Imagine children ...

We have this mob of really great kids at our church, and we do a lot of things just for them.  Classes and events and celebrations.

Their parents do much more, of course. If you think about all the work involved in taking care of all those kids, there's so much laundry and meals and school attendance and activities.  If you try just to imagine all the groceries, it's pretty impressive.

Then you imagine them sitting down with their families to eat and talk at the end of the day.  It's worth all the effort, of course.

Now, imagine those same families suddenly moved to a world where there aren't any grocery stores.  Imagine the parents now with no jobs, no wealth, and no ability to change things.

This precious young lady is a friend of ours.  She's the youngest in her family of nine and they live in eastern Africa.  They're gracious, hospitable, and hard-working.  Magnificent folks, really.

What is life like for her family?  They don't have running water or grocery stores or washing machines or electricity.  They don't have a car or phone.  They do have a small flock of goats and two camels.  They're perhaps nicer than most folks in the developed world.  The difficulties they face - keeping kids in school and fed.

About 15% of the world lives like she does. An income equivalent of at most $2 per person per day is the common circumstance.  It's the same for most children where she lives.

Things you might do if you're inclined to make a difference:

• Go.  Go see for yourself.  Across town or across the ocean.  Stay long enough to get to know some folks.  Perhaps instead of a comfortable vacation, consider a challenging adventure into the real world.  Then go again if you can.
• Give.  Figure out how much is generous.  Then double that.  If it isn't difficult, there's no sacrifice, and you're unchanged.  Include your children in the discussion; that's essential. Re-work your budget for next year and increase your giving again.  Give until you have to adjust your comfortable lifestyle to keep it up.  Do that from now on.
• Help.  Find out where the practical needs are and pitch in; work with those who are effective.  (World Vision, UNHCR, UNICEF, Salvation Army, and churches often have local and international assistance work)
• Hope.  Push back the hopelessness for just one family by giving them a hand up.  Or two families.  Or ten.
• Learn.  Study deeply enough to get past your emotional response and get practical with your efforts.  Helping without hurting isn't as easy as it sounds. Pity isn't helpful.  Friendship is. 

Rinse.  Repeat.

Friends of ours since the early days, three here

are siblings; can you pick them out?
(click for larger version)

Kids in Kenya with food

provided by the churches.

If you're middle-income in the west, you're in the world's top 10% for wealth.  It's something we need to understand.

Rethink, adjust, do differently.  Or not. 

Don't let me persuade you; go see for yourself! It's a life-changer and includes more joy than you can imagine!  :)

___________________________________

The following is a quote from “Africans – Altered States, Ordinary Miracles” by Richard Dowden. 

“If you go you will find most Africans friendly, gentle and infinitely polite.  You will frequently be humbled by African generosity.  Africans have in abundance what we call social skills.  These are not formally taught or learned.  There is no click on have-a-nice-day smile in Africa.  Africans meet, greet and talk, look you in the eye and empathize, hold hands and embrace, share and accept from others without twitchy self-consciousness.  All these things are as natural as music in Africa.

“Westerners ... often find themselves cracked open.  They lose inhibitions, feel more alive, more themselves and they try to understand why they have only half lived.  In Africa the essentials of existence - light, earth, water, food, family, love, sickness, death - are more immediate, more intense.  Visitors suddenly realize what life is for.  To risk a huge generalization: amid our wasteful wealth and time-pressed lives we have lost human values that are still around in Africa.”

_______________________________________

You might appreciate The Life of Samuel.

The Life of Samuel

"I was maybe three when I first attended school," my friend Samuel tells me.  "We had no building, so we met under a large tree.  The schoolmaster was an Anglican Christian fellow.  He invited us to come back on Sundays and promised to teach us about God and his son.  We learned to pray and sing."

As the first-born son, Samuel's responsibilities grew over the years to be a heavy burden.  He took on the task of feeding the family and helping raise his eight brothers and sisters.  He did his best while trying to keep up with his own schooling.  When he became a Christian, his father threw him out of the house, and "I lived three days in the bush."  He tells the story with a smile now, "until my grandmother came and stood up for me to my dad."  "You let him stay in the house and you let him be a Christian," grandma demanded though she herself wasn't a believer.

Gracious help along the way allowed his survival and that of the family.  His two youngest sisters were married young; sold actually, in exchange for cows.  The family was in need and couldn't refuse the offer.  One was married to a much older fellow who died after fathering six children by her.

Samuel's studies led him into business and economics, an unlikely path until you hear the story.  Once settled into life, marriage, and employment with an income, he felt God was telling him to leave and begin to build the church.  He did, and everyone told him he was crazy.  (the business he resigned, a multinational corporation that had groomed him for advancement,  closed their doors in Kenya soon after.)

Build the church.  Preach the gospel, do the gospel, feed the hungry, clothe the naked ... and encourage them to pursue the grace of God as they worked together and helped one another.  He established small groups, not for bible study but for business study and cooperative effort.  They each brought the little they could spare to the group and deposited it in a bank account until there was enough to borrow for a small business attempt.  Selling charcoal (went well), selling vegetables (much more difficult), with good results.  They continue in their success to give back for the sake of others.

"I'll build you a house," Samuel told the widow.  He'd walked the two hours to the village where she lived to meet her.  She'd come to the church, walking the two hours each way, so he went to inquire.  He found her living under a tree with her children.  She'd been driven from her husband's land after he died, sent back to the village she'd come from, but none would take her in.  Now living on the bare ground, she had nothing.  "What can I do to help," he inquired.  "I need a safe place to live with my children."

Samuel and the church raised enough for the framework and built her a modest two-room house.  For roofing tin, Samuel gave the roof from his own house to cover her new home, but that's another story.

The community was thrilled.  "These people are real; look at the things they've done."
The church reaches out practically and effectively.  Sometimes the message is simple; we don't have money but we'll teach you how to live in God's blessing.

"I've no time for being religious," he says with a smile.  Bishop Samuel Kazungu Mkambe oversees twenty-one churches in Kenya now, and has established four churches in Burundi.  And each one is another story.  (first posted in 2013)

Update, 9/2019 - There are now 37 churches in Kenya and 9 in Burundi.  Each has a pastor and leadership which Bishop Samuel and his fellowship have trained and equipped.  Each has stories to tell of lives being changed and hope being restored.  God bless you, brother.