Sunday Worship and Beyond

We had breakfast at 6:30 with the other teams and joined in a group prayer before many of them left for their various destinations.  We loaded a truck with our footlockers and other luggage and then I got a very pleasant surprise.  Allan, our driver from our trip last November, was there to pick us up.  He will be our driver all week.  What a blessing.  I had asked for him and Catherine pulled a few strings so that he could switch with another driver.  He had been slated to go with the team serving in Namonga.  When I spotted him, I literally let out a yell and ran to hug him.  We left for the church in Kiambu around 9:30am and were greeted upon our arrival by Pastor James, who is responsible for the parish comprised of the churches in Kawangware, Kibera and Kiambu.  I am looking forward to working with him.  He has been involved with many of the Vision Kenya clinics in other parts of Kenya with many other teams and he is very dynamic.  We have an experienced group of Nuru (Lutheran Hour) workers and evangelists from other ELCK churches coming to help us.  Also, school is out between terms right now, so I am expecting quite a few of the young people in the congregation will be able to help.  We may have a pretty incredible week ahead of us.  Michael, the lay pastor of the congregation was there early to greet us too.  He was grateful that I had kept my promise to return to Kiambu someday.  It will be a joy serving with him again.

We had a wonderful worship service, following the liturgy in Swahili, their choirs singing for us and we returning the favor.  Jane led us in singing a song for the congregation and we followed up with the Doxology in 4-part Lutheran harmony, always a favorite everywhere we have been in Kenya.  Pastor Kevin was asked to preach and he gave a sermon based on 2 Kings Chapters 6 and 7, using my travel Bible as a reference.  Although it was not the appointed reading from the church calendar, it was a very special message, the main theme of which was that it’s not right to keep a gift as precious as the Gospel to ourselves, but instead are called to share it.   I had the pleasure of introducing the team and said a few word to the congregation.  That wasn’t quite enough for Pastor James, so he had each team member say hello to the congregation.  It was fun.  After worship, we got the schedule down for the first day of the clinic with Pastor James and Michael.  We unloaded the footlockers and stowed them in the church, where local security will keep an eye on them until our return on Monday.

We went to Africa Heart, the lodge we will stay in all week, and checked in before finishing our day by going to the Java House Café, a really nice restaurant that you can think of as half Starbucks and half restaurant.  Regular Java House coffee shops are as prevalent in Kenya as Starbucks, but this is the nicest of them in all of Nairobi.  Everyone loved the food, we ate in an open air section of the café and the weather was perfect.  I bought 500 kilograms (about a pound) of Nairobi coffee beans for approximately $12 and had them ground and bagged.  My mornings will be getting off to a better start for a while!

We returned to the lodge, everyone checked out their new rooms, some showered, others took a little nap.  While waiting for dinner, I met two very interesting guys from a church in California.  One was their Music Director Reggie (are you listening, Rob?) and the other was a dentist.  The dentist had been doing dental missions to Kenya since 1990, and in that time had been put in the position of having to assist in several births, perform operations and do all kinds of things that only God could enable someone to do.  Reggie confessed that he was roped into injecting novacaine and on occasion, doing an extraction or two himself.  We laughed about what most people would call a comfort zone and admitted it's much more fun to live life without one.  They encouraged me greatly, seeing such strong, joyful men of faith pressing ahead in the race.  We met for dinner at 6:30pm and had a very good buffet with lots of veggies, chicken and potatoes.  I led one of my favorite devotions based on the writings of Oswald Chambers, we had a brief discussion of it and then Pastor Kevin laid out the plan for opening the clinic on Monday.  We all called it an early evening, knowing we would need our strength for tomorrow.  Another very full day had come to an end.  Thank you, Jesus!

Saturday - A Very Full Day!

