nakumatt, a Walmart type of store where we can restock on essentials for the clinic as we need to.  There is a coffee shop with Internet access, so  I may be posting some of my stories from there, especially if our Internet at Africa Heart has any problems.

That's about it for now.  More to follow as we continue to handle the myriad of details that goes into putting on a successful clinic (times 2 now!).  Stay tuned to this blog and please remember to keep us in your prayers for safe travels and an effective mission from November 8-18, 2012.

To God be the Glory!

Cross-Cultural Training in Tomball is underway!

Monday September 24

I arrived in Tomball at Salem Lutheran Church yesterday in time for a noon lunch and then an afternoon filled with cross cultural training by missionaries and staff from LCMS International Missions.  What a blessing it is to have lifelong, called church workers sharing their insights with short-term mission teams such as ourselves. Over the last 25 years or so, the short-term mission movement has gained steam and done much good around the world.  Of course, there have been problems, especially ones caused by groups that go on a mission to a particualr locale and never return again, leaving the host congregation wondering if they are not worthy of a second visit and the career missionaries in a position to mop up after any cultural faux pauxs.  Our Vision for Kenya Project is very different from this.  It began in 2007 as a five year commitment to spread the Gospel via vision and dental clinics.  It has grown geometrically from being a program of Salem Lutheran Church in partnership with the LCMS through the Congregation Connect initiative to a major effort with three churches making up a mentoring group and many other congregations having a stake in locations throughout Kenya.  About 60 team members will depart in November for our biggest effort yet, serving two locations in Nairobi and many more sites in other parts of the country.  One of our guiding principles is that we do short-term missions with a long-term commitment, returning to the same areas, building relationships with the pastors and congregations we serve.  The churches grow and the blessings are abundant, both for the areas that get human care ministry and for those of us that go into this mission field.  While this was to be a five year project, all involved have signed on for another five years, since we can see that we are still gaining momentum and there is much work left to be done in our obedience to the Great Commission found in Matthew 28:18-20.

 

Our LCMS International Missions staff on hand includes Dave Birner, head of the program, Mike Rodewald, who oversees all of our missionaries in Africa,  Jennifer Prophete, short-term missions coordinator from the St. Louis office and Shara Cunningham from our Nairobi office.  Also particiapting with us are Ivan and Jennifer Rasch, missionaries serving in Ghana. We have participants from Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball, Concordia San Antonio, Trinity-Klein, Peace Hewitt and Redeemer Lutheran Church in Austin, my home congregation.

After lunch, our sessions began with everyone introducing themselves.  We range in experience from some team members who will be going on their first mission with us to old-times saddling up for the eleventh time.  I love the mix of experience and wide-eyed enthusiasm that has been a hallmark of each and every mission I've been on.  And yes, I'm somewhere in between, going on my eighth trip to Kenya this time since November of 2009.

Mike led a devotion based on Psalm 56 and then he went into the Gospel of Matthew geneology, stressing that relationships are highly prized in Africa and the Middle East (it's who you are, not what you do that counts).  As an excercise, he then asked us to write down what our reasons were for going on this next mission trip.  He proceeded to give an historical overview of the LCMS' role in world missions, followed by a look at the size and history of the Lutheran church across the African continent.  It was an eye opener, seeing that most of our denominations work has been from near the equator and to the south, with the northern part of the continent largely untouched, since it's a Muslim stronghold.  He did stress that while all of us have studied the formal teachings of Islam in order to be better evangelists, Islam in Africa is largely cultural rather than orthodox in many places.  More is to follow on this over the next two days. 

In response to the exercise previously noted, Mike reviewed the many reasons people have gone into the mission field over the years and explained Missio Dei or God's mission to us, which is why we are sent and why we go as Lutherans. We are privileged to be called by God to his mission field, He doesn't need us to accomplish His purpose but in His grace and mercy He has chosen to work through us.  What a blessing!

 

After a short break, Mike explained the spiritual heritage of Africa, starting with ancient beliefs that we call animism.  He illustrated some of the key features of this world view by using the Bible story of Namaan's being cured of leprosy by God throught the prophet Elisha.  It was very enlightening.

Next, Shara instructed us in some conversational Swahili basics such as greetings, thank yous, etc.  We will buld on what she taught us over the next couple of days.

 

Finally, Jennifer Prophete led a lively discussion of African Friends and Money Matters topics by asking those of us who have been to Kenya before to tell about five experiences involving money that we had witnessed.   We then discussed them based on insights from the book and with some great input from our missionaries.  It comforted me that there are many ways that awkward situations can be deflected graciously so that strong relationships can be formed rather than unintentional rudeness ruining the possibility of friendships blossoming.  These insights will probe most valuable to us and I thank our LCMS mentors for this.

At 5:30 or so, we broke for dinner at the Harris County Smokehouse, where many of us got to know each other better before heading home or to our respective lodgings for the night.

 

More to follow as the training continues.  Stay tuned.......

 

Preparation for November Mission going well

It's been a very busy summer since returning from Nairobi in May.  We had the pleasure of hosting Catherine and her family while they celebrated Mark's high school graduation, then it was time to produce the DVD slideshow to commemorate the mission trip and finally we hosted a meeting of our Vision for Kenya partners and the leadership of LCMS International Missions at Redeemer.  All the while, we were working out all the details that go into fielding a mission team in November times two, since we will be holding vision clinics at two separate sites in Nairobi this next time around.  One will be at the church in Kawangware, where we have served multiple times and are looking forward to renewing the friendships that have already blossomed there. I will be leading that team while Pastor Kevin will be heading the team that will be working in Kitengela, a suburban Nairobi location near the airport.  The distance between the two sites is such that our teams will need to stay in separate locations this time.  It has always been a joy and a blessing to gather everyone together at dinner to have a devotion and compare notes, this time we'll have to wait until the end of the mission to see how our other half fared. 

Pastor Kevin and I have also been busy preparing for the orientation we will hold at Redeemer on September 16th for our two teams and for those from other churches that might not be able to attend the sessions scheduled for them at our other partner churches.  I always love the mix of the quiet confidence of our team members that have served multiple times before and the excitement, enthusiasm and more than a little bit of anxiety that first time team members bring to the training.  This mixture is one of the things that helps keep me pumped up and coming back again and again to the wonderful mission field we serve in east Africa.  I will be making my eighth trip in 3 years. It never gets old and I pray that I never get jaded.  I am always looking for that next blessing that I can be a part of giving, all the while knowing that the Lord has blessed me abundantly every time I have stepped a little further out of my comfort zone to answer His call on my life.  I can't wait for what the surprises will be this time, and am anxiously anticipating the upcoming trip with all the zeal of a child that sleeplessly can't wait for Christmas morning to arrive!

Once the orientation has been accomplished, our next pre-trip task is to undergo cross-cultural training in Tomball from September 24-26th.  Our LCMS mission team, including Dr. Mike Rodewald, head of African missions, Pastor Shauen Trump, who is over the east African national missions and Shara Cunningham of the Nairobi staff will immerse us in lessons about the culture, language and best practices for sharing the Gospel during our next trip.  We are very thankful that they are so committed to making our missions better and better, both for our teams and for those that we come to work with and to serve.  Pastor Kevin and I will represent Redeemer at this training.

Stay tuned to this space, much more to follow as final preparations get into full swing during October, culminating in the actual mission taking place from November 8-18th.  Please continue to pray for us and, if the Lord moves you, to contribute to this next mission.  Contact me at dave@mrpcaustin.com or Pastor Kevin Westergren at pastor@redeemer.net for more details.

To God be the Glory!!!