On My Knees

 

You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds, O God our savior.
You are the hope of everyone on earth, even those who sail on distant seas.

Psalm 65:5 (NLT)

 

Usually I find my visits to the market a bit stressful, but yesterday was different.  As I strolled down the aisle with a grocery list in one hand and attempting to maneuver my cart with the other, I suddenly found myself swaying and singing along with the music that blared over the sound system.  It was a country rendition of "Take It to the Lord in Prayer," complete with steel guitar twang.  Not quite what you’d expect for western Kenya.

But as surreal as that moment was, it was also quite fitting, since you never quite know what will be on the shelves here.  A good portion of the staples on my list are usually not in stock, and so I’ve resorted to creating a “wish list.”  Well, actually, it’s more of a “Desperate Prayer List.”  I feel a bit silly knowing that other people pray for world peace while I pray for coffee creamer, but I think God understands. 

The cadets are praying now that the Lord will provide them with a Training College. The land that was originally purchased for that purpose five years ago is tied up in a legal dispute between two other parties, but Ken recently found a large plot of land that is perfect.  And the Army already owns it!  The cadets and Training College staff were so excited with this news that they piled into a bus and made the one-hour trip out to see the land and hold a prayer walk around its boundaries, claiming it as their Promised Land. Every time I think of those wonderful young people, who live every day without running water in the cramped little cubicles we’ve pieced together in the old bakery warehouse, I beg the Lord to answer their prayers.



Cadets praying for a Training College

Of course, we’ve also been praying for a lot of other thing. We prayed for the long rains to come so that the crops would grow.  The rains came.  We then prayed that the rains would stop, since all that rain was destroying the maize. The rains stopped.  Now, believe it or not, we’re praying that the rains will return before the harvest.  It’s exhausting.  Until I moved to Kakamega, I took corn and fresh produce for granted.  But seeing what our people go through to plant, nurture, and harvest their crops, and then get them safely to market for sale, has changed my thinking forever.  Above all, I’ve learned that it takes a lot of prayer!

 

The other day, a young mother came to Territorial Headquarters hoping that the Lord would answer her prayers.  Her husband died of AIDS, and now she is dying.  Totally disgraced, her family has disowned her.  Yet despite this, she is doing all she can in the midst of her illness to ensure that her children are cared for before she dies.  When she heard the woman’s story, our Social and Sponsorship Secretary, who had to fight back her own tears, quickly found some funds to pay for pain killer and school fees. She’s also started the hunt for a long-term sponsor, and Ken and I are joining her in prayer for that.

 

All those things I so easily take for granted are precisely the things that others pray for.  Their needs are so great, and I have so little to offer.  I now understand what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”

I’m right there with you, Abe.  O Lord, hear our prayers.

 

 

It Is Enough!

 

If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.

But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News,
you will save it.

  Mark 8:35

 

I love my excursions to the "big city" of Kisumu.  The drive is lovely, and the anticipation of what treasures I might find at the market makes me giddy with anticipation.  On one trip, I actually found Ragu spaghetti sauce and tinned pears.  Wow!!  We've also been fortunate enough to discover a dry cleaners, a beautician that has experience cutting "mzungu" hair, and a restaurant that serves cheeseburgers.  My cup runneth over! 

 

But our journeys to Kisumu have not been quite the same since I recently noticed a large white "X" painted on many of the buildings and gates along the way.  Our driver explained that the government is widening the road, and the marked structures are those that will be demolished (with no compensation, I might add).  So my heart sinks a little whenever I see an "X", knowing that it represents someone who will lose his home or his business.  In fact, until he checked on the proposed route with the local authorities, Ken was concerned that the Army might even lose the front gate at Territorial Headquarters.

 

X Marks the Spot

 

 

Actually, we've seen a great deal of loss in the past two weeks.  The Kaptanai Corps hall was destroyed in a storm, and wind blew the roof off the home of one of our dear retired officers.  She had nowhere else to go, of course, so she is still living there.  On top of that, there has been a renewal of politically-motivated violence, and twelve Salvationist families at the Mayanja Corps have been senselessly attacked at night in their beds.  They've not only been injured, but they've also lost any sense of personal security. 

 

Most tragic, however, has been the loss of several children at our schools.  Sudden illness claims the lives of children here with depressing frequency, and we were deeply saddened when one of our brightest and most delightful students passed away.  She was a young lady with big dreams.