We began our day with breakfast at 6:30 and by 7:30 were on the road to Lake Naivasha for a safari.  This is a unique experience, since we got to ride in boats out to the main lake, passing a few hippos and many types of birds in the process.  The word Naivasha means “cold water” since the lake is spring fed.  The animals were all brought to an island in the middle of the lake for the filming of Out of Africa about 30 years ago.  The “Big Five” predators were also there for the movie, but then were rounded up and relocated to other game parks.  Since there are no dangerous animals, other than the hippos which are the most deadly of all, we were able to get out on the island and walk among the giraffes, water bucks, gazelles and zebras, with no fences separating us.  I’ve done this several times before, but it’s so amazing that I love coming back for more.  One highlight of this trip was that we saw several eagles during the day.  Our guides for our 2 boats would whistle and then throw a fish in the water.  About half the time, an eagle would swoop down from a nearby tree and snag the fish.  We were fortunate to get some outstanding pictures of this that I will post when I can.  After the safari, we had a great lunch outdoors, supplied from the kitchen of the lodge at the park headquarters.  On our ride home, our driver took us to the oldest tea plantation, dating back to 1910, for late afternoon tea and biscuits, which is what the British call cookies.  It was excellent and most of us bought some loose leaf tea to bring home.  The planation was gorgeous; the original home has every flower and plant known to man and a lawn that was so lush it felt like walking on a soft carpet.

We worshipped with the other teams when we got back to Rosa Mystica, since most of them would be traveling on Sunday to outlying areas and wouldn’t get a chance to go to church.  It’s always a very powerful service, with every person in the room being a committed Christian that has answered Christ’s call to spread the Gospel to all nations.  After services, the team had dinner and went to the Nakumatt across the street for supplies.  I was blessed to finally be able to take Catherine’s mother up on her invitation to come to dinner.  Last year, as told on the blog in other postings, I had taken Catherine and her family from her son’s high school graduation from St. Paul Lutheran in Concordia, Missouri back to Austin to show them our city.  Last November, I was the only team leader on the trip and couldn’t break away for dinner.  It was a wonderful experience, with incredible food.  Mama (a term of respect for all older women in Kenya), told me through Catherine that I am her son, after she had nearly hugged me to death.  She has Catherine and her sisters, and I am now Catherine’s brother, I guess.  I told Mama that I didn’t see a picture of her new son on her wall, so we took several pictures together and I will make sure one of them is hanging on her wall on my next visit.  What a wonderful evening we had, sharing lots of laughs and hugs.  Mama has been telling all of her Bible study friends about her driver for the last year, and it is really neat to know that they have all been praying for me all this time.  I slept very well.  Doing that on the first Saturday night is very unusual, my first few trips it was Monday or Tuesday night before I had a really good sleep.  I think the fact that we packed every minute of Saturday with activities was the reason.  I talked to the rest of the team this morning and they all slept the good sleep of someone that is thoroughly exhausted as well.  What a blessing!

We are getting ready to pack up for church now and we need to check out of Rosa Mystica, since this will be our last night here.  We breakfasted this morning with the other teams and then had a group sending prayer that was very powerful. Lots to do right now.  More to come!

Travel Thursday April 18th and 19th, 2013

We all arrived on time at Redeemer and began loading up the footlockers and our luggage at 8:30am.  Pastor Dave was there and prayed a sending prayer over the team.  We left Redeemer in the rain at 9am and we got to Brenham around 10:45 and stretched,  had a bathroom break and our usual Blue Bell cones so as not to break tradition.

We arrived at Bush International Airport around 12:15pm, unloaded and then Merrillee and I went and parked our vehicles.  It took a little longer than usual to get checked in at KLM counter.  Then we spent over an hour in the security line.  The plane was already almost done boarding when we arrived at our gate.  I was the least one on from our group.  That didn’t really matter too much, because we had to wait 55 minutes to take off due to bad weather to the north and to the east of Houston.  Once we were airborne, the Fasten Seat Belts sign was on for over an hour before we cleared the turbulence.  The rest of the flight was uneventful.  This was our first trip as a team on KLM, we had always been booked on British Air before.    The staff was friendly and the food was good.  We had about a 3 hour layover at the airport in Amsterdam, it is very modern with lots of shops, restaurants and, of course, an overpriced Starbucks.  The team took the opportunity to fill out our Kenya visa applications in advance, which will hopefully save us time when we arrive in Nairobi. 

