Intense Email from Kenya

PLEASE READ THIS EMAIL BELOW. IT IS VERY TRAGIC. PRAY FOR KENYA. THESE ARE THE TOWNS I WAS IN JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO. IT'S UNBELIEVABLE. PLEASE SUPPORT CHRIST'S HOPE IF YOU CAN.

Dear friends,

Firstly let me say at the onset that my family and I are safe so far. Its a trying time in the country and I have managed to get to e-mail this am. Kisumu town is littered with dead bodies mostly young people under 30 yrs of age. We have no traffic in or out of town and people have looted all the food stores.
Hospitals like ours have run out of food and medicines and Red Cross are trying their best to share whatever little they have with others.
Things are calmer this morning but the curfew is still on within most towns in the country. I counted 18 fresh bodies this morning on my way here to a mates house to send this e-mail. People are killing their neighbours if they are from a different tribe.
The government sadly has let its people down but we pray that the next few days will bring change. Many towns near me Kisumu, kakamega, eldoret, busia, kericho, aree mostly on fire. the infrastructure is which has taken decades to build is in smoke.
The people of Kenya have spoken through the ballot and we hope the international community will do something to make the head of state concede defeat and prevent Kenyans from killing one another.

Friends, its a bad start to 2008 in Kenya but one must never give up, the power of the people will eventually prevail. I am keeping my head low but staying safe. I am harbouring 5 families in my house who are the wrong tribe in town but are Kenyans who deserve better.
Will keep you updated and many thanks for those who called and/or texted me.

ps: Our local TV and radio have been banned from transmitting live broadcast and we are only relying on the the BBC world service.

WIshing all of you a happy 2008.

Hezron.

Letter to Darfur

Dear Darfuri Refugee,

I need to tell you about something horrible happening here in the United States. You may not believe it but it is actually true. You see, here in America we have these giant stores that sell things like furniture, clothing, hammers and waffle irons. These stores get very busy during the month of December because lots of people buy presents for their friends and family to celebrate holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah. Over the past few years many of these stores have stopped issuing the usual "Merry Christmas" greeting to shoppers and on their mail order catalogs and instead say, "Happy Holidays". I know, it is hard to imagine, isn't it!?! Here we are trying to live out the true meaning of Christmas by spending lots of money on things people need really bad, and we can't even get a little "Merry Christmas" from the check out girl.

Well, I knew you of all people would be able to relate with our difficult plight, since in your country of Sudan over the past few years over 200,000 of your people have been murdered through acts of genocide and 2.5 million have been forced from their homes like you and now live as refugees. I hope you will forward this email to your people so they will understand the atrocities happening here in the United States and will be encouraged that they are not the only people in the world who are suffering.

Merry Christmas!
Your Concerned American Friend
www.savedarfur.org

Calvary To Kenya Blog

We have a blog for my trip to Kenya. There is actually a team already in Kenya that is part of our Calvary Church High School Ministry. I planned the trip that this team is on as well so I am very excited for them to be there. My team leaves this Sunday, August 12th and returns on August 26th. The blog is for both groups so there are a couple posts already.

Check it out at http://calvarytokenya.wordpress.com

Kenya Team Pictures

Here is the Kenya Team minus about four people. We were in the youth room of Mount of Olives Lutheran Church which had all this cool graffiti art. That's why we are flashing the gang signs.

Choose to Wait

I just got back from an all-day training on how to teach Choose to Wait classes in Kenya this summer. That's just a part of what we will be doing, but it should be an ideal way to help and to share Christ with people. The African people are showered with lies about sex and AIDS by their parents, older siblings, and even government leaders. Women are essentially "sold" by their parents to a man to be his wife and therefore the man acts as if he owns her rather than loving her as Christ loves the church. Government leaders have said that if you have sex with a virgin you will be cured of AIDS. People are not valued as being created in God's image so they can be exploited completely.

We learned how to communicate God's design for them and God's value for them through Genesis 1-3. It is essentially abstinence training with teaching about God all wrapped into one. It was a bit long and so the high school students (and myself) got a bit bored after a while, but it was a good foundation to build our planning upon. We will be teaching this content at schools, orphanages, and youth jails.

