The men, I am told, were on their knees in the gravel, hunting each bit of maize that had fallen from the broken relief food bag.  They didn’t neglect even one kernel, but collected it all, saying the Borana word for “the children” each time they picked up another piece of the scattered maize.  “The children.”  “For the children.”  I imagine it was almost a quiet chant inspiring “Think of the children.” “The children.” “Get it all; don’t miss one that could help to feed our children.”

I was in my little tiny kitchen in our otherwise spacious Nairobi home.  Friends were coming for dinner but weren’t there yet.  I still had time.  But clumsy or hurrying, I spilled the rice across the kitchen countertop.  I returned the bulk of it to a glass jar, and I was tempted to sweep the remaining bits into the handy icecream bucket that doubles as the composter for the garden.

But suddenly it seemed like I was on that far north Kenya mountain top, standing quietly behind those men I had heard of.  I was watching them determined to pick the maize from crevices in the trailer and the gravel, and I was listening to the urgency inside their patient perseverance as they intoned their word for “the children.”  I imitated what my mind saw them doing; picking my kitchen countertop rice grain by grain, stony bits of sustenance met their companions in a prayer for children here in Kenya.  I wanted there not to pass one more generation without a sweeping realization of the
thirst quenching draught that is Christ, and of the parching heat and brackish water that is any other way.  And i was praying for myself too, to drink more often and more deeply.

Prayers came for the children to be fed spiritually as well as physically.  Another pinched rice grain synchronized its sweep toward the kettle with an asking that the children of north Kenya would not let another generation pass without revival.  Let the little children come; let them be coming en masse to love Jesus, drink of His living water, and feed on God’s word in a way that provides strength even in hungry times.

I was in my little tiny kitchen in an otherwise spacious land full of beautiful people, many of whom are desperate in a way I can hardly know or address.  But God is familiar with each person’s entirety, including their suffering.  Scripture says each one can cast all their cares on Him because He cares.  May Kenya’s children not be robbed permanently of the ability to perceive this tremendous glory of God.  May this be a generation who is given the Lord as their portion.
-Liisa

Birthdays in our family are pretty sacred, but we won’t manage to hold this one true to the day.  Tomorrow early morning I leave for a 9 day trip to Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo. I leave with two others of our OFM team, and we get to tell the story of Shalom University, the last man standing, so to speak, of higher education in NE Congo.

But before we can tell their story we have to discover it.  We have to find out why this school can grow from 60 students to 860 students in four years, while being in a town so full of conflict it takes the continuous presence of the world’s largest UN peacekeeping force to hold off the violence. Shalom University, the irony of its name is hard to miss. Yet this place can be described as no less than a catalyst for the transformation of Congo. What a story to tell, and what a way to turn 40!                  -Ted

Perfect love casts out fear, 1 John 4:18.  The verse suction-cupped itself to that anxious spot in my heart…again.  I read further and found out that being scared means I have not yet gotten Loving down thoroughly.  A little laugh burst out and my eyes widened as I read the verse and the verse read my mind.  And I was comforted that God is still working on me.  It is one thing to be loved- another entirely to be thoroughly understood and still utterly loved.

We have received a new team member named Bess Brownlee, but she is hidden away in language acquisition class and not at the OFM yet.  Looking for time to get to know her a little, we took her with us to our school’s fall play.  Ted’s teammate Andy Brown’s wife Lesa is the Director of Fine Arts at the Rosslyn Academy, where our boys attend.  She and her cast and crew put on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe this past weekend.  It was fantastic, a favorite story of ours anyway, and amazing to see school friends and acquaintances in their alter-ego forms.  But I kept thinking about Bess.  I wondered what it is like for her to begin her life in Africa now.  How odd was it for her to be part of the cheering, clapping audience for a school play in Africa?  I imagined the changes a year will bring in her and in us and in the team.  A year from now we might all know each other quite well.  I kept remembering my first month in Africa nearly eleven years ago….

So scared, I was ashamed to admit how intensely afraid of failure I felt.  After I had lost 20 pounds in about a month, many friends and family began praying for me in earnest.  From home, folks wrote encouraging notes and sent books and music.  On this side, perceptive African eyes watched and checked in with warm handshakes, daily greetings, enthusiastic praise for small efforts in Swahili.  The God I had always talked about was there and knew me.  Internally as deep as where dreams are and where the thinking and feeling goes on in quieter moments, there was nothing even in the clay of my heart to surprise the Potter.