Both the flight from Houston to Amsterdam and the one from Amsterdam to Nairobi were on well-appointed 747-400’s.  We had a very full flight on our first leg of the trip, but were able to spread out and get a little more comfortable on the last flight, once we were airborne.  The flight crew took great care in making sure people were evenly distributed throughout the aircraft so as to balance out the load.

I got to know some of our team members a little better on each of the flights and during our layovers.  We are all excited about the mission, and Pastor Kevin and I fielded numerous questions about every detail of the trip and the vision clinic.  With a team made up of all first time members, there is a lot of enthusiasm and energy which I’m sure will translate into one of our best clinics yet.  As of this writing, we are scheduled to go on a safari to Lake Naivasha early tomorrow morning and then worship with the overall team in the evening before dinner at Rosa Mystica, the Catholic convent where we stayed the first two nights of our trip last November.  The teams made up of the other 5 churches that have joined us on this mission will use Sunday as a travel day to their respective sites.  We will worship with the congregation in Kiambu, where we will be serving, and will drop off our footlockers there on Sunday as well.  If we hold true to form, we will have lunch at a nice restaurant after church, followed by shopping for supplies for the week and then dinner, a devotion and an early night at Africa Heart, the lodge where we will be staying the rest of the week.

We landed around 8:15pm Nairobi time, got our visas in pretty short order, changed some of our money into Kenyan shillings and then waited for all of the footlockers from every team to arrive.  I got to talk for a while with our friend Rashid, the head of security while we gathered up the last of the footlockers.

Our ride to Rosa Mystica was uneventful, we were assigned rooms and we got to bed around 11pm.  I couldn’t sleep very well, so around 1am (about 5pm Austin time) I was able to phone home to let Adrienne know we had arrived and all was well.

The Mission Team was Commissioned on Sunday

Members of our team of eight were commissioned on Sunday at both Redeemer and at Immanuel Lutheran in Giddings.  Pastor Kevin gave the congregation a good overview of what we were going to be doing in Kiambu on this trip.  I was very blessed when I was asked to pray over our team as we were being sent out into the mission field.  Here are a few pictures taken during the services at Redeemer.  I always love this beginning to each trip, since it reminds us that we are being sent into the mission field, just as Jesus instructed his disciples after His resurrection in Matthew 28, which reads like this in the New International Version:

¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Even though there are numerous blessings for everyone involved in these missions, both for our Kenyan friends we serve with and for ourselves, we must always remind ourselves that the most important reason we go into the mission field is to spread the Good News to a lost world.  All of the morning and evening devotions that we will do as a group over the ten days of the trip will revolve around  being sent and being effective at how we witness to everyone that the Lord places in our paths.

I will be including pictures from all members of the team, as usual, at the end of the trip.  We leave Thursday from Houston, fly to Amsterdam and then from there it's on to Nairobi, where will arrive late in the evening Friday.  I will be posting pictures and reports on our comings and goings as often as possible, so stay tuned!

Pastor Kevin describes the mission as Jane,

Merrillee and Dave look on

Dave prays over the team

Pastor Kevin introduces Corina to Redeemer

Final preparations are being made for the April 18th mission

We learned on Easter Sunday that the Kenya Supreme Court had upheld the results of the March 4th presidential election.  This was especially good news for our mission team, since our LCMS team in Nairobi believes that this development means that things should remain calm during our stay there later this month.  We are very proud of the Kenyan people for the way they have shown the world that peaceful, strongly contested elections can be held there.  They are a great example for fledgling democracies.

