August 1995

His Work Among the Luo People Of Kenya Go ... and make disciples of all nations Matthew 28:19
August, 1995

The following is just a little book that can help you know about what it's like to be a missionary. We hope it helps you to want to do more work for Jesus. Or, maybe even help you to decide to become a missionary. If you have any questions about our work, feel to write and ask. We welcome your letters. And we are praying for you!

Please feel free to use this booklet in any way that may help the children of your congregation to grow in His love and service and to dedicate themselves to His cause. You may post it on a bulletin board, copy it for each Bible class, print any or all of it in your church bulletin, or maybe you have other ideas. We just pray that it can help them learn more about God's mission for us.

When my Poppa, Momma, my sister Havilah and I are getting ready to go back home after visiting you, I have to be ready to take a long long ride. We get on a plane close to my grandpa's house and fly to New York City first. That's a short ride, just a couple of hours. Then we wait in the big big airport in New York City where there are too many people and to much noise. I sure don't like that airport much. Then we get on another plane that will take us to somewhere in Europe, maybe England or France, Holland or Belgium. That plane ride is much longer and we even eat and sleep overnight on the plane. Sitting in the same seat all that time isn't easy though. We even sleep sitting up. When we arrive in Europe, we most likely have to spend the day there. It's not a very nice day though. Because we don't have time to go out and see anything in the city, just sit in the airport, watch the people, maybe sleep on the couch in the lounge and wait to get on the third plane. That third trip is even longer and by that time I'm really tired and cranky. It's the longest flight of all, ten or eleven hours or so. And that plane takes us right to Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya where we live. But the trip is still not over yet. I have to spend the night in Nairobi because it's still a long way (at least seven hours) by car till we reach our house.

So after we sleep in a guest house in Nairobi, we start out by car to reach Rongo, my home town. The roads are bumpy, dusty and dangerous, and it's always a long, hot trip, but the sun is sure to be shining and there are lots of interesting things to see along the way. I sure do like to get out of Nairobi. It's a big, crowded and dirty city, not like the real Kenya at all, but real soon we are climbing up and out of Nairobi through the highland area. Sometimes we even have to close the car windows up here cause it can get cold when you're 8000 feet above sea level. That's a lot higher than where you live. Soon after leaving the city we pass Mount Longonot. It used to be a volcano and we can still see the hole at the top. Sometimes a cloud is sitting right on top of the mountain covering the hole like a lid. After passing Longonot, we begin to go down a long hill and cross the Great Rift Valley. It's the biggest natural crack in the world and we drive right across it. The Kikuyu people live in the Rift Valley. We see lots of them, plowing their fields with cows and hand plows, or Kikuyu women carrying big loads of wood on their backs. We are sure to see baboons and lots of zebras and Thompson's gazelle on the way, also acacia trees with their big flat tops, jacaranda trees with purple blooms that make a purple carpet under the tree when they fall off, flame trees and lots of other kinds of things you don't have in America. One time we even saw a giraffe and a lion when we were crossing the Rift Valley. It takes three hours to cross that valley, and it's real hot and dry there. I'm always glad to climb out of that big old crack onto the highlands of Western Kenya because it is the prettiest place in the whole country. We drive right through the Kenya Tea Fields, where lots of people still pick tea leaves by hand, standing in the hot sun and wrapped in big plastic things that look like raincoats. Kipsigis people live here. The women here carry things on the top of their heads and they can walk along without holding onto them. They can even carry big jugs of water on their heads. Lots of Kipsigis have herds of cows and they graze them right beside the road. We have to be extra careful not to run into an ornery cow who doesn't know he's supposed to stay off the road. Or a stubborn donkey who is carrying corn to market and insists that the road is there for him too. Oh, the land is so pretty here, lots of rolling hills covered with green corn fields. And lots of people dressed in bright clothes, visiting or selling things (tomatoes, greens, oranges or eggs) along the side of the road, driving their cows to water, carrying heavy loads of corn home, or just walking along enjoying the day. And we're getting closer to home. Next we travel through the area where the Kisii people live. Kisii is the land of bananas, small, bright yellow bananas, sweeter than any bananas that you've ever tasted. It's real hilly in Kisii land and there are lots more people around. Kisii is the most densely populated area in Kenya. Next is the land of the Luo people and home for us too. Now we can greet the people and stop and chat because we know how to speak their language. We see lots of sugar cane and pineapple fields in Luoland, we might even see a woman carrying fish on her head, and oh, it feels like home already. . .

