Life Changer!

Ashley, from the Hardin Valley
group with Mercy's baby!

     This time of year begins the annual trek of weekly visitors to our work here at Made In The Streets.  As it stands now we currently have two different groups here doing the important tasks of encouraging our kids and supplementing the work of our staff.  The Handmade Tour Group arrived almost two weeks ago and consists of college kids and one adult sponsor. They spend time meeting our kids, teaching classes, observing the different phases of our ministry and just loving on the kids.  They will work with us for about four to five weeks and then they will return to the states where they will visit churches and universities talking about the work that is going on at Made In The Streets.  We also have a group from Knoxville, TN (Hardin Valley church of Christ) who arrived a little less than a week ago.  They have been spending the morning and early afternoons at a place called Paradise Lost holding a bible camp for street kids.  They then return to Kamulu-MITS in the afternoon and hold a camp for our students . . . which finishes everyday with a soccer match.

     Many of you have no idea the encouragement we receive when guests come to MITS.  The joy and energy they bring, the ready and willing love they so quickly give out and the steady hands ready to perform anything we ask or need of them.  Our kids are so excited to meet the new visitors, to learn their names and to just spend time getting to know them.  We also as a staff receive the benefit of getting to show visitors what we so proudly do.  We get the opportunity to show them where we walk the streets, the kinds of classes we teach, and what our daily duties are.  One of the most important things i think we get to do is tell them stories about the changed lives of so many of our students . . . about how "so and so" used to live on this corner in Eastleigh and after attending MITS and graduating, this "so and so" now has a successful job as a mechanic, a salonist or a cook.  They get to imagine what life must have been like for these kids and just how much change God has put them through to deliver them to where they are.  

The Handmade Tour Group, minus Callie & Michelle
and plus Taylor (summer merchandise intern).

     You see, MITS is one big Christian family.  We love sharing MITS and our stories about MITS with people because it is all about God changing lives.  In case you didn't know . . . God is all about changing lives!  Abraham was just another guy who lived in Ur, until God came along and called him to a new place and into a covenant with Him.  Joseph was a lowly little brother, a slave, a servant and a prisoner when God called him to become second in command in the nation of Egypt.  Moses was just a shamed shepherd until God appeared in a burning bush and called him to free the Israelite nation. Rahab was a prostitute living in a heathen city when God used her to help the Israelites.  Esther was a poor, beautiful young lady chosen to be queen to the most powerful king in all the land when she was called to be courageous and stand up for the Israelite people.  Mary was a scared young woman when God called on her to bear His Son.  Saul (named changed to Paul) was beating, arresting and murdering Christians when he had his vision on the road to Damascus and changed his life to teach others about Jesus.  You see . . . God has always been in the business of changing lives.

     In case you hadn't noticed, many of our kids are in need of a life changer. Many of them come from rough places with rough backgrounds with no hope of ever really knowing God or achieving any kind of self-worth.  Their lives are full of drugs, stealing, poverty, violence and malnourishment.  They have no conceivable plans for the near future and live only for the day hoping to survive until the next.  Most meals come from the trash dump or from what they can beg.  Most money comes from stealing or from the scrap metal that they can collect and sale.  And finally they have no idea who God is . . .that He loves them, that He created them for a purpose and that He wants to be their hope.  Instead, they want to know that if there is a God, "Where is He?", "Why did he place me here?".  

Katie, from the Hardin Valley group, posing for a pic
with Johnson.

     Thank God that our Father is in the business of changing lives!  That He wants to call these kids from the streets to something better.  That He has a plan for their lives that they can only dream about.  That He wants to change their shortcomings into strengths because of their reliance on Him.  That He wants to shore up their struggles and give them freedom through His Son. That He wants to change their stories into something that tells of the amazing work of a Father who loves them!  There is a story told about a man named Edward Steichen.  Following is a short version of his life story: 

Edward Steichen, who eventually became one of the world's most renowned photographers, almost gave up on the day he shot his first pictures. At 16, young Steichen bought a camera and took 50 photos. Only one turned out -- a portrait of his sister at the piano. Edward's father thought that was a poor showing. But his mother insisted that the photograph of his sister was so beautiful that it more than compensated for 49 failures. Her encouragement convinced the youngster to stick with his new hobby. He stayed with it for the rest of his life, but it had been a close call. What tipped the scales? The vision to spot excellence in the midst of a lot of failure. (Bits & Pieces, February 4, 1993, pp. 4-5.)