We have also learned that our destination will be the Lutheran Church in Kiambu, the site of our last mission to Kenya in November.  It is in the coffee and tea plantation area just to the north of Nairobi. This will be a real blessing, as one of the primary tenets of our project is to do short term missions with long term commitments, meaning that we visit a number of the same locations on a regular basis, building relationships with the Pastor and his congregation at each place as we work together to spread the Gospel message.  It is our strong belief that the church, even Redeemer in Austin, is not the bricks, stained glass and other parts of the physical structure but instead is made up of the people of God.  Thus, our approach makes good sense because these missions bring many benefits to both the congregations and communities we serve as well as to the people who make up our mission teams and Redeemer.  The local churches get the opportunity to reach large numbers of people with the Good News while also partnering with us in meeting human needs such as vision or dental care.  We in turn are blessed by making Christian friends from another culture who have a very deep and unshakeable faith.  And, when we return to Austin and Redeemer, we are even more enthusiastic than before in our volunteering and witnessing, both at Redeemer and in the community at large.  This leads to even more people wanting to participate with us in the Vision for Kenya project and our team members always report that their faith has grown in leaps and bounds as a result of their service in the mission field.

Kenya peacefully elects a new President

The national elections in Kenya were relatively peaceful, even though it took from election day Monday until Saturday to get the votes counted.  This was due to the high tech electronic voting system experiencing problems, particularly in rural areas, meaning that paper ballots had to be transported to Nairobi and counted by hand.  We applaud the Kenyan people for being a beacon of hope throughout Africa.  They have shown that democracy can work, even though, as we know all too well in America, that it can be messy at times.  We are especially glad that there was a clear winner declared for President, since a runoff election would have occurred about a week before our arrival in Kenya and the uncertainty may have made our spring mission untenable from a security standpoint.  Our safety is always the number one concern of our Kenyan hosts, the LCMS and our Vision for Kenya leadership.  There is an advance team in Kenya this month determining where each team will serve in April and in May, so we will know shortly where the Redeemer team will be.  Our Vision for Kenya project has decided to stagger our trips, rather than having nearly 60 people on the ground twice a year in May and in November.  Instead, half of us will go in April and in October, with the rest of the teams sticking to the original schedule.  This will make it much better for our LCMS friends in Nairobi, particularly Catherine, as she arranges for transportation, lodging 

Pastor Kevin welcomes the team to training

Since we got the green light for the April trip, we held our orientation Sunday afternoon at Redeemer for our team members who will conduct a vision clinic.  Pastor Kevin and I will be the experienced leaders on this trip and we will have 6 new missionaries with us.  It is always good for us "old hands" to experience the enthusiasm and wide eyed wonderment of the newcomers, while we veterans bring everything that our previous experience should: leadership, concern for the group's safety and the ability to form these individuals into an effective team that will share the Gospel with hundreds of people.  If the past is any guide, the first half of Monday will appear to be mass chaos and then things will settle down to the point that by Tuesday, the clinic will be a well oiled machine.

Pastor Goodwill explains the triage station

 

 

Our training consisted of a quick overview of the flow of the clinic, followed by training in the more technical stations of the clinic by members of previous teams who were gracious enough to give up part of their Sunday afternoon to help us to prepare.  Risa Schroder joined Ralph Genz in instructing some of our team in the use, care and feeding of the autorefractors.  Martha Faske and Louise Genz explained the fine art of lens pulling and Howard Faske showed some of our team members the ins and outs of assembling distance glasses.  After dismissing our volunteer trainers, we did training for the whole team on the eye chart and reading glasses.  Pastor Goodwill and his wife Patricia discussed ways to be effective witnesses at the triage station, the area of the clinic where, as he put it "the rubber meets the road."  More people come to Christ or express an interest in the church at this point in the clinic than anywhere else, so it's important to be prepared to give an answer for our hope in Christ as well as be ready to pray over each and every person we encounter.

 

Pastor Kevin explains the eye chart exam

 

 

The detailed station training was followed by Pastor Kevin going over all of the travel arrangements such as when to meet, what to bring, what our experience would be like in terms of the spiritual aspects, the people we would meet, food and drink guidelines, etc.  Finally, I worked with the group on the cultural differences and similarities that we will encounter with an eye on being gracious guests, good listeners and on being powerful witnesses for Christ to all we meet. 