Vacation gives me blog blues

I don't understand why, but every time I go on vacation I don't feel like blogging when I get home. We have been pretty tired from the travel and I was at church from 7:30am-3:00pm today.
I will do some BRIEFS:
1.We had a good Kenya meeting today. I'm getting more excited about the trip.
2. Brent preached it today at church.
3. I'm speaking the next three Sundays in Elevation.
4. Tomorrow is Gracie's birthday. I can't believe she is four.
5. We got upgraded to first class again on the way home from Seattle. I like it there.
6. The Anaheim Ducks are awesome. It was fun watching hockey in Canada with people who actually care.
7. My Fantasy Baseball team has 5 players on the Disabled List. This is not what you want.
8. The church consultant comes this weekend. Should be interesting.
9. I still want a tattoo.
10. TV shows I love - Scrubs, 24, Heroes, Lost, CSI, The Soup, Man vs. Wild, Studio 60, How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock, Law & Order SVU, and two horrible ones that I actually like - American Idol and America's Next Top Model. I don't watch The Office yet. I will probably do the DVD thing with it. The first episode annoyed me almost as much as Rosie O'Donnel or Victor so I never watched it. But I need to give it another chance.

10 Briefs

1. My first day at OC AIDS Services Foundation was good. I talked for a while with the head of volunteers and helped dispell some of his presuppositions about pastors. I helped make an email list for the AIDS Walk on May 12.
2. Matt Doan, High School Pastor at Calvary Church, started a blog. It's called OrangeCountyPastor which shows Matt's love for combining three words together (The High School group is called EveryDayLife) and his nerdiness. It's a cool blog other than the lame quotes on top and the RSS feeds on the bottom.
3. I am valuing the concepts of Sabbath and sabbatical more and more. Especially after conversations with staff members struggling with burnout. We need to "feed our forgotten souls" as Paul Borthwick says.
4. I'm going to see the movie "300" tonight. I'm a combination of excited and apprehensive. I've heard it's gnarly.
5. I'm going to buy a new surfboard. Mine is about 10 years old. When I realized that I wanted to turn myself into a dorky high school freshman and make fun of myself.
6. We have a Kenya meeting this Saturday. I'm looking forward to this trip but it's a bit all consuming.
7. Trader Joe's banana bread is excellent for breakfast - especially with Kona coffee.
8. Be careful what you say in staff meetings. It can backfire on you.
9. I recently got Logos Bible Software and I suck at it so I wanted to go to a training seminar and I saw this. WOW!! I need to go to this. It's for ministry.
10. GO UCLA BRUINS TONIGHT!!

OC AIDS Services Foundation

I wasn't going to post about this for a while but Mike has forced my hand with this post about the OC AIDS Walk. Our church has been on a series that is casting vision to our people for being more involved in our community. These need to be consistent ministry relationships that are close to our community where we can eventually talk about Jesus. Mostly we want to live Matthew 5:16 of letting our light shine before people so they see our good deeds and praise our Father in Heaven.

I knew that I was going to Kenya this summer with our high school students and an organization called Christ's Hope ministering to people who have AIDS or are affected by AIDS. So I thought, why help across the world, but not at home? Then I started searching online for a good AIDS organization in Orange County and I found OC AIDS Services Foundation. A week ago I went to a Volunteer Information/Orientation Meeting at their office in Costa Mesa. It seems like they are doing good work and I can get involved in some different ways - starting with helping in the office and the Food Pantry. Then working at the OC AIDS Walk on May 12. Later I could deliver meals to client's homes or drive client's to the doctor office or things like that.

I'm excited to break some barriers between evangelical pastors and the AIDS community. It should be challenging, but fun and rewarding in a Kingdom-sense.

I WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO JOIN ME ON THE AIDS WALK ON MAY 12.

Crazy Weekend

So I left on Friday afternoon for our church's Men's Retreat. It was a Wild at Heart theme with a couple people from John Eldredge's team coming to do the speaking - one of which is Bart Hansen who is a member/former elder of our church. It was pretty cool actually. I usually think the Men's Retreat is incredibly boring. The whole million video clip method of teaching definitely keeps you engaged. The big thing I don't understand is why we have to have so many meetings. More fun, less meetings. It's like the clip from Jerry Maguire that we watched. Fewer clients, less money. I say, "More fun, less meetings." Am I going to get fired like Jerry? Probably not. We did play Ultimate Frisbee in about 4 inches of snow on a huge football field. Very tiring, but muy fun.