 

But we've also seen victories.  Last month, for example, Ken commissioned thirty-six new lieutenants.  These are men and women who have been praying for an opportunity to attend the Training College, but for one reason or another, had been told that they did not qualify.  Yet they never gave up, instead accepting leadership responsibilities at some of our poorest and most isolated corps.  Without adequate compensation, and receiving even less recognition, these dear servants have remained faithful to their calling for years, some of them for more than a decade.

One young woman in particular will always have a special place in my heart.  She suffered a stroke some years ago, but although the allowance she received was inadequate to pay for proper medical treatment and therapy, she stayed at her post.  On the day of her commissioning, she limped across the platform and did her best to raise her right hand in a Salvation Army salute.  I thought I saw Ken's eyes water as he presented her with an officer's commission, and my thoughts turned to a quote I heard some years ago:

  

 If God is all you have, you have all you need.

 

Another lesson from my Kenyan family.

 

 

 

Falling Together

So we’re not giving up. How could we? Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us.

 

                                                                                         --   2 Corinthians 4:16-17 (The Message)



It has been a wild couple of weeks.  So on this national holiday of Labour Day, Ken and I decided to stay home and rest.  Wanting to get in a bit of exercise and try to process all that has happened recently, we got up at sunrise, donned our sweatsuits, strapped on our hiking boots, and left the house to hike the muddy paths behind our compound.

Our solitude did not last long, though.  Every few yards, someone stopped us on the trail to say hello.  Others looked up from back-breaking work in their small shambas and waved to us with broad smiles on their faces.  When we eventually reached the main road, motorcyclists honked, children standing at the doors of their mud-walled homes yelled out greetings in various local languages, and one car even stopped to ask how we were today.  It seemed to make no difference to the driver, or to anyone else for that matter, that traffic on the road had come to a complete halt.  Oh, the warmth and friendliness of Kenyans!

 

Now that I think about it, that road is still a bit of a challenge for me.  I have driven to work several times since coming to Kakamega, of course, but I still have not had the nerve to drive to the market.  It's only ten minutes up the road, but those ten minutes present the driver with a challenging obstacle course that includes unsteady old men with canes, women straining under the weight of firewood balanced precariously on their heads, children in school uniforms running to and fro, all types of vehicles in various stages of disrepair, a roaming collectionn of cows, chickens, and pigs, potholes large enough to swallow you whole, and a police checkpoint.  On top of all that, the GPS system in my van is in Japanese, and no one has been able to figure out how to turn it off.  So whenever I'm trying to negotiate my way down that road, I hear an insistent female voice giving what I am sure are urgent instructions in a language I can't understand.

But I'm not to be defeated.  So last week, I got up early, spent a few minutes praying for courage and protection, grabbed the car keys, and marched out to the van, determined to drive where I had never driven before.  I unlocked the door, put the key in the ignition, and turned it.  It promptly broke in half.  I called Ken, and he sent a driver to pick me up.  But I didn't have enough money to buy what I needed at the market, so the driver went back to the office to get my husband.  On the way there, his car was hit by a motorcycle.

When I finally reached home later that day, I attempted to apologize for having caused so much trouble by making Ken's favorite dessert, apple crumble, with a few apples that I had been able to find.  Of course, about halfway through the process, the power went out.  I left the pan in the oven, thinking that perhaps it might stay hot enough to finish the dessert.  But after doing other things for fifteen minutes or so, I realized to my horror that power had been restored.  Well, it's not that I simply realized this.  It was more a matter of smelling something burning.  I frantically ran back to the kitchen to get the potholders, and the handle on the drawer they were in broke off in my hand.  What a day. 

 

But it didn't end there.  In fact, that day seemed to trigger a chain of events in which a number of things simply fell apart.  For example, we've since had several massive thunderstorms in Kakamega, one of which pelted us with hailstones as big as golf balls.  Our buildings and vehicles paid the price.  I also came down with a sore throat, but the local chemist says that he won't have any antibiotics until this weekend.  We've had to cancel or postpone several Territorial events due to lack of funds, and the normal flow of requests from our corps, schools, and institutions for everything from roofs to water tanks has seemingly become a raging torrent.

 

So now that I'm finally sitting here in my quiet home on a national holiday, I asked the Lord a few minutes ago to speak to me.  And I never thought that He would use Marilyn Monroe to do that.  But for some reason I remembered an occasion on which she said, "Sometimes good things fall apart, so better things can fall together."  Yes, that's right.  God is still in control, and he will often use broken things to bring Him glory.  So I won't give up.  And besides, it's going to be interesting to see what great things the Lord is going to accomplish in and through broken little me.

 

Another Jolene - Kakamega Central

 

Planting a tree in Kapsabet

                   

Donating Soap-Making Supplies to a Women's Group