life

"I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone. I want a relationship with the Abba of Jesus, who is infinitely compassionate with my brokenness and at the same time an awesome, incomprehensible, and unwieldy Mystery. "
— Brennan Manning




I've been in Kenya almost 3 months, and beginning to understanding more of Kenya and its people. I have a peace knowing this is where He wants me, for this period of time in my life. Though at peace in some ways, restless in others. You see so many basic needs that people have, food, clothing, for example, and your heart aches for them. You can meet some of the needs with some Shillings (money) for the moment, but, its not lasting, sustainable, and in 2 day they can be back in the same predicament of basic life's needs. Some of these people are Guard, or Maintenance Workers  and others are people in the Community who I come across.
Almost every morning leaving my apartment,  I stand in my front yard and look out into the Rift Valley and think and pray, how do you bring a generation of people, a mass of humanity, out of a cycle of poverty and disease and brokenness, and bring them into a relationship with Jesus, a God who Loves them so deeply. .
 There are Christian Men and Woman here, who have a passion for bringing this Country out of this cycle of pain. Many Kenyan's have leadership skills, and a deep faith I'm continually trying to grasp.  Often they work alone with very little help.  But as you and I have needs for people to come alongside you,  support you, challenge you and love you,  so do the Kenyan's. Our encouragement, and just working alongside them, helps them realize they're not alone, is so appreciated by them.
On Saturday I was able to use a friends motorcycle, and went down to Kijabe Town, which is about 4 miles out of RVA. I visited 3 Kenyan families who live close to each other. They have a borehole for water that is virtually dry. This is a common problem in Kenya. We were looking at other ways to collect and store water. This is something very knew to me,  learning how people live with this shortage and lack of water. One of the easiest ways to collect water, is from off the roofs of a house, when it rains.  Sometime with in January,  a Kenyan friend and I,  will be installing gutters on a couple houses. We will direct the water to a  tank which they already have. This tank was used for the borehole well, which is now dry.  

Some of the photo's I posted are of a trip I made to Masi Land to visit Givan one of the Guards here at RVA. I had lunch at his house which was great. He also showed me the little school next  to his house where small Masi children attend.  I sat in Givan's small house and listened to  him share about his life growing up as a Masi Warrior and now a married man with 2 children.  Such a great story.
I will write more about it soon.

RVA will be on break for the month of December, therefore I'll be making a trip back to California for the month, then back to Kenya on December 30th. I hope to see you all.

I hope all is going well with you, thank you for your prayers and support.
God Bless

dave