     Thank goodness that we have a God who can spot excellence in the midst of a lot of failure!  When i look over our kids, i see young people who have made a lot of mistakes in life.  I see kids, in some instances, who never really had a chance in life because of the circumstances they grew up under.  When i look at our kids, i am thankful that God is in the business of changing lives and i am excited to see what he will do in each and every one of our students. And i don't say this just on the behalf of the street kids that we work with. When i look at myself, i thank God that He can see something redeeming in me in spite of all of my failures.  That despite the mistakes i have made in my life He stills sees me as someone who is worthy of His love, someone who He designed for a purpose, someone who He wants to use to share His love to the world!

     How about you?  Do you see the excellent things that God sees in you?  Do you see the unique abilities that God has placed in you to help you realize your full potential for the Lord?  Do you see the mistakes in your life and how they have helped to shape you and mold you more into what God wants you to be?  Today i just want to encourage you to look to change your life more into the person that God wants you to be!

No More Tears!

Boys on the streets of Eastleigh

     Over the past week I have got to resume one of my favorite works at Made in the Streets. Every other Friday the Kamulu staff makes the journey into Eastleigh to do base (places where street kids hang out) work.  We typically carry bread (made by our catering students) with us to hand out, we share a word of encouragement with the street kids, we pray with them and we explain to them about our procedures at MITS and how we can help them get off the streets.  So on Friday, i visited Mutindwa base with several other staff members.  It was a good experience and once again a reminder of how hard life on the streets in Nairobi can be.  On Monday, i traveled with Larry Conway to Eastleigh to do base work again.  This experience, although similar to Friday, was an even greater reminder of the hardships of these kids on the streets of Nairobi.

     We visited several bases on Monday and had some new and interesting experiences.  The last base though was a stark reminder of why we are working with street kids in Nairobi. The last area we visited was called Mlango Kubwa.  It is a sprawling, jumbled maze of buildings, alleys and people that are all smashed together into a small area.  Everywhere you walk you are assaulted by foreign smells, sad sites and hurting people (tons of kids).  The only words that felt appropriate at the time to describe the scene was "Satan's playground. Mlango Kubwa is full of malnourished children, people on drugs (typically sniffing glue), violence at every turn, trash filled streets and endless poverty.  I kept asking myself where is the hope for this place?  How can anyone find God amidst such poverty and hurt?  I kept wondering how does God feel about Mlango Kubwa?

     We all know that God loves the people in Mlango Kubwa as much as he loves anyone in the world.  We all know that God wants them to prosper, to have a hope for the future and to live lives of love.  What separates us and our experiences and lives from those lived by the people in Mlango Kubwa?  Why are we prosperous and their lives full of struggle?
     C.S. Lewis penned these words, "I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare."  I'm not sure i have the answers to the above questions that i just asked.  But i do know that much will be expected of those who have much!  Luke the disciples writes: "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (Luke 12:48).  Our responsibility as people of God who have been blessed with much is to be willing to share those things we have.  As C.S. Lewis writes . . . "to give more than we can spare."  Now that doesn't entail that you pack up into a plane and fly to Kenya tomorrow and give to the people in Mlango Kubwa . . . but it does mean that you begin earnestly looking around you now for people with needs.  People who need to see the love of Jesus exhibited through his saints.  People who need to know that there is reason for hope in the world and that goodness exists.  People who need to know that there is a loving God who longs to welcome them into his fold and to reveal His plan for their lives.  Can you be that saint?  Will you give more that what is required?  Will you be the hands and feet of Jesus to those who are hurting?  

     The Apostle Paul pens a prayer for the believers in Ephesus and writes these words:

"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen" (Eph. 3:14-21).

I to pray this prayer for you and me!  That we will know how awesome and powerful our God is!  That despite our failings God will use us to do bigger and better things so that people will know the love of OUR GOD!
     And finally, i yearn for better days when these people in Mlango Kubwa will see their God in all His Glory!  That they will be wrapped in white robes . . . in that place where there will be no more tears, no more hunger and no more pain.  An endless time where we can all sing the glorious praises of our Father, forever and ever!

Inevitable Change

     There is a story told about a man from the back mountains of Tennessee who found himself one day in a large city, for the first time standing outside an elevator. He watched as an old, haggard woman hobbled on, and the doors closed. A few minutes later the doors opened and a young, attractive woman marched smartly off. The father hollered to his youngest son, "Billy, go get mother."

     Now as funny as that story may seem, we all have things in our lives that we wish we could change.  Now hopefully our "thing(s)" is not like the man from the back mountains of Tennessee.  In saying this, we all know that change in our lives is inevitable.  We all age and feel our bodies begin to ache and show the lines of our age.  We all know that eventually our children will grow up, go to college, get a job, get married and have children.  We all know that people will move in and out of our lives, changing the dynamics of our relationships and increasing the complexity of the ways that we communicate in those relationships.  So am i basically stating the fact that we all know: change is inevitable!

