Mission work at home - ramp build this morning

RampBuild10-29-2011

To see pictures of the ramp build, click the picture above.

Sometimes, when we are explaining the incredible international mission trips that Redeemer has sponsored, the question comes up "Why don't you serve others right here in Austin? We have plenty of homeless people, hungry people, spiritually lost or seeking people, etc." You get the idea. My stock answer to these objections is usually to thank the person for having a heart for these areas of ministry and then challenging them to organize an effort to address whatever need they have brought up. This is the way ministry works at Redeemer. Somebody identifies a need, runs it by our Pastors and then is empowered to lead the project. Some absolutely amazing ministries have resulted from this bottom-up approach, including some of our members being involved in a breakfast for the homeless each month, others doing regular blood drives, a disaster relief team working on everything from Hurricanes Ike and Katrina relief to working with families that lost their homes in the recent central Texas wildfires. The list goes on and on. I am going to amend my stock answer to this question to include the following observation. While some of us have been called to get out of our comfort zones, saddle up and do the Lord's work in faraway places, it is not possible to obey God's call to the mission field and not be deeply effected by it. Every one of us that has participated in these trips (in my case, first helping to build two churches in Mexico and now preparing to go on my sixth trip in the past two years to Kenya) has come back with what Pastor Dave calls "Jesus eyes." We are more sensitive to the needs around us in our day to day surroundings and are more involved than ever in our local communities. This morning, I had the pleasure of helping build a wheelchair ramp for a woman in her 90's. Her daughter, who is in her 70's, explained that the ramp would make it much easier to get her mother out and about, since she had fallen recently and was afraid of falling again going from the house to the car. The work amounted to five of us having some fun with power tools, telling tall tales and sharing a few laughs on a Saturday morning. We were done in less than three hours. It was huge, however, to the lady who had been trapped, for all practical purposes, in her home. A group of men from Redeemer is involved in this caring ministry along with the Texas Ramp Project, about once a month. No special skills are required, but the good you can do and the rewards it brings to both us and those we serve are abundant. I guess my point is that the fact that some of us are called to work on foreign missions in no way limits us when we get back to Austin, but in fact spurs us on to being even more involved locally than we ever were before. You don't need to go halfway around the world to serve the Lord and others, your mission field might be as close as your neighborhood, your school or your workplace. If you aren't already active in some sort of serving, helping ministry, I would encourage you to check with Redeemer or your church and see what the needs are. If nothing interests you, perhaps you already feel tugged by the Holy Spirit to address someone's need in a different area. Pick up the ball and run with it! If you do, you will never be the same and I can promise you that the change will be for the better for you and for all those you touch. Thank you, Jesus!

A word about security concerns for the upcoming trip

KenyaFall2011

Please click on the picture above to view pictures related to the November 2011 mission. Come back often, especially between November 10th and 20th while we are in the field. We'll be posting new stories and pictures on a daily basis when possible.

There have been a number of news stories lately about the unrest in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu and along the Kenya/Somalia border. Pastor Dave and myself, as well as the leaders of the other teams that are part of the upcoming mission have been staying on top of things and want to put all of our supporter's minds at ease. Paul Althoff and Kevin Pieper have just returned from their advance trip to Kenya and are convinced that everything will be just fine. Our LCMS missionary rules stress our personal safety above all else. All of the groups stay in secure locations and are at their lodgings by dark every day. The church locations where we do the Lord's work are also secure. We never travel alone, but only in large groups and we don't go to venues such as sporting events where large crowds might become a problem. The best advice I've heard so far is from our wonderful liaison with LCMS International Missions in Nairobi, Catherine Wangari. She suggests that anyone that is concerned about us do a Google search and get a map of East Africa. They will see that Nairobi and Mogadishu are 752 miles apart by road and that all of our teams will be 300-400 miles away from the border, regardless of where they are serving. I am personally on a State Department email list for security alerts about Kenya and appreciate the fact that there is now heightened security in place to take care of any threat. After all, tourism is one of Kenya's biggest economic engines, the authorities certainly don't want that jeopardized. Please continue to pray for an effective mission for all involved. May we bless those we come to serve. I know we will be blessed abundantly in return. To God be the Glory!

Dental Clinic Preparation

KenyaFall2011

Please click on the picture above to view pictures related to the November 2011 mission. Come back often, especially between November 10th and 20th while we are in the field. We'll be posting new stories and pictures on a daily basis when possible.