After we stop in Kisii town to check for mail at the post office and to buy some bread and bananas we are off to Rongo, only 18 miles from Kisii town and only 18 miles from Lake Victoria (the second largest inland fresh water lake in the world). It always feels so good to drive through our front gate and get out of the car. Home again at last after three days of solid traveling. When we step out of the car at our home, we are standing in the Southern Hemisphere of the earth, just a few miles below the equator, on the continent of Africa, in the country of Kenya, homeland of the Luo people, and it's where we live too!

75% of the land in Kenya is dry savannah grassland where the wild animals roam. The rest of the land in Kenya is farmland, but not farms like you know them. Kenyans are subsistence farmers. Each family has only enough land to grow food to feed his family (usually 2-3 acres per family or maybe as much as 5 acres per family). Most families do not even have enough land to feed their family because they all have such big families. It is a Kenyan's pride to say he comes from a big big family.

So, our family lives in a farming community. Our house is surrounded by small fields of corn, sweet potatoes, beans, cassava, tomatoes, onions and pumpkins. And all of our neighbors have lots of children to help them work the land. They don't have tractors or farm machinery. Many of them don't even have cows to help them plow the land. They work together as families, side by side in the fields plowing, or weeding, planting or harvesting with small hoes.

Kenyans live is very small houses. An average size house for a Luo family of 10-15 people is about 10 foot by 10 foot. The walls are made of mud and the roof is made of dry grass. There is only one door, one small window and two rooms in each house. One room is where the father of the house has his bed. The other room is where the mother and children sleep. They sleep on the floor on reed mats with a thin blanket to wrap up in, and pick the mats up during the daytime to use the room for a sitting or eating room. Every house has a small table in the sitting room and two or three rickety chairs or stools. Luo children eat on the floor. Kenyans spend most of their days outdoors. A real lucky family may have a tin roof on their house. Then they can catch rainwater for drinking. Otherwise, they have to walk all the way to the river for water. The river is like their bathroom. They bathe in the river, wash dishes and clothes at the river, and carry any water they need for cooking back to their house.

Our family tries to live as much like the Luos do as possible. In this way we learn about their work and their play, their happy times and their struggles. Our house is little too, but not as little as their houses. It is made of locally made bricks which were dried in the sun and baked in a fire by our Luo neighbors. The sand for the cement that holds the bricks together was dug right out of the river a short distance away. We have a tin roof and catch all the water we use. It is stored in two tin tanks on either side of the house. We don't have any glass windows, curtains, or painted walls in our house. No carpets either, just a painted cement floor. The windows are covered with wooden shutters to keep out the rain. There are only four rooms in our house, three bedrooms and a sitting room. We don't have a bathroom in our house. We take splash baths. A small corner is closed off for bathing. Each member of the family gets one gallon of water in a basin each day in which to bathe. There are no sinks or faucets in our house. All the water we use is carried into the house in a bucket. And if we have to go to the bathroom we use a choo (cho). It is a little building with a hole in the cement floor that is built over a deep hole. You don't have to wait in line to go to the bathroom in our house. No one wants to spend too much time in the choo (cho)! We don't have electricity either. At night we use a kerosene lantern and we have a solar panel which we use to run our computer. We have a little garden just outside our house too. And we raise a few chickens for their eggs. We try to live as much like the Luos as possible. I sometimes cook supper over a wood fire but I do have a stove that heats with propane gas when we can get the fuel. And my little refrigerator works with a kerosene burner.