Final reflections on the Fall 2012 Kenya Mission

The pictures from the mission are finalized now.  Follow the links below to see them.

For the Kiambu team's pictures, click this link.

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

For the Kitengela team's pictures, click this link.

https://picasaweb.google.com/103425019225851329391/KitengelaFall2012?authuser=0&feat=directlink

It's now been about 7 weeks since our return from Kenya and I've had time to digest the events that took place as we served in Kiambu and Kitengela.  This means it is time to write a little about the high points and the challenges that were encountered and to discuss where we are going from here as Redeemer continues to grow in its involvement with the Vision Kenya Project.

One thing that really stands out for me is how the Lord provides for us and always has a better plan than any of us could possibly conceive of.  This was evident before we even left for Africa.  With less than 10 days to go, we lost one member of our Kiambu team to a medical issue and we were blessed to have Him provide us with our friend Cecilia in her place at the last possible minute, or so it seemed.  I am convinced that God had been preparing us and our friend Cecilia for this very eventuality for the better part of the two plus years we have known each other.  Another example of everything falling into place was the addition of Larry Meissner and his niece, Elizabeth Huber to our team.  I had been pestering Larry for the last few years to join us on one of our missions and the timing never seemed to line up, since he leads field trips for his Concordia University students on a regular basis and our trips never seemed to coincide with his school calendar.  This last mission trip matched up with his sabbatical. It also worked out at exactly the right time for Elizabeth, who had been one of the original Redeemer members that had explored the possiblility of our church getting involved in this effort by going on a mission to Nairobi in 2009.   I could easily list how each of rest of the team members "just happened" to be available to answer God's call, but I think you get the idea that each of us was called by the Lord to step out of our day to day comfort zones to serve him on this trip. 

We had almost gotten away from Austin when one final big surprise took place.  I got a call from Pastor Kevin at 7am the Thursday we were to meet up with everyone at 8am in the Redeemer parking lot to caravan to Houston. He informed me that he was ill and would not be making the trip, at least not right away.  I met Tammy at their door, since he didn't want to expose anybody to what was ailing him and she gave me the petty cash and leader packets for the two mission teams.  This opened the way for two more big surprises.  One was that Ralph would need to lead the Kitengela team, and trust me, nobody was more surprised than Ralph!  The other came after we had already arrived in Kenya.  One of the Concordia San Antonio team, Laney, had taken ill at the Dallas airport and didn't travel the rest of the way to Kenya with her team while she was being attended to in the Dallas area.  She made a quick recovery, hopped a flight to London and arrived in Nairobi late Saturday night, a day after the rest of us.  It was our good fortune that it made sense for her to work near Nairobi with easy access to medical care if it became necessary again.  Laney was able to fill the void on the Kitengela team left by Pastor Kevin and was a blessing to all who served with her and to all the people to whom she ministered.

The big surprises didn't stop there.


Another change that caught us a little off guard was not being able to serve in Kawangware with our good friends there.  This was due to security concerns that are a result of the war going on in Somalia and occasional terrorist incidents in Nairobi related to that conflict, some of which have targeted Christian churches.  The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS, which is our flavor of Lutheranism) employs a highly respected British security firm to monitor hot spots around the world for them.  If our International Missions leadership in our St. Louis LCMS headquarters office decides, based on such security information and other factors, that a particular location for a short term mission has the probability of being unsafe for short term missionaries, we don’t go there. Our safety is their prime imperative and we respect that, even if we feel at times that they are being over-protective.  Our disappointment was soon replaced by the many blessings that serving in Kiambu (pictured above, with Pastor Michael) proved to hold.  The Central Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya (ELCK, the national church we partner with) had desired one of our vision clinics at this location for some time.  When we were informed that we couldn’t serve within the city limits of Nairobi, it was a natural choice, since it is just outside of town, adjacent to a rural area famous for its coffee and tea plantations.  Our new friend, Pastor Michael , has been involved with the church there since at least 1989, and with the help of the Central Diocese of the ELCK and Pastor Carlos Winterle’s Heart to Heart program among others, progress has already been  made on building a permanent structure.  It is about one third of the way built as of this writing and the local congregation’s and the ELCK’s long term dream are that the church would be finished, complete with a parsonage on the grounds.  One huge advantage that this church has going for it is that the Diocese owns the property, so there is no landlord and no rent that needs to be made every month in order to keep the church functioning.  This is not always the case with small congregations, and a missed rent payment can sometimes lead to needing to relocate a church, with all the confusion and loss of focus that entails. 