We had a pill counting party at Adrienne's house Tuesday night. Ralph and Louise Genz and Martha Faske joined us for BBQ from Mann's (we needed to get our strength up first!). We counted approximately 28,000 pills into little zip lock bags and labeled them, finally gathering them up into one gallon storage bags for each type of drug. We started at 6:30pm and were done with the bulk of it by 11pm. There was just a little left to do that Adrienne and I finished up Friday evening. The medications for the dental clinic range from simple aspirin to a mixture of Tylenol and Hydrocodone to antibiotics such as Amoxicillin or CIPRO. The dental clinic will focus mostly on extractions and minor surgeries with an eye on doing the most good for the largest number of people. Like the vision clinic, the dental clinic is being used as a caring vehicle for sharing the Gospel. Last November, we treated over 1,100 patients, some of whom may have died from tooth infections or other conditions we would take for granted in the U.S., had we not been able to give them dental care and life saving antibiotics. What a blessing this ministry is! The team will be led by Dr. Terry Councill, who is associated with the Salem Lutheran Church team in Tomball. He was with us last November as well. We are eager to work together with him and the local Kenyan dentists again. He will jump in to take care of the toughest cases and will instruct the local dentists in new or different techniques, something they are always hungry for.

We're into the home stretch leading up to the November mission!

It's that time again, about a month before our next mission trip to Nairobi's slum of Kawangware and the incredible Lutheran church there. We will soon be back among our friends, worshiping with Pastor Zedekiah and then serving the community during the work week with both a vision and a dental clinic. It seems like we just got back in May from Springs of Life Lutheran Church in Nairobi's largest slum of Kibera. The work on the next mission trip always begins behind the scenes almost immediately after returning from the previous one.

This past Sunday, October 9th, was a very full day. Pastor Kevin and I were at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Giddings, along with Gus Jacob from Salem to present what we are doing on our African missions as part of their Missions Sunday. Pastor Kevin preached at both services and I showed a slide show during their fellowship time between worship. The pastors and the congregation all showed a great deal of interest in how the clinics are used as a vehicle for spreading the Gospel. They took a door offering to help support the mission and that money will be set aside to help enable one or more of them to join us on a future mission.  After the presentation, a 2nd grade teacher wanted to know if her class could help us by making our beaded cross necklaces as a crafts progress for her class. We use these necklaces in explaining the Gospel by the meaning of each of the colored beads and accompanying Scripture. Each team gets about four dozen of them and we will probably have seven teams next April, so they'll need to make about 350 of them for us. What a great way to get the kids involved!

Gus and I headed back to Austin, while Pastor Kevin preached at the late service. Of course, we couldn't make it through Elgin without stopping for BBQ for lunch and this time it was Southside Market. The brisket and sausage were great, afficianados of Meyer's liek Pastor Kevin prefer the sauce there. I just keep trying BBQ at new places in small Texas towns every chance I get and I have many favorites.

Back in Austin, we arrived at Redeemer around 12:30pm and loaded up a cart with all of the materials Gus had brought with him to help us conduct our very first orientation. We were expecting about 25 team members from both Redeemer and Good Shepherd in Cedar Park. Our team will be returning to Kawangware, while the Good Shepherd team, led by Pastor Goodwill, is slated to serve in the rural church in Chesenende. I had already been planning on taking any team members that couldn't make it for one reason or another to Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball for their orientation on October 29th. Against all odds of perfect attendance for a group of this size, everybody was present and accounted for when we started the training at 1:30pm, including one extra missionary from St. Paul Lutheran in Vernon, Mark Kieschnick. He attended our orientation because October 29th wouldn't work for him and Austin is a little closer. Gus did a great job of going over the numerous travel and mission rules and pointers during the first hour. The next two hours were filled with each team member being trained in two or more of the vision clinic's six stations. This is important for several reasons. Some of the jobs involve lots of standing, others mostly sitting, so it's good to be able to change tasks occasionally. Some of the stations, particularly triage, involve hearing intimate stories and praying with the people over their most private or painful thoughts and situations, so being able to decompress a bit occasionally by doing a more mundane job is welcome. Everything went very well and we were able to dismiss everybody by 4:30pm. Many thanks to Gus for his help in making this a great afternoon.

I am most impressed by the number of people coming on the November trip for the first time. I'm guessing that about 60 percent of our two teams are new. This is wonderful, since their enthusiasm, joy and energy are great for recharging the batteries of those of us that have been on multiple trips. In turn, we veterans can help channel that energy and hopefully keep some of the same mistakes we've made in the past from being repeated. This mix of old and new will be a blessing for all involved.

