It is incredible to see people with very little materially, leverage what they do have for the good of many.  Over the past several years we have seen Kenyan communities do some amazing things to improve their own well-being and quality of life.

A few examples…

Miles and miles of trenches for water lines dug in one day

An eight-acre plot of land fenced off in less than four hours

Truck loads of food gathered to help neighboring communities in need

Youth led foot washings in a local river to scrub the jiggers out of children’s feet.

And the list goes on and on…

One of the most amazing stories is a little community in the Segera area they call Black Tank.  (You guessed it… There is a large Black Tank in the community.)

For years the people of Black Tank have lived without access to clean drinking water.  The people in this area, some of the poorest I have seen in all of Kenya, decided a couple years ago that enough was enough…

to continue click here

I am realizing more and more that the developed world has a rather slanted and potentially harmful view of poverty. I will explain more about this in upcoming posts, but for today I have a question for you.

How would you define poverty?

I mean really without going to visit webster or google what definition would you give?

This is an important question, because how you define poverty will have a huge impact on how/if you go about addressing it. So, give it a think and let me know what you come up with.

Several years ago I worked as the program director for Camp Highland.  Part of my job was to line up worship leaders to come and lead worship for the campers that were spending the week in the mountains, outside of their comfort zones and doing some pretty gnarly activities.  I had the pleasure of experiencing the styles and skills of many different worship leaders over my years there.  One thing I came to learn, is that there is at least one thing that sets some worship leaders apart from others.  It’s not skill with the guitar, quality of their voice, or knowledge of trendy worship songs.  The main thing that sets them apart is that some come to “lead others into worship”  while others come to “worship” and invite those of us around, to join in.  I believe there is a difference between the two.

That is what I love about the Darja Children’s Choir.  These Kids from Kenya come from backgrounds and circumstances that you and I can hardly imagine.  Yet they worship.  They worship with joy, passion, and authenticity and they invite those of us that are around to join them.   I know Jesus is glorified and lifted up where ever they go, because regardless of the response of the audience… they worship Him!

(*Warning- Audiences all around the world have responded to God in a unique and authentic way while worshiping with the Daraja Choir.  This can become dangerous to your status quo*)

Check the the video ^ of them worshiping at NewSpring Church last week.

I took this picture at a primary school in the 410 Bridge community of Ngaamba.  The hundreds of kids who attend this school see this tattered chalk board every day.  These kids have nothing, many of them come to school hungry, have lost parents to disease, and lack having their basic needs met.  Yet in the midst of their circumstances they have a joy about them that would shame most of our students in the U.S.  We often send U.S. teams to work in these schools and spend time with these kids, one of our purposes is to help them to dream and to “think big” about what could be.  Imagine the impact of a generation of students whose authentic joy and big dreams were combined together to form a passion for their country and their people.  I thought this was a cool message to the kids that are the future of Ngaamba and Kenya!

Before my session I was out walking around with the founder and director a long time friend and mentor.  He was kind enough to introduce me to a brand new rope swing over the camp lake.  This rope swing is pretty intense…you climb several sets of stairs, walk a long narrow plank out over the lake probably 20 feet above the water when you reach the end.  A cable is strung across the lake with a long rope dangling from the cable all the way to the water (an important detail).

I decided to test this bad boy out, but there were several people around watching and waiting with anticipation and I felt some pressure to do more than just a “normal swing.”  So I reached up grabbed the rope took a few steps back pulled as hard as I could (to remove any slack) took a couple quick steps toward the edge and sprung off that bad boy like a champ.  About the time my feet left the plank I realized that my lunge had created some slack in the rope (the rapid free fall was a good indicator).  Just as I realized the stupidity in my choice…the rope tightened the weight of my body snapped to my arms and my hands slide at a very very rapid rate all the way down the rope (about 15 feet of rope)…literally melting the skin off my fingers.   The result was some of the worst pain I have ever felt.  If the words swirling around in my head when I popped out of the water, had made their way out of my mouth, I would have certainly lost all credibility in my session later that evening.

Moral of the story:  If your going to be stupid, you better be tough!

410 Bridge team working on a community water project.

Short-Term Missions Can Create a Long-Term Mess

Almost twenty years ago, I went on my first short-term missions trip to Jamaica. I do not remember the people I met there, nor much of what we did besides running a vacation Bible School, painting something, and going to the beach. However, I do remember that this trip was part of what the Lord used in my life to shape my passion for helping the poor in the Two-Thirds world. I now live in a poor country in the Global South and work full-time with an organization here that is trying to alleviate poverty. Short-terms mission trips can play a significant role in giving people a vision for God’s work. I am proof of that.

For the full artice click below:

http://www.chalmers.org/mandate/dec_2007/stm.php

Sending people on short trips all over the world to different places each year doing different things all in the name of Jesus is a strategy for missions.  I would argue that it is not a very good strategy, but a strategy none the less.  This is an air drop, we fly over drop off what we perceive to be solutions to problems, feel pretty good about what we have done and them move on to the next site to do the same.  There is little relationship, little input from the locals as to what they really need, and little followup.  It is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Imagine if a Church partnered with a community, church, or organization and focused it’s effort’s in going deep in that one place.  Imagine all the needs that would arise if we really new the people we were serving and listened to them share about their issues.  If we asked them what the solution is to their problems and then worked alongside them in a partnership to help them develop both physically and spiritually.  What if the relationship was a true partnership and they not only contributed to the solutions, but shared their God given gifts and strengths with us.  What sort of impact would this have over time?   How would the church react to the opportunity to engage with another culture in deep sustainable development.   To partner together to build a bridge.