Our week in Kiambu was markedly different than the missions we had been on over the last 5 years to the much larger churches in the slums of Kawangware and Kibera.  There was a different mix of people that came to the clinic, some from a nearby slum, others on their way to or from work and an occasional fairly well to do patient also came through the gate.  We had a greater need for local translators, since many of the rural working class, while they could speak English, were a little shy to do so with us.  When we were able to coax them into speaking English with us with Cecilia's help, it was perfectly understandable.   Regardless of language barriers, everyone that came to the clinic got the Gospel presentation from our local Nuru evangelists, Geoffery and Callistus. We talked to them about their lives during their trek through the clinic and all were prayed over individually.  All of the Redeemer  team members spent some time working at the triage station on this trip, which is always a blessing for the people being prayed over, but it is also a profound life changing experience for those of us that are privileged to be used in this way by the Lord.   This portion of the eye glass clinic appears to the outsider to be where treatment options are determined for each patient, whether they will get distance glasses based on an autorefractor reading, will be fitted for reading glasses, will see our local doctors for medications, receive a cataract surgery referral or some combination of any and all of the above.  In reality, since the overriding purpose of our clinics is spreading the Gospel in obedience to the Great Commission (Matthew 28: 18-20), the triage station is where we focus on not only the patient’s physical health, but also on their spiritual condition.  We have conversations that all lead in one way or another to a discussion of the where the patient is currently in their walk with the Lord.

We hear the needs of the people, and many of them involve very intense situations, and we then lift them up to the Lord in prayer.  If a person wants to know more about the church or Christianity, we immediately will get the local church leaders or the Pastor involved.  It doesn’t get any better than this as a short term missionary, it’s where the rubber meets the road!

The Kiambu Team

 

Every team has its own distinct personality and this one was no exception.  We were blessed to have a very easy going group that had an attractive joy about them that almost begged people to ask us about the reason for the hope we have within us.  And we all had good reasons ready when asked.  In my experience, how you live is the best witness you can have for Christ, a joyful Christian can’t help but call attention to the blessings that walking with Him will supply a believer with.  I’ve always felt that there was something profoundly wrong when I encountered a perpetually negative person that called themselves a Christian.  They obviously didn’t understand with their whole being what an incredible gift they had received or else they would have behaved every day as if they had won life’s lottery.  I pray that such people come to a deeper understanding and faith, to the point that no matter what circumstance they find themselves in, nothing can rob them of that peace, comfort and joy that only the Lord can give us.  Our group all had that gentle joy that comes from being assured of our salvation.  Each of us had our own gifts that we were able to complement the gifts of the rest of team with.  Larry’s gift of music, his preaching ability and calm demeanor were most appreciated during our devotions with the congregation and throughout the week.  Martha and Howard’s sense of humor and their ability to help keep the business of the clinic on track are always wonderful.  It’s very good to have a mix of veteran and new team members and Howard and Martha have always been part of the steady core group that helps me in numerous ways as a team leader to operate successful clinics. They were sorely missed when they couldn’t be on our team in Kibera last spring. Elizabeth and Thomas both brought youthful enthusiasm and a zest for life to Kiambu, and each demonstrated a real heart for meeting the needs of the people we served.  Beth, Charles and Cecilia each brought professional medical skills as well as their own strong faith, personal talents and engaging personalities to bear on the many situations we encountered, always exhibiting Christ’s love while doing so.   What a blessing it was to serve with each and every one who was on this team.