Some musings on the meaning of the spring Kibera trip and the last of the pictures are now posted

Kenya Spring 2011

Now that the jet lag is finally over and I am getting back into my daily routine, I've been able to ponder the recent mission to Kibera and it's time to put together some final thoughts on the things that made this mission trip so special. There were several overarching themes that really cropped up over and over again, both while we were there and in my reflections since our return home. They are:

1.) The teamwork between all interested parties was nothing short of amazing. We got help from our experienced volunteers from Kawangware including Pastor Zedekiah for most of the week. This was very important because our team from Redeemer only consisted of 6 members. There are 6 stations in a vision clinic and a minimal team is usually one team member for each station plus the team leader. This allows the leader to roam the clinic and pitch in wherever there is a bottleneck or to take care of inevitable issues as they arise. The local evangelists were fantastic. Last year, we had several evangelists that had come from other locations to help. This year, all of our evangelists were from Springs of Life. I know when visitors ask me about Redeemer, they understand by the time I'm done with them that it's the only church for me! I'm sure our evangelists are just as enthusiastic about their home congregation. We had wonderful help from Lutheran Hour workers, some of whom also belong to Springs of Life. They were spreading the Gospel to our patients as they waited for registration. They have a new program of Bible Correspondence Courses they were stressing. Since mail and even cell phones are iffy ways to connect with people in Kibera, the program requires that Bible students bring their lessons to the church every Sunday to be handed in. The LHM workers then give the students new lessons and take the previous lessons to be graded during the next week. This commitment to the hard work of hands on evangelism deserves our utmost admiration. The program has the added benefit that people just MIGHT step foot inside the church on Sunday, since they are there with their lessons anyway. Also, the Lutheran Hour team members showed 2 movies during the week in the neighborhood (not on the church grounds). Monday night at 9pm, after we were exhausted and already heading for bed, they showed the Jesus Film, dubbed in the local flavor of Swahili called Luo that is spoken in the neighborhood, to about 600 people and of course made mention of the vision clinic. On Wednesday night, they showed a film about Mary Magdalene to about 1,000 people in the neighborhood. Attendance at the clinic was great all week and a large number of the patients who came to see us were there as a result of the Lutheran Hour missionaries. Well done, good and faithful servants! The commitment and cooperation we got from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya and their local Diocese was very helpful as well, with Sylvester, from the staff of Bishop Obare, actually showing up Monday morning to encourage us on our first day. What a blessing! The Springs of Life volunteers were very dedicated and worked long hours side by side with us cheerfully. Our morning and evening devotions with them were particularly special and by the time we had our last devotion and parting ceremony on Friday, there wasn't a dry eye in the place. There were tears of joy at having made new friends and tears of sadness at having to say goodbye until next time. Finally, it was very special to serve with Rev. Bakari and his wife Sophia, both of whom are converts from Islam. They have an all consuming fire for the Lord that is infectious to all whom they meet. I feel that this vision clinic was only the beginning of really building up the Springs of Life Church as a light on a hill in their local community. By week's end, the Pastor had confided in me that he could not have met as many community members in a year as he had during the past week and that everywhere he goes now people yell out "Pastor!" and know who he is and the good that his church does in the neighborhood. No mention of teamwork would be complete without mentioning the support that the LCMS World Missions local missionary, Pastor Shauen Trump and our dear friend Catherine Wangari gave us. There wasn't a problem too big or a detail so small that they weren't able to joyfully help us with. Again, well done, good and faithful servants to all who contributed their time and talents to this evangelism mission.

2.) I am very happy to take note of the extra energy and joy that first time members always bring to the table, which in turn energizes all of us. Starting with seeing some of the sights of Nairobi to actually working in the slum, they brought us a lot of laughs. Both Lupe and Leslie were on their feet for long hours every day, barely taking a break, but continuously smiling and shining for all to see in their service to the Lord. It's contagious! We also had veterans of 4 or more of these missions under their belts on our team, all of whom have a deep, heart-felt commitment for the sharing of the Gospel and the love of Christ. We have maybe a little different joy, peace and overall demeanor about us than the new team members, not any better or worse, just different. I think the mix of new and veteran team members was part of what made this misison so special this time. The wonderment, sense of awe and wide-eyed joy of the new missionaries helped to keep us old-timers from getting too detached or jaded, and I'm sure that in turn we provided a necessary rudder for the newbies who were far outside of their pre-concieved comfort zones. It's amazing how much bigger your comfort zone gets when you get out of the boat!

