His Work Among the Luo People Of Kenya Go ... and make disciples of all nations Matthew 28:19
May 1, 1991

Fraley's Chapel Church of Christ
c/o Jeff Young
Rt. #2 Box 421
Corinth, Mississippi  38834

Dear fellow workers in Christ,

      We are so thankful for  your interest in our work.   We often receive  letters from Bible school classes  asking about our work among the Luo.  Those letters are so encouraging to us, for deciding to become a missionary often comes during the primary school years, believe it or not.   Of all the missionaries in the different  areas in Kenya, most knew very  early in life that missionary work was what they wanted to do for Jesus.  So we are pleased to answer Bible school letters, and hope and pray that we are influencing some young tender mind and heart.  Our newsletter this month was written expressly for Bible school classes.  Will you share it with your class?

AFRICA

      Greetings from Kenya!  The land across the ocean!  We wish you would write to us.  It's so nice to know that when you live so faraway from home that people are thinking about you.   You can make a warm place in our hearts  with your letter.  It's so exciting to think that you are studying about  missionaries in Bible School.  I am praying that you learn allot and that what you learn can stay in your hearts until you grow up.    And I am praying  that someday you too may become a missionary.   It's not a magic thing you know, being a missionary.      Anyone can do  it.  Even you!  If you grow to love Jesus  so much that you just have to share Him, and if you can keep in mind that  there are more people in this world than just in America, then you are on your way to becoming a missionary.  You don't have to go  to a missionary school or have to have a special  talent.  All you have to do is study your Bible and share  it with others.  Being a missionary  is just showing people how to be  like Jesus.  Sometimes that means learning a different language (we teach people about Jesus in their own Luo language), or wearing different kinds of clothes or eating strange foods (like the raw fish, corn meal mush and goat intestines that we sometimes have to eat), but all the same, our work here in Kenya is just showing these people how to be like Jesus.
     Kenya is a small country, about the same size as Texas.  We live on the  western side of Kenya just next to Lake Victoria, and just a short distance below  the equator.  Kenya is  called the land of variety  and that is surely true.   There is desert type land here, forests, mountains and plains, cool rainy areas  and hot dry areas.  There is a lot of  variety in the types of animals.  Mostly when you  think of Kenya you think  of zebra, elephants, giraffe, baboons and lions.  We have all those wild animals here but we also have lots and lots of cows, sheep  and goats.   And the people have the most variety of all!   40 different languages are spoken in Kenya by 40 different tribes of people.   Each tribe eats  different kinds of foods, wear different kinds of clothing and jewelry, do different kinds of work, and have different  kinds of beliefs and celebrations.  We work with just one of the forty tribes and it is  called the Luo tribe.  We've worked here for five  and a half years and still don't understand the people perfectly.  Learning the language alone takes about a year  and then you start learning all about their history and daily lives.  We still learn  new things about Luo's everyday.  That is another  important thing about being a missionary.  Learning!  While most of our work involves teaching, a missionary must be one who wants to learn.  We cannot teach a Luo about Jesus well until we can learn about his life, his struggles, his needs and wants, we can't teach him well before we begin to learn about  the way he sees and understands his life,  his world, his temptations  and his feelings.   Luo's are very different than Americans.  They have a different hope in Jesus because they have different needs than we do.  Let me tell you a little story that will help you to begin to understand Kenya too:

       Ochieng' was born in his mothers mud hut one sunny morning in December.   His mother died when he was born so he never knew her but he never lacked for someone to hold him for he was the fifteenth child in the family and before Ochieng' was one year old he had a new mother to care for him.   Ochieng's world was a world of mud and thatch, rain and  sun, corn and  greens, planting and  harvesting, rising, working  in the fields, eating and sleeping.  He was fifteen before he ever road in a car.  He never owned a toy, never watched television, never owned a book, and  even today has only  one set of clothes  and only owns one  pair of shoes that  he wears on special occasions.  Ochieng' finished school when  he reached the eighth grade but he  still doesn't read well and can hardly write.  When his father died,  his five acres of land was divided up among  the six boys in the family.  Ochieng' will marry soon and raise up his family on the land that was left to him.  But first he must raise the money and cows to  pay the bride price for his  future wife.  He will struggle  because he will want fifteen children like his father had but he  will not have enough land to feed them.   He will struggle paying school fees for his children so they will have a better education than he  had.  He will struggle with weather
that spoils the  corn crop.   He will  struggle with the  sickness that  ravages this crowded  land.   He will struggle to keep his family alive, and he  will struggle when it comes time to divide  his little acre of land among his sons.  Ochieng' is struggling and  will struggle with a way of life that  is changing faster that he can.  He neither understands a lot of the changes he sees, nor is he able  change with them.  His life on this earth is one endless struggle.  It  is not a struggle for honor, or  wealth, or a good job.   It is a struggle for survival.  It is a struggle for the very food he eats each day.  But Ochieng' has hope.  His hope was born when a missionary visited  him one day  and told him of  a better life  in Jesus.      Not a better life  on this
earth, but a better life in heaven because of the hope he can have in  Jesus as his Lord and Savior and Guide.
   Ochieng' will still  struggle.  The  Words of  Jesus will not  make his  life easier here,  but they give him strength to live  with these  present struggles  and give  him a  future with  Jesus that  is far better than anything he can find on this earth.  Ochieng' will continue to work hard  everyday to grow enough food for his family.  Perhaps some of his children will never  go to school.  He will probably never own more than one set of clothes, and he will lose some of  his family to sickness, but Ochieng' has something  that no one else can give him or take away from him.  He has  Jesus and hope of a better life in heaven  someday.  And his children and neighbors will  have that  hope too.   Because  Jesus means so  much to  Ochieng' that  he must  share the precious gift that he received.  Ochieng' has Jesus.

