Nairobi - Kids of the Street

For the past few weeks, we have been attending Ridgeways Baptist Church here in Nairobi. They are a very mission active church fellowship we have really come to enjoy. We volunteered to help out with a Christmas mission project to provide help for the street boys in downtown Nairobi. We tried to meet their immediate needs with food and a blanket but we also tried to meet their eternal need with prayer and the gospel as well.

RBC has many ministries to minister and evangelize the community. Through another ministry, several people, in a nearby slum area, recently prayed to receive Christ. When we met Tuesday afternoon to make homemade items for the boys, eight of those people showed up and volunteered to help. We were so moved by the commitment of these new Christians and RBC,s commitment to missions

First we made butter sandwiches to eat along with the hot tea we were taking them the next morning.

Then we rolled out and cooked around 200 Chapatis. A Chapati is a flatbread that is eaten with many meals here in Kenya. Even though it is only flour, water and salt, it is quite tasty once it is pan fried (Anything is delicious if you fry it, it’s a southern thing).

Chapati recipe: http://www.justkenya.org/kenya/recipes/chapati.asp

Other things that were cooked for them were beef sausages and Mandazis. A Mandazi is a delicious donut like pastry. We made up the dough, rolled it out, and cut it into triangles before frying them in deep fat (Jeff almost ate all the dough before we could get it fried). Yum! Here’s a link to a Mandazi recipe: http://www.allthingskenyan.com/food-mandazi.html

We met at the church at 5:00 AM and headed downtown (Those of you who know how much Jan loves mornings can really appreciate this). When we arrived, the boys were already waiting on us, lined up seated orderly against a wall. The first thing we did was to serve them hot tea and the butter sandwiches. We then began passing out the rest of the goodies as well as a new blanket for each of them.

After everyone was fed and the goodies distributed, we divided ourselves up among the boys and shared our testimonies, and their stories. Here, Jan is sharing with two boys. One said he did not want to be on the streets anymore and would I please pray for him to find a way off the streets. The other said he wanted to be able to go back to school. After we talked, the one on the right prayed to receive Christ. What a praise! When the other one was asked if he wanted to pray, he said “I’ve done that before, but Jesus keeps letting me down.” Needless to say this was very heartbreaking.

These boys lead a very tough life. As you might figure, most of the boys do not have adequate clothing or shoes.

They go around collecting plastic bags from garbage and sell the plastic. Unfortunately, many of them will use the money they make to purchase glue to sniff. We were told that the glue will cut the hunger pains. Please pray for these children.

This is a shot of our pastor, Pastor Wanje, and Eunice, a lady who works regularly with the street kids, praying with another boy to receive Christ.

I want you to meet another one of our new friends from Ridgeways. His name is Fred. Fred has been working with the street kid’s ministry for about a year and a half. You can see his passion for these kids. That comes from the fact that he was once one of them. Fred recently wrote out his testimony. It can be read under the “Stories and Prayers” section on the right. We are thrilled to tell you now, before you see where he has been, the direction his life is taking now. He has been called by God to work with street kids and teens. The Lord has also put the need for him to have formal training on the hearts of some believers. He started a three year course in November, concentrating on Youth Ministry, at the seminary in Nairobi. Please pray for Fred as well.

Freds story: http://jeffandjan-n-africa-prayers.blogspot.com/

40/40 Training in Zambia - Part 4 (Homestay)

The last week of 40/40 we were blessed to stay in the home of David and Zelipa Banda for three days. David is a farmer and he and his wife have 5 children ranging from 2 months to 20 years.

Here is a shot of David and Zelipa in front of the house where we slept. This small brick and tin roof structure was actually divided into three small rooms. We slept on the floor on mats in one of the rooms and all of the Banda family slept together in the front room. The house was very hot with next to no ventilation. Sleeping was rough.

This is three of the children. David Jr., Agnes and baby James.

Our first day with the Banda family was very laid back. We watched the children play a game called Nsolo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsolo It was played in the dirt using seed pods for the playing pieces.