3.) Communication issues abounded, both involving phone and Internet service. While these problems made it harder in some ways, they ultimately didn't really matter much. I was still able to post almost daily reports about what we were doing, but had to walk about a quarter mile to the LCMS World Missions offices each evening and really only had the time and energy to do minimal reports and I was not in much of a position to post any pictures. Also, because we gladly gave our Kenyan cell phone to another team that was going out into a rural area to replace their damaged device, we were not able to call and let our families know we were OK until Monday, more than 4 days after we left Austin. This was actually kind of funny. On Saturday, Catherine bought us a SIM card and cell minutes for an old Nokia phone that she had, but we couldn't figure out how to activate it or use it until our driver, Joseph, got it going in about 10 seconds on Monday morning. Due to the eight hour time difference, we couldn't actually call home until after work that evening. I'm sure Adrienne would not have appreciated a 2am phone call from me no matter how much she might have been worried about us!

4.) Even though we worked at an existing church that was dedicated in 2003 by Bishop Obare, and though this was our second clinic there, we really got a sense of being involved in ground floor church building. Pastor Bakari was filled with the Holy Spirit the whole time, the congregation had a unified sense of purpose, the Lutheran Hour staff were incredibly dedicated to their work and, of course, it all rubbed off on us as well. Each and every one of us can't wait to get back to Kibera next May to see how much the church has grown in terms of numbers and also in their faith and the many ministries they are doing.

5.) Also on the subject of church building, Ralph Genz was privileged to be a part of the team led by Paul Althoff of Salem at Chesenende, a brand new clinic site that we at Redeemer hope to return to in November in partnership with Good Shepherd Lutheran Church of Cedar Park. It was a wonderful first time clinic and some of Ralph's photos are now included with those from Kibera on the blog.

6.) Finally, these reflections would not be complete if I didn't once again issue a call others to join us in spreading the Gospel to the world. I highly recommend a book by David Platt called Radical that was on the NY Times Bestseller List last year. Pastor Platt shepherds a large church about the size of Redeemer in Birmingham, AL. I read his book during the long flights on this trip and it's a life changer. His basic premise is that we have come to worship the American Dream in our culture and it even extends to the way we do church. Bigger is better. After teaching in home churches in India, China and other places where people were risking their lives, jobs and everything they own to learn more about the faith, he just didn't feel right in his own church, with millions of dollars worth of vehicles outside of a multimillion dollar sanctuary. Entertainment, programs for the kids, and other facets of large American church culture had pushed aside the hunger for the Word and giving glory to God through true worship. He went back to his Bible and discovered that Jesus had a mini-church of totally devoted followers who had given up everything in order to follow him and fulfill the mission he sent them on when he gave them The Great Commission. They didn't need a mega-church to turn the world upside-down. Just committed followers doing the hard work of one on one discipleship training. Since we are called to spread the Good News to the world, and two thirds of the world isn't Christian, and most of that two thirds lives outside of the United States, Pastor Platt has been empowering people from all walks of life in his congregation to participate in one way or another in foreign missions. He has noticed what we have also seen at Redeemer. Those who get outside of their comfort zone and help in making disciples of all nations come back to their local community and are even more involved in doing the same at home. The enthusiasm they bring back is contagious and their congregations are alive. Again, I can't say enough about this book except that I wish that I had written it! I may even base a study in my Sunday School class on it in the coming year.

As always, if you would like to join us on a future trip or have any questions about what we do and why we do it, please contact Pastor Kevin Westergren at 512-459-1500 or kwestergren@redeemer.net or me, Dave DeVore at 512-323-5343 or dave@mrpcaustin.com.

To God be the Glory!

Pictures are being added daily

Kenya Spring 2011

I intend to have about 300 representative pictures up after the long Memorial Day holiday weekend here in the States. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have reviewing them. More posts to follow after I've had a little more time to reflect on the mountain top experiences we had during this mission.

