Ten Things Kenyan Orphans Don't Know

1. What it's like to fly across the ocean. Not only is the experience of international flight highly unlikely for them, but the concept that a team of people traveled over 24 hours stepping foot in 5 different airports in three nations in order to see them has little context for them. They know that different-looking people just show up sometimes, act and talk a bit funny, talk a lot about God, give lots of hugs, and then leave after a week or two, until the next batch shows up a few months or a year later.
2. That there are sponsors. We don't explain the whole sponsorship idea to them. At the orphanage, we don't have sponsors for every child, so having a label of "sponsored" or "unsponsored" would be very damaging. We tell each of them that they have friends in the US, adults and children, who love them and pray for them and write them letters. We don't mention the money or the status of being sponsored.
3. A mortgage. This is more than just the family never having a mortgage. How buildings are paid for is completely different. Most Luo people in this area will never finance a building. Rather, they piecemeal everything. Save enough money to build a wall, then you build the wall. Then you wait to save more money for the next part. That's also how you put gas in the tank or get minutes on your cell phone. You don't fill up the tank or get a monthly plan. You put in a little bit of gas frequently, because that's what cash you have. You put just a few minutes on the phone because that's what cash you have. Piecemeal.
4. Identity theft. No digital footprint at all. Perhaps no birth certificate. No identity card or even identity number. And therefore, completely immune to identity theft. But also prone to falling through the cracks.
5. Having the air conditioning go out. Sounds obvious. But with this also means no griping and moaning when it goes out. No expensive repairs. No tendency to "hole up" indoors and become more isolated from your neighbors. No monthly bill big enough to buy a couple of weeks' worth of groceries in order to be more comfortable. But also no way to cool a malaria-induced fever.
6. A bad waitress. No restaurants, no waitresses, no bad service. There are restaurants around, but most of our kids won't eat in one until they are much older, if at all. Rather, food preparation is an event, a social interaction, a training time from older to younger, a daily rhythm, a responsibility even for the kids. No Happy Meals with toys that become boring after an hour, no playscapes, no mess left under the table that someone else has to clean up for minimum wage. Food is not fast - food is fellowship.
7. The assumption of medical care. If one of the kids here gets hurt, you just go to the hospital. You don't worry about how much money is in your wallet, or even if your insurance will cover it. You just go. Or better, you just call and they come and get you. In the village we go to, if an orphan gets hurt, there is no hospital nearby. Furthermore, there is no assumption of just going. If you don't have the cash on you, you might not get care, so you count your money to decide whether or not to go. And so sometimes you decide not to go. Instead of the assumption of medical care, your assumption is that the child will just make it without care.
8. Fame. Fame and popularity are amazingly low priorities. Not just "American Idol" fame, but BMOC fame at an orphanage in a village. The group ethic is so much stronger - success is more often group success than individual success. Not a Socialist removal of success to level the playing field, but true success as a group. Fewer Lone Rangers. "Luo Idol" fame, if you will. (The more modern the area in Kenya, the more individualism, it seems.)
9. An unwelcome guest. Yes, there are bad characters roaming around, and they are unwelcome. But other than that, if you show up unannounced, they are actually glad to see you! More than that, they are eager to invite you in. We've seen people show up unannounced, and not only stay for dinner, but stay for the week!
10. Escape. This hits me every time I depart. We heroically "rough it" for two weeks, then leave. Within hours we are in air conditioned, multi-storied buildings, and after an elongated day, back in our own beds. They are still there, where we "roughed it." Our two weeks is their 24X7. What we "put up with," they live. Chances are, it is what they will live their entire lives. Our ministry to them gives them a far better chance to live it well, and perhaps bring change to themselves and their neighbors. But few will know escape. (It’s not a horrible place that needs to be escaped, but there are hardships that do.)

Reread this article and realize how many things that Kenyan orphans know that we don’t. Please pray for these infinitely valuable bearers of God's image who know so much.

Mattera's List

In last Sunday's sermon, I forgot to bring with me an article written by Joseph Mattera comparing a "Kingdom mentality" with a "church mentality" - comparing the thoughts and actions of those who put the Kingdom first against the thoughts and actions of those who care more about the institution of church than God's Kingdom. Here's is Mattera's list as he originally published it on his blog (http://josephmattera.org/):

1. A kingdom mindset releases all saints as ministers in the marketplace. A church mindset merely trains people to serve in a church building on Sundays.
2. A kingdom mindset creates wealth to transform a community and nation. A church mindset motivates giving to build our own church programs.
3. A kingdom mindset is a holistic approach that integrates the gospel with politics, economics, and public policy. A church mindset insulates the gospel from politics and public policy.
4. A kingdom mindset views the Bible as a blueprint to structure every aspect of society. A church mindset views the Bible merely as a pietistic book that enables us to escape the world, enter heaven, and be spiritual.
5. With a kingdom mindset churches embrace and love their surrounding unchurched communities. With a church mindset churches only embrace converted individuals within their faith communities.
6. A kingdom mindset trains people for all of life. A church mindset trains people only for church life.
7. A kingdom mindset nurtures leaders who are world changers and “cultural creatives” who articulate truth to society. A church mindset nurtures leaders who speak religious language relevant only to church people.
8. A kingdom mindset speaks of the rule of God over the entire created order. A church mindset speaks of the rule of God through deacons and elders over those in a church congregation.
9. With a kingdom mindset pastors release their people to their vocational callings in the marketplace. A church mindset controls people by marginalizing their marketplace callings and emphasizing only their Sunday ministries.
10. A kingdom mindset applies a Spirit-empowered approach to the natural world. A church mindset involves a spirituality that separates from the natural world.
11. Those with a kingdom mindset are working toward a renaissance of Christendom. Those with a church mindset merely strive for a particular expression (denomination) of Christianity.
12. Churches with a kingdom mindset equip 100% of the saints to fill up all things in every realm of life (Ephesians 4:10-12). Those with a church mindset have as their primary goal to equip the 2-3% of the congregation called to be full-time church pastors, ministers, and missionaries.