Some of us drove home on Saturday night because we had church responsibilities. I actually preached both services on Sunday. I like doing the Celebration service. It's about twice as big as our Elevation service, but that's not why I like it. It's has less energy and enthusiasm as our Elevation service, but that's not why I like it. I like it because the people love talking about it after the service. I was talking to these three adorable older ladies after the service who just wanted to chat. It was funny and kinda fun. They loved that I teased our Sr Pastor in my sermon about being a germa-phobe.

Then we had Hume Lake sign-ups and had hundreds of people outside the gym. We had a big "cookout" as my southern friends would call it. We raised about $1,500 for the Kenya trip with the BBQ as us SoCal people call it. Awesome.

I left the house at about 6:30am and got home at 2:45pm and I was on my feet the whole time after being on the Men's Retreat. Needless to say, I am exhausted. It's good to be with my family.

P.S. We leave for Maui next Saturday. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

Fun Dinner and Africa

So today we had our first Africa Team Meeting and it went really well. It was a bit of an information dump, but there was a lot to communicate. I told them about the Travel Warnings and they weren't freaked out or anything.

Then we had dinner at Matt and Marie Doan's house and Tim and Natalie Nellis came too. Matt is the High School Pastor at Calvary and Tim used to be an Associate in High School Ministry and is now the youth pastor at Rancho Bernardo Baptist Church. Marie is the serious Barefoot Contessa. Awesome food. The weigh-in will probably be problematic tomorrow. The creamed corn and the flourless chocolate cake with a raspberry sauce and chocolate chip ice cream were my favorites. The Spinach-Artichoke dip was delicious too. Everything looked beautiful. Such great hosts!!

Tim and Natalie took high school students to Kenya with the same organization we are going with last summer. They also just got back from a two week trip to Kenya about a week ago. They were contemplating becoming full-time missionaries there, but have decided that this is not the right time for that in their lives. They were able to tell us all about the places we would go and even had a cool video and some pictures. It made me start to get really excited about the trip, but it's also making Bea get kinda nervous. I feel bad about it, but I'm committed to taking all these people and I really feel like God wants me to do this, so what can I do? If you are in SoCal in the middle of August and you know my wife, then help keep an eye on her and our two kids!!

Kenya Frustration

I am supposed to be taking about 30 high school students and staff to Kenya this summer to work with people suffering with AIDS or affected by others suffering with AIDS. Our team and their parents are having our first formal meeting this Sunday, but then the US Government just issued this Travel Advisory. It's pretty serious.

February 06, 2007

This Travel Warning is being issued to remind American citizens to consider carefully the risks of travel to Kenya at this time due to ongoing safety and security concerns. This supersedes the Travel Warning of August 10, 2006.

The Department continues to recommend that private American citizens in Kenya evaluate their personal security situation in light of continuing terrorist threats and increasing incidents of violent crime. Terrorist acts may include suicide operations, bombings, attacks on civil aviation, and attacks on maritime vessels in or near Kenyan ports. Violent criminal attacks, including armed carjacking and home invasions/burglary, can occur at any time and in any location, and are becoming increasingly frequent, brazen, vicious, and often fatal. In January 2007, two family members of a U.S. Embassy employee were killed by armed carjackers. Kenyan authorities have limited capacity to deter and investigate such acts.

U.S. citizens should be aware of the risk of indiscriminate and random attacks on civilian targets in public places, including tourist sites and locations where foreigners are known to congregate, as well as commercial operations associated with U.S. or other foreign interests.

American citizens in Kenya should remain vigilant, particularly in public places frequented by foreigners such as clubs, hotels, resorts, upscale shopping centers, restaurants, and places of worship. Americans should also remain vigilant in residential areas, schools, and at outdoor recreational events, and should avoid demonstrations and large crowds.

Americans who travel to or reside in Kenya despite this Travel Warning are encouraged to register through the State Department.

Our Missions Ministry at church doesn't want us to go there and I don't think it's a great idea either, but I'm not sure if I should have more faith or patience. The organization we are going with, Christ's Hope, has ministry sites in other countries such as Namibia and Zimbabwe so we will probably be able to transfer the trip to another site. But this is all a big bummer.

Darfur is Dying

I saw this for the first time on Marko's blog and it is a very cool thing that can help students and yourself and myself be more aware of what is going on in Africa, but specifically Sudan. I plan to use this with my Kenya team - fo sho!

So check it out here - Darfur is Dying.