Mi2 Intern Trivia:
Fact: there are eight Mi2 Interns this summer, seven in Kenya and one in Poland. Three of them have tattoos on their left wrists. Who are they? Answer at the bottom of the entry.
Fact: there are eight Mi2 Interns this summer, seven in Kenya and one in Poland. Three of them have tattoos on their left wrists. Who are they? Answer at the bottom of the entry.
Elise Omi
Molly Russell
Molly “RayRay” Ray
Katie Lane
Nicole “Commander/Chef” Ponton
Sam “Prophet Sam” Scott
Kate Sawyer
Joana “Powerhouse” Hufhand
Friends and Family,
Hello from Nairobi. So far Kenya has been wonderful. Our team is really clicking and we’ve been blessed to have awesome leadership from Life in Abundance. Life in Abundance is a truly wonderful organization whose model of empowering the indigenous church to serve its people is how I, and the rest of our team, believe things should be done.
The 22nd was our first Sunday in Kenya, and our first church experience. We attended Innkeeper’s Fellowship church with our friends Holly and Gus. (As a side note, the friendly faces of Holly and Gus are the faces you want to see after a 24-hour travel affair). There were about 30 people, including our team of 8. The service was wonderful; we spent the first 45 minutes in prayer and the next hour in worship, followed by two half hour sermons. Afterwards we were invited to a meet the pastor session. During the service something incredible began happening to me.
During worship, I had half a sermon come to me as we were singing so I stopped and took the time to write it all down in case I managed to forget it. At the end of worship, Pastor Julius stood up and announced that he would not be giving the sermon today, that in fact, God had spoken to one of the people here in this church, and that one of them would be giving the sermon today. Now, I think it’s important to let you all know that our team had been forewarned many times about the very real possibility that we would likely be expected to give a sermon without any prior warning. This idea has never bothered me, I’m used to teaching and doing so only partially prepared, too. But when Julius said those words, I’m pretty sure I had a heart attack and if anyone had looked back at me, I’m sure they would have thought I had seen a ghost. To me, this was one of those terrifying moments when what you have professed to believe becomes a little too real for comfort. Here I was sitting in church and the pastor was prophesizing about me, at least so I thought. After what seemed like an hour, Julius called up another member of the church who had planned to preach all along. As the cards fell, it turned out that were wasn’t any prophesizing at all, but the event did expose me to a reality I’m not sure I had ever truly believed before. I was terrified, not because I was going to have to speak and teach publicly with no real preparation, but because of the possibility that prophecy was being done right in front of me. It’s a lot easier to “believe” in some parts of the Bible without having seen them happen. There is some pretty insane stuff happening in the Bible, and life is much more comfortable when people aren’t turned into pillars of salt and a man whose flesh had been flayed off, rose from the dead after three days, and rolled away a monstrous boulder to top it all off.
I was terrified during church because what I’ve “believed” and professed to be true was actually happening before me, and everything I believed to be true was becoming very real, and if that was real, so too is everything else that I’ve “believed” including Jesus’ commands. My cheap faith was exposed for what it is.
The stakes have been raised. In life, just as in poker, with greater risk comes greater reward and my bluff has been called. Now all we have to decide is how we are going to respond. We can rise to the occasion or quit, and we must decide this everyday. To carry our cross and follow, or to deny our Christ and say he is nothing more than an ordinary man. It’s not always so clear, but the Lord has a way of providing discernment when it’s needed.
The rest of our day was filled with fellowship and fun time for our team. Nothing major EXCEPT, it was Elise’s 20th Birthday! We sang happy birthday several times and in several locations. Elise even ate red meat (she never eats red meat).
We had the opportunity to meet another team from America that is here working with LIA. They’re a group of college students from Hope International University and they arrived after spending a week in Ethiopia, and are spending another week here in Kenya. We got to know them a bit and had birthday cake with them.
A few fun notes about life in Kenya, in no particular order:
Molly Russell
Molly “RayRay” Ray
Katie Lane
Nicole “Commander/Chef” Ponton
Sam “Prophet Sam” Scott
Kate Sawyer
Joana “Powerhouse” Hufhand
Friends and Family,
Hello from Nairobi. So far Kenya has been wonderful. Our team is really clicking and we’ve been blessed to have awesome leadership from Life in Abundance. Life in Abundance is a truly wonderful organization whose model of empowering the indigenous church to serve its people is how I, and the rest of our team, believe things should be done.
The 22nd was our first Sunday in Kenya, and our first church experience. We attended Innkeeper’s Fellowship church with our friends Holly and Gus. (As a side note, the friendly faces of Holly and Gus are the faces you want to see after a 24-hour travel affair). There were about 30 people, including our team of 8. The service was wonderful; we spent the first 45 minutes in prayer and the next hour in worship, followed by two half hour sermons. Afterwards we were invited to a meet the pastor session. During the service something incredible began happening to me.