Mary Shiko, former MITS student, helping me in Bible class.
Shiko currently has a great job up near Kisumu teaching
catering.  Awesome Christian young lady!

     One of those inevitable changes that i have come to learn about and witness first hand here at MITS is that our older students will eventually graduate and we will definitely take on newer students straight from the streets.  I had become accustomed to all the kids i knew very well over the past year.  I knew how to handle them in class, i knew how to speak to them to get the best out of them, i knew how to encourage them, i knew how to console them.  But now . . . everything has changed.  Many of our older students have graduated and moved on to jobs in the city.  Many of the literacy students have moved on to skills training and my time with them has become very limited.  And now our dorms and my classes are filled with faces that i hardly know.  New kids and some that speak very limited English.  Young, smiling and unaware of the expectations that are being placed on them or the rules that they have to live under at MITS.

     Although this has been a challenge for me it has also been refreshing to witness the ways that God is changing people.  The ways that these kids grow into expectations and the ways that they are transformed with love and guidance in their life.  It's like watching a beautiful butterfly as it breaks its way out of a cocoon . . . struggling, fighting, until at last it has the strength to overcome the struggle, break free of its cocoon and open its wings to the wide, beautiful world around it.  That is the living picture of these kids here at Made In The Streets.  When these kids come to us they are lost . . . they don't know the Lord and they don't understand that God loves them and has a plan for them.  As they begin to discover these facts about God and themselves they begin to bloom.  They begin to understand that there is a purpose to their lives, that they should be living for something.  They understand that the past struggles they faced in the streets helped to shape and mold them into what God wants to use them for in His future.  The break free of that cocoon (MITS) and realize the gifts and skills that they have been given not only come from God but serve a wider purpose of service in the immediate kingdom of Nairobi.  And despite all of these challenging changes, it is amazing to witness the different ways that God changes lives.

     So today i want you to be challenged to know that God is working on you this very moment.  There is something that he wants to change in you . . . to make you more holy, to make you more like Him.  Paul writes about our transformation in 2 Corinthians:

Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?  If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!  For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory.  And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!  Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold.  We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.  But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.  Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.  But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:7-18).

Paul is explaining to us that the ministry that we have in Christ is better than the old covenant.  That the spirit of the Lord, the same one working on these kids lives here in Kenya, is alive and active and is transforming you everyday more into the image of Jesus!  And know that Spirit can do "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us" (Eph. 3:20), as i have witnessed with these kids, if we will trust in and hold onto the name of Jesus.

Assorted Pics and Thoughts

Victor Otieno posing over the okra we picked from the farm.

     So let me begin by saying it is wonderful to be back in Nairobi, Kenya working at MITS.  I love the staff and kids, their willingness to be loved and changed by God and just the heart for service that all of them have.  I am happy to be writing to you and i hope to be more responsible in taking pics and keeping you updated on a day to day basis on the happenings at Made In The Streets. 

     In the first pic we have Victor Otieno hovering over the okra that he and i had just picked.  We also had picked a bucket of tomatoes and some cucumber that i did not get a picture of.  Victor is one of our farm managers at MITS and does an amazing job managing our acreage and rotating the crops between maize, kales and an assundry of vegetables.  He is also an amazing basketball player and works with me as we bang away on the boys teaching them the finer skills of playing basketball.

Angie teaching the Intermediate class

Another pic of the Intermediate class

     In the next six pics, you see students at the learning center in their different learning level classes (intermediate, middle & advanced).  Students are divided into their classes based on their educational levels, test scores and on their English ability.  Since i have been gone for five months, many of the students that i became familiar with have since moved on to different skills at the skill center.  We have also accepted many new students as our older students graduated and found attachments in the city.  So in many of the pics you see there are many new faces of kids who have not been long off of the streets.

     And finally in the last picture, you see a sampling of a typical meal that we eat at MITS.  This meal is made up of ugali (think corn meal mush), eggs and kales.  Wahome (our literacy center chef and boys dorm supervisor) and his crew cooked an excellent tasting meal that we all consumed in no time.  Wahome cooks lunch for about 45 people everyday, all the time.  

     These pics are all just a small sampling of the day to day things occurring at MITS.  Every day that i spend here is a blessing because i get to witness firsthand how God is changing lives and using people everyday to share his love.  I pray that any of you that are reading this blog that you will one day have the opportunity to see the work that is happening at Made In The Streets.  

Students in our Advanced class

More students in our Advanced class

Students in our Middle class

More students in our Middle class

Lunch for the day!