     There are over 700 Christians in South Nyanza or Luo land.  But there are over one million Luo people.  Many many more need to hear the gospel of Jesus.  Barry  and I have been here for five and  a half years and we hope to stay  for at least ten more years.  Our son  Kit was born  here.  Kenya  is his home.   He would  feel like a  stranger in America  because our life  is so different from yours.  I will  teach Kit how to read and  write at home.  His  friends are all Luo's.  He  speaks their language when he plays with them.  Kit has  a few toys but mostly he plays  with dirt and stick like his friends.   His favorite food is omena, the raw fish that is so plentiful here.   Kit doesn't even know what Koolaid is or Oreo cookies  either.  He's only seen snow once, when we were  visiting our family in America.   He's at home in  a mud house with  a grass roof.  And  he thinks all roads are bumpy.  He doesn't know what it is to ride  in a car that can go fast down a smooth road.   Our roads are mostly dirt roads here.  Kit has spent most of  his life in our truck.  We take  him with us when we go out each   day to teach people about Jesus.  I can be fairly sure that Kit has seen  more baptisms than you have or more than even your parents  have seen.  He is a blessed little boy because he is  seeing Christianity grow so fast  here in Luo land.  He  lives among a people who  have to put more faith in God because they have so little here on earth.  He lives among a  people who are crying to know more about Jesus.  We know one  Christian lady who  taught herself to  read because she  wanted to read  the Bible herself.   And we  know another Christian lady who can't read but has whole chapters  of the Bible  memorized and who has taught her  children about Jesus.  Kit hears Luo people beg us every day to visit them and teach them more about Jesus.
     Often times when children write to us they ask if the Christians here are strong.  They certainly seem to have more faith than I do.  Often times they encourage me with words from the Bible when I am  sad or discouraged.  But Luo's also struggle with their traditions.  They believe the dead can come back and haunt you if they don't  like you.  They believe in bad spirits that can live in  people.  They  live by certain  rules for marrying,  being born, living  and dying.   Often times these  rules are against Bible teaching.   And often times  the Luo's forget that.   Much more  teaching is needed  before they can put  away the teachings of their ancestors and depend only on Jesus.  That is part of our job  as missionaries.   We want to introduce them to Jesus and then teach them to depend only on Jesus.
     There is another interesting  question that is  often asked:   Why do we  not baptize Luo's  personally?  There  are enough Christian men now in Luo land that they do much of  the baptizing when we are not even present.  The  Luo's are doing much of the spreading of the gospel themselves and much of  the baptizing themselves.  But there is another  reason that Barry is reluctant to baptize.  Kenyans tend to think that the white man is someone who is more  special and more important than themselves.  They think that baptism by a  white man is more valid  than baptism by another  Kenyan.  We do not  want that kind of  honor.  Jesus teaches against that kind of  honor.  It is the  baptism that is important, the  obedience of the person who  is being baptized that is important, not the baptizer.   If Barry was the only Christian present  then he would certainly baptize a  Luo.  But if there are Luo Christian men present then they are learning by doing the baptizing  and the Luo's cannot give Barry special honor just because he is white.
     We will be praying for you as you learn more about missionaries and as you learn how to  be more like Jesus.  I hope I was able to answer some of the questions you have often asked about missionary work, but if  you have more questions or if you just want to write, we will be  so happy to hear from you.   A missionary's life is  not easy especially because we are  so far from home and family, but a  missionary's life certainly is rewarding.   There is a very  good feeling in my heart  just because I'm trying to share Jesus.  I hope you experience that same feeling someday too!

We love and appreciate all of you,
 
 

Barry, Stacy & Kit