During worship, I had half a sermon come to me as we were singing so I stopped and took the time to write it all down in case I managed to forget it. At the end of worship, Pastor Julius stood up and announced that he would not be giving the sermon today, that in fact, God had spoken to one of the people here in this church, and that one of them would be giving the sermon today. Now, I think it’s important to let you all know that our team had been forewarned many times about the very real possibility that we would likely be expected to give a sermon without any prior warning. This idea has never bothered me, I’m used to teaching and doing so only partially prepared, too. But when Julius said those words, I’m pretty sure I had a heart attack and if anyone had looked back at me, I’m sure they would have thought I had seen a ghost. To me, this was one of those terrifying moments when what you have professed to believe becomes a little too real for comfort. Here I was sitting in church and the pastor was prophesizing about me, at least so I thought. After what seemed like an hour, Julius called up another member of the church who had planned to preach all along. As the cards fell, it turned out that were wasn’t any prophesizing at all, but the event did expose me to a reality I’m not sure I had ever truly believed before. I was terrified, not because I was going to have to speak and teach publicly with no real preparation, but because of the possibility that prophecy was being done right in front of me. It’s a lot easier to “believe” in some parts of the Bible without having seen them happen. There is some pretty insane stuff happening in the Bible, and life is much more comfortable when people aren’t turned into pillars of salt and a man whose flesh had been flayed off, rose from the dead after three days, and rolled away a monstrous boulder to top it all off.
I was terrified during church because what I’ve “believed” and professed to be true was actually happening before me, and everything I believed to be true was becoming very real, and if that was real, so too is everything else that I’ve “believed” including Jesus’ commands. My cheap faith was exposed for what it is.
The stakes have been raised. In life, just as in poker, with greater risk comes greater reward and my bluff has been called. Now all we have to decide is how we are going to respond. We can rise to the occasion or quit, and we must decide this everyday. To carry our cross and follow, or to deny our Christ and say he is nothing more than an ordinary man. It’s not always so clear, but the Lord has a way of providing discernment when it’s needed.
The rest of our day was filled with fellowship and fun time for our team. Nothing major EXCEPT, it was Elise’s 20th Birthday! We sang happy birthday several times and in several locations. Elise even ate red meat (she never eats red meat).
We had the opportunity to meet another team from America that is here working with LIA. They’re a group of college students from Hope International University and they arrived after spending a week in Ethiopia, and are spending another week here in Kenya. We got to know them a bit and had birthday cake with them.
A few fun notes about life in Kenya, in no particular order:
- Life in Nairobi isn’t too different from life in the states except, the roads are bumpier, you can’t drink the water out of the faucet, and there’s no A/C. In general, life here is rawer than it is in the states, while the standard of living for us isn’t much different. It will change once we get out of Nairobi. Today we go into the Kibera Slum, the largest slum in Africa.
- Driving in Kenya is the closest thing to real life Mario Kart. Aggressive driving/walking is a must, you have to dodge random inanimate/animate objects, and the borders of the road/lanes are more like guidelines than actual barriers.
- Relationships take priority over agendas. This is truly wonderful. As Americans, we spend much of our time captive to schedules and the idea of upward mobility. It’s easy to forget that God has placed us in the situation we are in at this time for a specific reason. We are called to love people, and the Kenyans do this well.
- Kenyans know the power of prayer. We have spent multiple hour prayer blocks with them on several occasions already. They know that if we want to see God move, we need to be on our knees before our Lord. It’s challenged many of us in our own devotions and prayer lives.
- Holly Garrett is an awesome host, we are very grateful for her leadership, and for the AWESOME leadership within LIA. We are blessed.
- It’s amazing how many compliments you can get on your physical appearance in the market from people trying to sell you things.
Prayer Requests:
Restful sleep- our team has been struggling to get consistent restful nights. Some of us have been bothered by bad dreams and others by jet lag.
Team Unity- we believe we are together as a team for a reason, and that there are those who would wish to see us divided. Pray for unity and strength.
Humility- it’s easy for us as Americans to come in and assume we know how things should be done, but the truth is we are here to learn as much as we are to serve.
Trivia Answers:
The three interns with left wrist tattoos are Sam “Prophet Sam” Scott, Molly “RayRay” Ray and Molly Russell.
Love and Grace,
Sam and The Mi2 Kenya Team
Praying for your team! Awesome post! I look forward to following your summer Prophet Sam.
ReplyDeleteI loved reading your post! Please give my love to JJ, Holly and all of the LIA staff! Also happy birthday to Elise. You all seem to be doing great. You're in my prayers!
ReplyDelete