David had been through a program entitled “Growing God’s Way” and had learned some ways to help increase his crops. Here you can see Jeff helping him plant Musangu seeds in small plastic sleeves filled with dirt. http://www.conservationagriculture.net/assets/images/media/20070621_124428_Leaflet1-HowtoPlantandLookAfterFaidherbiaalbida.pdf When these seeds have grown to be small seedlings, he will plant them among his crops. As they grow and the leaves fall onto the ground, they will act as a natural fertilizer to increase the soil fertility.

David has to water the seedlings everyday.

After lunch we made a trip to the borehole. Here you can see Jan doing woman’s work.

Over the next couple of days we had many adventures just participating in the everyday life of the Banda family. We got up at 5:30am and after a little bed and tea we walked for 30 minutes to their field. Once there we hoed small holes and then dropped velvet bean seeds into the holes and covered them over with soil. These seeds would help to produce nutrients that were good for the soil. After planting, we walked the perimeter of his field and prayed over this year’s harvest.

In the afternoon we went to visit some people from the church we wanted the missionaries to come and pray for them. We visited and prayed with widows, the sick, crippled, stroke victims, women whose husbands were not treating them well, the elderly, and those with broken relationship.

Jan had the opportunity to pound maize and Jeff was able to show David that he did know how to milk a cow.

Sunday morning as we were preparing to go to church, we witnessed our lunch being purchased and then slaughtered. Zelipa was wonderful about cooking all of our meals but when it came time to eat, we would eat in the house with David and she would eat outside with the children.

We attended church and it was packed out. I think everyone got the word that the missionaries would be there this week.

We left the Banda family Monday morning and headed back to Lusaka where we spent our final three days at Ibis Garden and nice resort complex with air conditioning and a pool!!

40/40 Training in Zambia - Part 3 (Petauke)

Halfway through our time in Zambia we took a 6 hours long hot bus ride from the seminary in Lusaka to a bush camp in Petauke.

At the camp, we stayed in tents and our meals were cooked and served from a camp kitchen.

Of course we had long drop potties and our showers were bucket showers using water that we pumped from a bore hole, burr.

Camping was a lot of fun despite some of the creepy crawly critters we encountered.

This time we were partnered together as a couple and had a new Zambian helper, Pastor Amos Mwale. Again each day we were given a Daily Field Assignment and we began by loading up in the back of a big truck and going into the boma (town). Our first DFA was to meet different city officials. Our group met with the District Commissioner. He was a strong Christian and spent most of the time encouraging us. It was a good visit.

Each day we would ride into the boma and met people in the market or in the nearby homes. We usually had a topic for the day that we would discuss with the people we would meet.

One day while we were visiting a family in the town, this little one tried Jeff’s hat on for size.

The second week in Petauke was spent walking to the homes in the nearby villages. We met many different people and heard many interesting stories about their lives in Africa.

One day we met with a retired school headmaster who had started his own business with a granary at his home.

Pastor Amos took us to his home to meet his wife and children. He also gave us a gift of ground nuts that he had grown.

Back at the bush camp we had classes each day about different aspects of African culture. One day the men went and met with the Chief and the ladies invited the Chief’s wife and the District Commissioner’s wife to the camp for tea. Other topics were driving lessons, cooking lessons, health lessons and auto maintenance classes. One day we also had a live demonstration on how to slaughter a chicken and how to slaughter a pig. Both were eaten for dinner.

The roughest part of bush camp was the HEAT! The temperature was over 100 degrees most everyday and got as high as 107. We found the best way to stay cool in the afternoon was to fill our laundry bucket with cold water from the bore hole and just sit with our feet in it. We would sleep with wet wash cloths on our chests.

By far the roughest adventure was the night Jeff passed his first ever kidney stone and had to be driven over an hour down rough bumpy roads to spend a night in the bush hospital. To read Jeff’s version of this experience, click under “Stories and Prayers” on the right. Here's the link: http://jeffandjan-n-africa-prayers.blogspot.com/

One of the beauties of bush camp was waking up each morning to look out the tent at the sun rising through the trees.

Jeff would go out into the fields most every morning and take these beautiful sunrise shots. Despite it’s heat, Zambia is a beautiful country.