The Kitengela Team

Our team that worked in Kitengela also was blessed by the relationships they formed with the local volunteers, doctors, church workers and each other.  Judging from the stories and pictures they brought back, their clinic was a blessing to the church, the surrounding community and themselves.  This was the first time Redeemer had fielded two teams in separate locations, and with the exception of the last minute drafting of Ralph to head the team up, things went as well as could be expected for a first effort at a new location.  We had three team members come from Peace Lutheran Church in Hewitt on their first trip and all expressed to me what a profound experience it had been and a willingness to come back to Kenya with us again, perhaps as early as next October's mission. There are always many kinks to iron out during the starting up and running of a vision clinic, even at locations that have held them before.  At the start of the week on each and every mission trip, I wonder how in the world we'll be able to function when great numbers of patients begin arriving.  The Lord always blesses us by letting the first day or two start out easy enough to get the wrinkles out of the process, so that by the time the inevitable word of mouth advertising reaches the nearby neighborhood and people begin arriving en masse, we are more than a match for it.  This was the case at both of our sites.  Thank you, Jesus! 

Care to join us on our next mission to Africa from April 18-28, 2013?  Contact Pastor Kevin Westergren through Redeemer Lutheran Church in Austin, TX at 512-459-1500 or me,  Dave DeVore at 512-323-5343 for more information. I will personally guarantee that you will not look at the world in the same way after serving with us. God will break your heart in one way or another and will put it back together again in a markedly better way. How do I know this? Because after 8 trips in 3 years, I have seen this in not only myself, but also in every single short term missionary that has participated in the Vision Kenya Project with us.  This incredible experience completely stretches any comfort zone you may have had before and it prepares your heart and soul for serving the Lord even more enthusiastically than ever in most any setting.  As our own Pastor Dave likes to say, you will be so in tune with God's plan for you that you will see the world through "Jesus eyes". In my own case, I have been more active than ever in local human care ministries than I was prior to these evangelism missions. So, to those who think that involvement in short term international missions and serving the Lord locally are mutually exclusive, I reply that it is not an either/or proposition but a both/and kind of animal. As noted previously in this blog, Bonhoeffer taught us that faith leads to obedience, which leads to stronger faith which in turn causes stronger obedience and so it goes during one's walk with Jesus. It all begins with faith, which is a gift of God which none of us deserves. This obedience or sanctification is our joyful response to this free and gracious gift, a gift that was bought at a terrible price by Jesus that all might be saved. I'm well aware that not everyone is called to the foreign mission field, nor are all physically, financially or otherwise in a position to join in our efforts on the front lines in Kenya, as we witness to all whom God places in front of us. We know we are blessed to have heard and been able to answer the call. However, there aren't many people that can't serve in some way within the context of their own lives. This might include supporting a mission such as ours through prayer, helping to recruit more team members or via financial gifts. This particular project definitely requires far more people behind the scenes than just those of us at the front. If your heart isn't moved to action by this project, my advice is to find a way to serve others that is near and dear to you that you can become genuinely passionate about. You will discover a wonderful paradox that those of us that have abandoned our comfort zones learned long ago. You can't out give God, you will always be abundantly blessed far more than any blessing you can ever give. It's such a profound truth that I have to question my motivation before each mission. Am I going to serve others in answer to God's call on my life or is it for the many blessings that I know, based on past experience, that I will receive? If I'm brutally honest, it's both and that's fine. My plea is that you just do something for somebody else. Are you afraid of making a mistake or not having the right words? I've noticed that the only people that don't make mistakes are those that don't do anything, and if I think about that for a while, that in itself is a big mistake. The options for service are endless, ranging from helping with ESL classes, building ramps for your homebound neighbors, volunteering at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, delivering Meals on Wheels to shut ins, starting a Bible study at work or in your home and on and on it goes. Redeemer members, including our mission team members, do all of these things and many more. Come on in, the water's fine! The Lord will grant to you a joy and a peace that passes all understanding if you do.

To God be the Glory!