Assume that What Grows Above Ground has God-given Roots

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." 

-- Augustine

Last Sunday, we talked about ways that we get stuck in circles in our relationships (and ways that we can get stuck in discipling one another). The first step out of this futile cycle is to assume that what grows above ground has God-given roots. This first point of the three caused a bit of discussion.

What grows "above ground" are the ways that we communicate and act - the words that we say, the tones in which we say them. What grows above ground may be good lawn or weeds - good, accurate, kind words or mean-spirited, untrue words. Most often, it's a mix of some good plants and some weeds. We get "stuck" when all we do is engage what grows above ground, and especially when assume that there could be nothing legitimate about what the other person did or said. Our first point is to assume that everything we do and say is an expression of a God-given need - that there is something very, very legitimate about it, no matter how ugly it looks above ground.

God made us in His image. One of the many implications of this truth is that God specifically designed us to have core needs that would be satisfied only in Him. This makes us unique from all the other creatures. He made us with the core need to love and be loved, to have purpose and significance, to matter, to have emotional, physical, and spiritual security, to be in healthy relationship with others, and so on. These needs motivate everything we do, and are designed to seek out God for soul satisfaction.

God's Law directs us to find our satisfaction for these needs ultimately in God. Look at the Old Testament Law with this in mind, and you'll see that what God is doing is preventing us from seeking satisfaction for those needs in other things, and furthermore, to pursue satisfaction only in Him. We see this most intensely in His prohibition against idolatry and demand for exclusive worship.

One way to understand sin is that it is pursuing God-given needs by God-forbidden means. Obvious examples include substance abuse (to seek the God-given need for joy or meaning), promiscuity (to seek the God-given need for love and connection), and violence (to seek the God-given need for things to be under control). Less obvious examples include things like gossip (to seek self-righteousness). It's not hard to look at any particular sin and see how it is a failed attempt to satisfy a God-given need by something other than God.

Jesus, of course, was absent of this failed pursuit. He sought satisfaction for all the things His human nature needed, but He sought them only in His Father. The three temptations that Satan threw at Him in the wilderness were precisely to fulfill God-given needs in something other than the Father. His three responses were that He would find what His soul desires only in His Father. Fast forward to the end of the story of man - how is our eternal state described in Scripture other than full satisfaction for all our needs, specifically and exclusively in Christ?

Everything we do is driven by trying to satisfy God-given needs. In relationships, we may say horrible, ugly, untrue things - but what we're trying to do underneath all that illegitimate dialog is to satisfy a God-given need. (We often do not realize this, but it drives us nonetheless - we do everything to scratch God-given itches, and our sinfulness often diverts us in that pursuit)

If we stop assuming this simple truth about one another, then when one of us does speak in weed-like ways, the other will ignore the God-given need being expressed and focus only on the weediness. We get stuck
never attempting to help one another find our true satisfaction in Christ, because we've assumed there's no God-given need to be satisfied. We focus on the illegitimate and ignore the legitimate, and then wonder why we're stuck.

This assumption is essential before we can attempt the next two steps (ignore the weeds and cultivate the deep soil). This assumption is an act of grace.

You Don't Build an Outhouse Out of Platinum

We have been spending a lot of time lately on the idea of discipleship (which, quite frankly, is what every church should be saying all the time). It is the task given to the Church in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). The word we have chosen to describe the process of developing disciples is  cultivate, which brings to mind the hard labor of a farmer working with God, who is the one who makes the plants grow. In 1 Corinthians 3:5-9, Paul employs the same metaphor when he describes his own strain and labor in Corinth, along with that of Apollos, in developing disciples there, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused it to grow."

In the next paragraph, Paul switches metaphors from farming to construction, but makes the same point. He teaches that our labor of "construction" (of disciples) can be done with valuable, enduring materials (such as gold, silver, and precious stones) or with unsturdy, cheap materials (such as wood, hay, and straw). In the end, all our labor of construction will be tested by fire (which, of course, will burn up the wood, hay, and straw, but purify the gold, silver, and gems).

Think about how valuable this building must be! If the general contractor gives us valuable ores and precious stones to build with, then he must think that the thing that we're building (disciples) is extremely important. You don't give the builders valuable materials to build an unimportant structure, and you don't give them cheap materials if you want them to build a special building. The materials he expects us to build with tells us the value he places on the thing he wants built.

There are other clues that God puts a high value on this building. Paul tells the builders they need to be careful how they build (v. 10) - such a warning would be unnecessary if the building wasn't important. The testing by fire (v. 13) tells us that the owner must care an awful lot about the building, since he has such a severe test for quality. This building (the community of disciples) is called a "temple," which houses God's own Spirit (v. 16) - no building could have a more important function! Furthermore, if anyone destroys that temple, he will in turn be destroyed (v. 17). This temple is holy (v. 17). What we are building is valuable and important!

Therefore, when we're talking about the process of cultivating disciples, we're not just talking about a nice thing Christians ought to do when they find the time. This discipleship that we're studying is flooded with descriptions of how valuable God considers it to be. Cultivating disciples is nothing less than the most important building project God gave us to do, and equipped us with gold, silver, and precious stones in order to do it. What we are encouraging you to do with your family, friends, and unsaved friends holds that kind of value in God's eyes.