We try to eat like the Luos too. They hardly buy any of their food. Mostly they eat what they grow. Luos eat kuon (kwoon) everyday. Kuon is a stiff mush made out of cornmeal and water. They eat it with sukuma wiki (collard greens), beans, and a thin soup. If it's a holiday or a special day they may even have meat too. But that only happens once or twice a year. Luo people eat fish a little more often, because they live close to Lake Victoria and fish can be bought cheaply. Sometimes they eat omena which is a tiny little raw fish that is sun dried. It is eaten whole, heads and eyes too, and it sounds like someone is eating potato chips when omena is on the supper menu. Omena is one of Kit's favorite foods. Luos eat termites too. On a night when the new termites hatch out of their dirt mound home, Luos can be seen gathered around an overturned basket, picking out the trapped termites and popping them into their mouths whole. But that's where I draw the line on doing what Luos do. No one in our family has ever eaten a termite! Luos drink one of two different things: river water or chai (tea with milk and sugar). Which would you prefer? There's no koolaid in this country. If it is a very special special day, a Luo may drink a coke. But that happens even less than they eat meat.

We have no grocery store here in Luoland. When I have to buy food for our family, I do it the way the Luo women do. I get my grass woven market basket and I go to the open air market. It's in a big field where the people sit on the ground in the sun and sell some of their farm produce off of little pieces of plastic that are laid out on the grass. The market is a crowded, colorful, noisy place and provides social life for the Luos as well as giving them a few cents in their pockets. I buy my potatoes, pineapples, beans, and lots of other things in the market. I can buy clothes, soap, or even a live sheep or goat in the open air market. On market day, hundreds of women can be seen walking along the road with baskets on their heads. The money they make in the market helps to cloth their children, buy medicine, or provide them with an occasional sweet.

The Rosie's are one of only two American families living in a 50 mile radius. Kit's friends are all Luos. He speaks their language and plays their kinds of games. His favorite snack is a fresh picked guava shared with a friend. He climbs trees with them, goes to the river with them, helps them work in their fields, and helps the little boys to herd the family's cows, sheep and goats. About the only thing Kit does in English all day is his schoolwork. The rest of the day, he's just a little Luo. If you were born here, and grew up here, it wouldn't be hard for you to live like a Luo and be a Luo too!

Our work is to teach people about Jesus. A missionary does lots of things but his biggest and most important job is to teach people about Jesus. That may sound easy to you, but it's not. A missionary has to learn lots of things before he can teach people about Jesus. And some of those things are very hard for them to understand. Even after he's learned lots of things, he has to teach people things that are oftentimes hard to understand. Being a missionary is a job that takes lots of patience and lots of years of trying to help people who are very different from you to become like Jesus.

Imagine yourself getting off the airplane in a foreign country. You have just said goodbye to your family and friends in America and you know that you won't see them again for two or three years, or maybe more. Now you are walking through the airport and you begin to notice that people are speaking different languages. If you notice that very few or no one is speaking English, you may even begin to feel afraid. And then you try to talk to the man behind the counter in the airport. You ask him a question and discover that he can't even speak English. This is when you start feeling like a stranger in the country where you are going to work. This feeling doesn't go away for a long long time. You can't talk to the taxi driver, the clerk in the hotel, or people walking down the street. You feel all alone. That's a terrible feeling and it's hard to overcome. You may begin to wonder how you can ever teach these people about Jesus. And language isn't all! You discover real soon, that you're not sure whether you should shake hands with the people you greet, hug them, kiss them on the cheek, or what! It may not be proper to talk to women in this country, or it may be rude to walk by people without looking at them or nodding your head. But you're not even sure. You don't know how to talk to people and you don't know the rules of courtesy and politeness. That's when you realize how difficult missionary life is. As a missionary you have to learn a whole new language and a whole new set of rules before you can teach the people. And if you don't learn the rules well, people won't listen because they will think you're rude to them. Now you know that missionary life is hard.

A missionary spends years learning about the people he is trying to teach. He has to learn how to greet people properly, how to dress properly, how to eat their foods and how to observe their customs. And most importantly, he has to learn to talk to them in their own language. He has to learn about their history, their government, their family life, their holidays, and what makes them laugh and cry. He has to learn what they do well and what they struggle with. He has to learn how they act and feel during times of joy and difficulty, like when a child is born, or someone in the family dies. He has to learn about their religion and what they think and know about God, how they worship, and what they understand about good and bad. This process of learning goes on everyday for as long as he lives on the mission field. He never stops making mistakes in understanding the people of the country, and he never stops learning and correcting his mistakes.

