Day 7 Discussing Dreams

In Kenya there are needs everywhere you look and at times it can feel overwhelming. There are so many stories of children who are praying and waiting for money in order to go to High School or College. Sometimes you feel like you've given all you can and you can't help anyone else, but then you hear a story that touches your heart and you feel like you can't turn away. Yesterday Mbondo told me such a story.

Mbondo is in Bible College and runs a Saturday Bible club in Kibera. With over 1 million people Kibera is one of the largest slums in Africa. The people live in poverty that is almost incomprehensible for people from developed nations. When I visited Kiberia in 2002 there was one outhouse for every 10,000 people. Mbondo ministers to some of the poorest of the poor. He shared that there is one 13 year old girl in his Bible club who got very high marks on the national exam. Her score is good enough to get into a good High School. The problem is that she is an orphan and lives with her aunt who is supporting her own child. They all live together in a one room shack. Her aunt is a bar maid and at times comes home drunk with different men to sleep with them in the same room where this little girl tries to sleep on the floor. It is impossible for her aunt to raise the money to send her to High School and so Mbondo is unsure of what will happen to her.

With 1 million people in the slum there are many more stories like this one and Mbondo and I want to be involved in helping on a larger scale than sponsor one or two children. It was out of the desire to help many children that ten years ago the dream for a private Christian school was birthed. With that dream there was also the dream of providing Bible training for rural pastors who have no hope of attending seminary and to raise up missionaries who will go to the unreached. The vision is that the center will be self sufficient so that even the poorest of the poor will be able to attend. Today I was able to sit down and talk with James and another pastor named Erastus about the first steps for these dreams.

From our discussion we decided that one of the first steps to establishing the center is to build a library for pastors. Most pastors in this area have few theological books and some only have their Bibles. One of the ways we can bless and equip pastors in this area is by providing a library. The library would not lend the books but would provide a quiet place to study, prepare sermons, and include a cafe where pastors can interact and encourage each other in their work. The library would also be able to host seminars and conferences to train, encourage and equip pastors. It would have a few businesses attached to it that would make it self sufficient. There is nothing like a library for pastors within the entire district. For pastors who do not have their own books and who have had no formal training it would be a tremendous blessing.

The dream is that the schools will be completely self sufficient and a gift of a tractor is an initial step to accomplish that goal. This tractor would be used in farming, hauling sand, bricks, water and clearing land. The tractor would save considerable cost in the building of the center, enable farm land to be more productive and generate funds that will be used to fund and maintain the center.

I'm not sure what 2012 holds, but I hope that by the end of it there is a library for pastors here and a tractor that is helping local farmers increase their yields and generating funds for a center that will provide a Christian education for the poorest of the poor, equip pastors, and train self supporting missionaries to go to the ends of the earth.

Pictures from the Day

Local Steakhouse