Just a few weeks ago, we received a note from a young Kenyan friend.  He wrote about a time inside of those hard beginning days for us in Africa.  He said we had helped him out of a difficulty, and he wanted to thank us.  We cannot remember doing it.  The note told of the domino effect of the help that came when this young man needed it.  It told of his family being affected -or even blessed- in layers since that time.  It was amazing to read.  It cascaded into finding work, schooling for younger siblings, a roof that did not leak anymore.  His expression of gratitude was to the God who knew him, the God who also knew us and gave us usefulness even when we felt so broken, the God who knew the team sending us and loved energizing their offering.

I look forward to God’s success stories about him giving us more of his deeply loving spirit, ridding us of un-love, weeding the gardens of our hearts and lives of whatever looks or is unloving, and thereby sending all our fears to the point of no return.
~Liisa

One of the really cool things about being a Dad to teenage boys is the permission it gives you to have crazy adventures in the name of bonding and discipleship.  It was under such honorable and responsible convictions that my boys and I decided to arm ourselves with sticks and flashlights and leave our beachfront guesthouse late at night, after the little ones were tucked in bed, and go find some marine wildlife with large teeth.  I’d been thinking of risk, lately, and how we’re scared of some kinds of risk, but  expose ourselves willingly and unthinkingly to others.  Moray eels are nocturnal, and hunt their prey at night. Hopping from pool to pool at low tide, it didn’t take long to find one.  Soon we saw them hunting, lying quiet and just barely moving in the pools.  Usually they were just around two feet long and about as thick as a broom pole.
Then we saw him, the big one.  More than three feet long and thicker than my arm- there was something different about this one.  He didn’t move at all but stared motionless at we couldn’t figure out what.  Wanting to see if he was alive, I pushed a sea urchin towards him with my stick and he bolted- straight towards us!  We all jumped as he came right out of the water, slithering like lightning past us and into another pool, coiling up right next to the path we had just passed through.  Then he sat motionless again, just staring.  Might be better to get some distance from this one, I thought.
We continued out to sea, the few lights on the African shore seeming to shrink in the distance.  We saw several more eels, none as big as “him” though.  Other unidentified and quite strange sea creatures were revealed in the beam of our lights before reaching the end of the tide pools.  Collin’s flashlight died at that point, and we knew we’d have to go back relatively the same way we came, which meant going past “him.”
We were down to one good light and one dim light, choosing carefully our footsteps back, knowing that “he” was somewhere, silent and watching. Walking closely together, sharing the good light, Jonathan took a step onto a ridge between two pools and I saw “him,” the big one, coiled an inch below the water just 12 inches from Jonathan’s foot.  Recognizing that he hadn’t moved from our encounter with him half an hour before, I decided in that instant to just proceed, but a change in my breathing drew attention to the danger, and Collin said, “There he is!”  Jonathan directed the light straight on him, still 12 inches from his foot, balancing on the ridge between the pools.   He sucked in a sudden lungful of air.  You never know how a person is going to react in an emergency situation.  Even those who seem tough can dissolve into panic given the right amount of stress intensity, and you don’t know about yourself until it happens. Jonathan didn’t panic.  He didn’t freeze, he didn’t run or lose his balance.  He simply responded to my words of “keep going.” I followed, with Collin holding the other light behind me, the eel just staring…
The boys have some memories now, memories of witnessing first hand a beautiful and dangerous part of God’s creation.  It was an experience, a story, not possible without taking some risk.  As a storyteller I’m always interested in how danger and risk play a role in making a story interesting.  A lot of what we do in life, whether consciously or not passes through a risk/benefit filter. We’re a pretty conservative family when it comes to what we decide to expose ourselves to from the Entertainment industry.  There are risks there, both in the inadvertent adoption of values foreign to our maker, and in the simple investment of time.  It’s a little more subtle and insidious though, than a staring Moray Eel.
-Ted

Working on the video, my team and I had a lot of fun renting out the tiny wood shop in a small town in Southwest Uganda.  The missionaries and local people we worked with are a great team of faithful people, demonstrating discipleship with their lives.  Thanks to all those who prayed for this project.  It was a privilege to interact with these believers for the sake of Christ’s church in Mbarara and around the world.