But a missionary can't wait forever to teach the people about Jesus. As soon as he begins speaking to them in their own language, he begins teaching them about Jesus. Soon, speaking in their language becomes easier and he can spend more and more time teaching. A day comes when the missionary will speak the language without even thinking about it. But now even harder work begins. Because helping the people to follow Jesus sometimes takes years and years. Helping them to put away bad customs and habits is a long hard job. Baptizing the people is just the beginning. Teaching them to love Jesus more than their families, or homes, or farms, or the customs of their people may take many years. Maybe even more years than a missionary will have in his lifetime.

Let's think about a man called Otieno (o-tee-en-o) for a few minutes. Otieno is a Luo. He's 40 years old, is married to four wives, has 22 children, lives and feeds his family on five acres of land, only went to school up to third grade. Otieno believes in God and a life after death, but he also believes that his dead ancestors come back to this earth in the form of wandering spirits and if he doesn't keep them happy by offering periodic animal sacrifices in their honor, they will haunt him and cause his family to grow sick and die. Otieno is a poor man and though he struggles with hunger and sickness, many people in the community look up to him for guidance and leadership. One day a strange man shows up in Otieno's village. This man can hardly speak Otieno's language but he's very friendly and he's carrying a little black book. He's the missionary. He begins to try to teach Otieno about Jesus. To everything he says, Otieno nods his head in agreement (because that's demanded by his culture's rules of politeness) and soon Otieno finds himself in the river being baptized. He has always believed in God. If this is what God wants then Otieno is willing to comply. Soon Otieno's whole family is baptized and even a few of his neighbors begin to listen to the story of this God/man Jesus. A church is started in Otieno's village. But they all still have a lot to learn. The missionary works with Otieno and his village for five years. And he fails more often than he is successful in getting them to put away the customs of the Luo people and to follow Jesus. Many of them still have more than one wife, and all of them still make sacrifices to the spirits of their ancestors. The missionary knows that they are hiding these ceremonies from him and when he talks to them about it , they nod in agreement (as their rules of courtesy dictate), but when he goes home they take off their Christian coats and continue to live according to Luo tradition. Ten years go by and the missionary is getting tired. Satan has almost convinced him that these people will never change. He longs to go home where he can live among his family and friends and where everyone speaks English. Then one day, Otieno comes to see him. Otieno wants to go to heaven and he is finally convinced that having four wives is not God's plan. The missionary helps him to learn what he must do and Otieno agrees. He must only live with his first wife but he must still take care of the other wives and children because they have no where else to go and no way else to live in this country. The missionary is revived for a short time only, because soon he discovers that the neighborhood is laughing as Otieno, calling him a crazy man for putting away three of his wives. Now the missionary and Otieno begin the hard work of praying. God must give Otieno strength to withstand being laughed at by his neighbors and friends. No one is Luoland puts away wives! Being the leader of the village now is not easy. But prayer pulls Otieno through. Five more years go by and the neighbors have stopped laughing at Otieno because they see the light of Jesus on His face. The young men of the village are only taking one wife these days, and one or two other men have also put away their extra wives. Now sacrificing to the dead ancestors is quite another story! Even Otieno is still afraid of those dead ancestors, but he still wants to go to heaven and God is working on Otieno's heart and using the missionary to help him. One day, when the missionary arrives at Otieno's home he finds the whole village in a commotion. Otieno is sick and he can't rise from his bed. Death is near. The neighborhood men are already preparing to sacrifice the cows to honor Otieno's spirit. The missionary calmly goes in and speaks with Otieno. They spend a long time in prayer and then the missionary goes home. He knows he will never see Otieno on this earth again. And his heart is heavy because he has tried so hard and still Otieno fears the spirits of the dead more than he fears Jesus. Then he gets a message in the middle of the night and runs to Otieno's side. He finds the men of the village gathered in Otieno's house too. The man who is near death speaks. He forbids the men of the village to sacrifice cows for him or to honor any of the traditional Luo customs to appease his dead spirit. "Jesus will care for my spirit" Otieno tells his friends and then he quietly dies, a child of God, with a pure heart, and an example to his whole village, because one day a man who spoke funny Luo and a little black book came to his home. That makes missionary work the best work on earth!