Saturday events and travel home to Texas

Leslie, Lupe and Tom got an early start with our driver Joseph on some in town sightseeing, but not before we had Joseph assemble one last pair of glasses. As mentioned previously, the whole team worked on inventorying our remaining supplies, completing statistics for the clinic and finishing up 2 last pairs of glasses for staff at the Scripture House after dinner Friday night until after 9pm. Howard, Lupe and I had incredibly bad luck and just could not get any frames to work with for the last pair of glasses with the required lenses. Joseph had the job completed in about 45 seconds. In our defense, we were at the end of about a 14 hour day the night before, nothing was making any sense after about 7:30pm and the light was better in the morning. I had breakfast with them before they left to see Nairobi and then made my way with Howard and Martha over to the LCMS World Missions offices to work my magic on several computers. The Faskes checked their email on my laptop before leaving with friends from Kawangware while I started on an older desktop system that was short on memory. When I was unpacking my computer bag earlier in the week, a stick of memory had fallen out and I had thought it was funny that it had made it to Nairobi completely unbeknownst to me, obviously stuck in my bag after a repair at one of my clients. In fact it was a rather rare type and speed of memory. Lo and behold, it was exactly the part that was needed for the office computer. I have had too many experiences like this over the last several years to believe in coincidences or accidents anymore. It was plain to me that God had provided for his missionaries in Kenya. Pretty cool, huh? I completed my work on the computers a little after noon just as Catherine arrived at the office. I helped her with a few questions and then we took an empty footlocker over to the Scripture House and loaded it up with real Cokes made with cane sugar. That’s a real treat compared to the corn syrup variety that we have in the States these days. I was able to get in one last hot shower before the other teams began to arrive back from their various mission posts and then a little 20 minute nap before a 3pm team leader meeting. I had just enough time before the meeting to buy a couple of souvenirs from the mission ladies who were just beginning to setup shop in anticipation of the returning teams. The leader’s meeting was a good time of sharing some tremendous stories of God using all of us to build His church during the past week and some strategizing on what worked and where we could improve next time around. The usual pizzas and Cokes were served to the team members as they returned from the other 5 locations, but there was also a treat that Lupe had whipped up with the help of our cooks for everybody. It was a full meal with rice, vegetables and meat. Everyone was very appreciative of Lupe’s efforts and the other teams continued in their efforts to try to steal him from us! The answer was “Still no deal!”.

We left for the airport around 6:30pm Nairobi time and it was a good thing, since we ran into heavy traffic caused by a 2 car wreck. As we were stalled in traffic, children of various ages descended on our buses and other vehicles trying to sell their varied wares of trinkets, snacks and assorted junk. We passed through security without incident once we reached the airport and then we changed our Kenyan shillings back into dollars, bought more souvenirs in the many shops and fellowshipped in the coffee bar over sandwiches and drinks until it was time to go to our gate. Our flight took off nearly 45 minutes late when it was thought there was extra baggage on board that didn’t match any of the passengers. Better safe than sorry. This had been the day that the world was supposed to come to an end and, since I’m still here on the plane from London to Houston writing this, I guess it didn’t happen. Our layover was a little shorter, but adequate for everyone to clear security in a very crowded Heathrow Airport. There were no signs of a bad economy there, the place was packed with travelers. While I’m on the subject of travel, we gave out travel time estimates during our commissioning at Redeemer at different services that ranged from 18 to 35 hours and I want to clear up any confusion. Yes, it is true that our two flights total from 18 to 20 hours depending on delays waiting to take off, security issues, etc. The bigger number comes from when I count from the time I leave my home in Austin until I am at the Scripture House in Nairobi or from when we leave for the airport in Nairobi until I am on my front porch. Typically, we leave around 8am for Houston, with stops for Blue Bell in Brenham and then lunch outside of Bush International. We get to the airport and begin to go through security around 1:15pm and usually fly out around 4pm. After the flight to London and a layover, then the flight to Nairobi, the clearing of customs and the bus ride to the Scripture house, we are usually there at midnight local time. This time of year, Nairobi is 8 hours ahead of Austin, so that would be 8am Austin time Thursday until 4pm Austin time Friday. That adds up to 32 hours from end to end for a good trip. Our worst one was several hours longer coming back last May during the volcano in Iceland. We had to wait in London on the tarmac for over 2 hours for a flight slot back to the States, then our normal 9 hour flight was 11 hours because we had to fly into the Arctic Circle before heading south to Houston to avoid the volcanic ash cloud. To top it off, we were missing a footlocker with some of our team’s personal items and that meant a late getaway from Houston. My recollection was it was 38 hours total, with 13 hours spent on the London to Houston plane, my longest stint on a plane including trips to Israel, England, Germany and Hawaii over the years. I hope this clears up any confusion, the travel is definitely long, but we get to meet complete strangers on the plane rides whom we are able to befriend and witness to since it seems everyone is interested in why we have name tags, cross necklaces and are part of a large group. This "salting" of the plane with team members is intentional and has led many great discussions about faith over the years.

We arrived at my house precisely at 8pm, making the return trip 33 1/2 hours accounting for the 8 hour time difference, about average. Leslie unloaded her things into her SUV, Lupe's family came to pick him up and we all shared one last hug. The end of a most blessed adventure! Praise be to God!