His Work Among the Luo People Of Kenya Go ... and make disciples of all nations Matthew 28:19
February 8, 1994

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

Dear family in Christ,

We are all well and trying to walk with Jesus daily, and we pray for you as you walk
with Him.  This month I'm going to try to give you a practical example of what Barry
talked about in last months' newsletter (how the Luo brethren are dealing with their
traditions that are not in accordance with God's will for man, and hinder them from
walking with Christ).  Let me first remind you of the true and often times overwhelming
work of the missionary.

When we first came to the field, I had grand ideas of, how the African people would
flock to our feet to listen to the story of Jesus' of how many (even thousands) would
believe in Him, toss off their old lives, and walk with Jesus.  I just knew that these
people over here lived wonderfully uncomplicated lives that would allow them to change
completely and effortlessly to what God wanted of them.  Besides they would have me for
a teacher!  I dreamed of how we would teach them to worship and then be able to present
to you a picture of the church in Kenya, and you would be able to understand it because
it would look so familiar to you.  In other words, the church in Kenya would be no
different from the church in America except perhaps for the color of the Christians
faces.  Only a rookie missionary thinks that way!  And I was a rookie of rookies!

A seasoned missionary, one who survives those impractical dreams, knows that baptizing
and teaching the form of worship is only the beginning and not an easy one at that.
Unfortunately, many missionaries who have been on the field for years, persist in these
erroneous dreams and produce churches that look like American churches where the
African Christians come every Sunday, sing, pray, eat the Lord's supper, give their
offering, listen to the sermon and go home.  They meet (by the thousands) in grand
buildings that America has funded and which have taken up an unbelievable amount of the
missionaries time to construct.  They even eat Jesus supper off of chrome communion
trays.  Oh! Their singing is beautiful and the videos of this type of work are
impressive, but all too often those same Christians pass through the door of the church

building and head right back into the world for lack of the knowledge of how to walk
with Christ and depend on him.  Their Christianity is a mere shell, as fragile as an
egg shell and just as quick to crack.  Inside, they are full of the fear of the spirit
world and when they walk out through that door of the church building, they honor their
tradition (which is contrary to Christ) in order to appease the dead and the spirit
world.  And the missionary, who is so engrossed in making his churches look like
American churches, has not had the time to address real Christianity, or walking with
Christ daily,

It's an arduous task, and often times one can't see where to go next.  Building
buildings and making worship look like American worship is so much easier.  That may  be
why missionaries so often get tangled up in erecting  church buildings, running
development projects such as schools, hospitals, agriculture and technical projects to
ease the physical lives of these people, and put off addressing their spiritual needs
Often times, even the seasoned missionary is at a loss when confronted with the need to
address the problem of leaving tradition and fear of the spirit world behind, and
walking with Christ daily.  Barry and I are in the throws of this task, and God knows
how much prayer and help we need.  We are not trying to make the Luo churches look like
American churches  instead, we're on that difficult road of trying to teach these
people how to walk with Christ.  Daily we are unsure of what to do next and daily, we
pray for His guidance.  Now for the practical example!  This story actually happened to
us this last month.

     It happened in one of the oldest churches in South Nyanza.  They meet every Sunday, hold a children's Bible Class, sing, pray, eat the Lord's supper (off of a chrome Communion tray), give the offering and listen to at least one if not two sermons.  Barry has been meeting with the leaders of this church weekly in an attempt to strengthen them and to instill in them a sense of responsibility for carrying on with Christ when we (the missionaries) are gone from here.  The teaching sessions often turn into an in depth bible study centered on a real heartfelt struggle or need to eradicate tradition when it is against His word.
     On this day, the church lenders came to the meeting full of the news of how one of their members, Lukas Wao, a young man (he attended the new years gathering at our house and even led prayer), a teacher, with a wife and one Child, a Christian for a number of years, had died on Tuesday (just a few days before) in a motorcycle accident.  His death is not what astounded them (death is as common as breathing here.  What astounded them was that they learned that on the Sunday before his death (they had wondered why he was not at worship) Lukas had the witch doctor at his home, purifying it from evil spirits.  The church leaders could clearly see how strong it was for Lukas to use the witch doctor and they viewed his death as a punishment from God for his transgression.  The bible study centered an Wao's inability to believe that     Christ could protect him from evil spirits.  Barry was proud of their conclusions and confident that they were on the right track, walking with Christ; not the witch doctor.  He felt compelled at this study to bring up the subject of the widow.  Luo tradition demands that the brothers take the widow, whether they have wives already or not, and it's not necessarily a marriage relationship, rather they use their sister-in-law for what they can get both sexually and monetarily or for what they can take from her and her home.  Barry reminded them of God's plan for young widows.  This is a sore subject in Luo land.  A young Luo man, unmarried, cannot conceive of taking a widow to be his wife.  We have not yet seen a young Luo Christian take a widow as his wife.  It is so contrary to their tradition.  She is used and a young man thinks it impossible to make her his wife.  This has been a real problem in the Churches.  consequently we lose many widows to the world because that tradition is so strong and the Luo's have not been able to overcome it with Christ yet.  We were doubly pleased with the plan these church leaders conceived.  It was
     a real victory to see them ask the family to please not bury Wao on Sunday.  It has been a continual disappointment to us to see a church cancel Sunday worship because of a funeral.  You can imagine our elation to see them take this stand.  Not only that!  Wao's brother was at Sunday worship even though his home wan filled with visitors who came expecting a Sunday funeral.  Luo funerals often last weeks.  It is not unusual for a family to have visitors for a month  during a funeral.  The church leaders offered to help with the funeral, sharing in the enormous burden of feeding visitors to a funeral (that's an