Adoyo is my friend. She comes and watches me sometimes when my momma is busy. She's a big girl. She's fourteen years old. Adoyo has nine brothers and sisters who are alive. Four other brothers and sisters died before they could even grow up. She is the third child in the family. Two of her brothers are older than her. The other six children are younger than her. Because Adoyo is the oldest girl, she has lots of work to do at home.

Adoyo gets up real early every morning . She helps her mother in the fields even before she eats a breakfast of nyoyo (beans and corn boiled together), or nyuka (thin cornmeal porridge). Then she carries water from the river up to her house, washes the supper dishes from the night before, and takes the cows to pasture before she goes to school. Adoyo is in the fifth grade. She goes to a harambee school. Harambee means to pull together in the Swahili language. A harambee school is a little schoolhouse made of mud that the parents of the community build. The Kenya government sends a few teachers to teach the children. There are more than 100 children in Adoyo's class and they have one teacher all to themselves. There are no books or pencils or papers in Adoyo's school. The children have to learn everything from memory. Adoyo will probably go to school for another year or two, but she won't go too much longer because she's already old enough to get married. If she's real lucky she'll get to finish the eighth grade. That's about like getting up to fourth grade in your school.

Adoyo will probably get married before she is 16 and she will probably have three or four children by the time she reaches 20. That's what Adoyo is looking forward to. She wants to have her own children. She already knows how to mud a house, grow a field of corn, cook kuon, take care of children, and trade in the market. She's ready to get married even now. One day soon, some boy may see her and ask his father to go and talk to her parents. The parents will make an agreement and then the boy will pay some cows and Adoyo will go with him to live in his parents home. She'll be married then. Do you believe that she may never even get to talk to this boy before she gets married? That's the way they do it here. Adoyo is such a good girl and a hard worker that she may even become a 10 cow wife!

In the meantime, Adoyo continues to go to school. She has lots of friends and enjoys gathering wood with them in the bush near her home, or going to the river with them to do the family's laundry. They have fun taking care of the small children too, or going to market together. The nighttime is the best time of all. When it's dark outside and supper is over there's not much one can do with only a little kerosene lantern made out of a tin can except to sit with her family and sing the evening away, or listen to the stories her grandmother tells, about the days when there were not even roads in South Nyanza, and the wild animals still roamed the hills, when there were no schools or hospitals and when women didn't even have plastic buckets to carry water. The singing is Adoyo's favorite. She loves to sing and has such a pretty voice. She's teaching me to sing.

Sometimes I feel sorry for Adoyo. She's never had a toy, not even a baby doll. She's never had a book either. She's fourteen years old and do you believe she's never ridden in a car? It's true. I've probably eaten more candy in my little life of one and a half years than Adoyo has tasted in fourteen years. When she finishes school she probably still won't be able to read, and she may never have a way of making money in her whole life except to trade some of her garden tomatoes at the market. Adoyo only has two dresses and most of the time she walks barefoot cause she wants to save her one pair of sandals that are made out of the treads of old car tires. Her home will not have a nice soft couch or rug. And she may never get to sleep in a real bed. But when I hear Adoyo coming. . . I always hear her first cause she's always singing, and then when I see that sweet smile on her peaceful face, I know she's happy. She has a family who loves her dearly and a Father in Heaven too. You see, Adoyo knows Jesus and she knows that lots of good things are waiting for her in heaven!

I try to remember to thank God everyday, cause I'm a Luo too, and when I was a new baby my family was going to let me die because they think my mother who died wanted me to be with her. But God had a different plan for me. I have a nice soft couch in my house, lots of books and toys, and I sleep in a real bed. I don't have to live like a Luo eventhough I am a Luo child. But Adoyo is teaching me something. She's teaching me that things don't make you happy, God does. So I'm telling Jesus thank you for giving me a safe home and lots to eat, but I'm also thanking Him that I can know the other Luo children who live around me and that they can teach me how to be happy, like Adoyo does.

Maybe you would like to try to say some Luo words. Someday, you might be a missionary and would have to learn a whole new language. A missionary can't tell people about Jesus until he can talk to them in their own language. Trying to say these words could give you some practice. Don't be shy! Give it a try! Just one little rule: Luos roll their R's on the tip of their tongue.

Be ihero somo Muma? (Bay e-hair-o so-mo moo-mah) - Do you like to read the Bible?