His Work Among the Luo People Of Kenya Go ... and make disciples of all nations Matthew 28:19
November 1, 1995

Dear Family in Christ,

Kit is seven years old now, almost eight. Lately, his prayers have really touched me. He prays almost daily for God to give our family strength to teach more people about Jesus. Oh, what a blessing that prayer is to all of us! From the mouth of a child, straight to the ears of God . . . And He responds so quickly and completely. After our rest in September, God gave us a tremendous spurt of energy and our schedule in October proves the power of His grace in taking weak humans and making them fit for His work. I thought this month that I might just write out our October schedule so you can see His grace in action. For it is by His grace only that the Word is spread here in Luoland.

October 1: Barry preached at the Ugoro church (two and a half hours one way over the worst road in South Nyanza)

October 2: It was supposed to be our day off but before eight o'clock Havilah's uncle showed up at our gate. Barry spent the entire morning counseling him concerning caring for Havilah's two sisters.

October 3: Barry and the men of the Nyarach church cut down trees, prepared the poles, and hauled them to the site for the roof of their new church building.

October 4: Barry went to teach at the Sero church which has been experiencing difficulty with a few key members who have drinking problems which threaten to destroy the entire church.

October 5: Barry taught a bible class at the Mariwa church aimed specifically at the leaders and men of the church.

October 6: It was my turn today! Four Luo women and myself began teaching a three week course to the Ndisi and Ng'ulu churches about teaching our children about Jesus. After two hours of class we walked 3 kilometers to visit and pray for Casmiel Odumbe, a sick Christian.

October 7: Totally unexpected work on today's schedule! Barry was called early in the morning to go and help chase down the cow he had bought for meat for the Kenya National Meeting. He had been keeping the cow at a nearby Christian's home and trying to fatten it up before butchering time. The cow chewed through the rope, chewed up one of the children's brand new school uniforms that was hanging on the line, and then got away. And I bet you thought a preacher never chased cows!

October 8: Barry preached at the Ndhiwa church. It used to take us three hours to get to the Ndhiwa church, but thanks to a beautiful new paved road we can cover the same distance in a little over a half hour.

October 9: We made a trip to Kisumu the nearest large town (just two hours from our home). The morning was spent having Luo Bible materials printed and in the afternoon the children got to swim at a pool in Kisumu.

October 10: Oh! for a day to catch up on office work and get additional Luo Bible lessons written!

October 11: Barry worked with the Nyarach church again, hauling and installing the tin on the roof of their church building.

October 12: The sick Christian we prayed for after our ladies class last week asked for Barry to take him to the hospital. It was a whole day trip to go back into that area of bad roads and transport Odumbe, who was too sick to walk or talk, to a hospital on the other side of the district.

October 13: Week #2 of the Teaching Our Children About Jesus Course, held at the Ndisi and Ng'ulu churches. It had rained during the week and the road was horribly muddy. While we were there, word arrived from the hospital that Casmiel Odumbe had died in the night.

October 14: Barry already helped cut down and haul poles, haul and install tin for the roof of the Nyarach church building. Today both Barry and Kit hauled water to mud the walls of that church building. They worked from dawn till dusk. Barry figured he hauled over 3,000 liters of water from the river to the building site. And mudding a building is no easy task! It's back breaking and dirty work!

October 15: Barry preached at the Ruga Gem church. A relatively easy trip over not-too-bad dirt road and we got home before dark!

October 16: It was supposed to be another day off, but it was the hardest day of the month. Barry had to transport Odumbe's body home for the funeral. When they arrived at the hospital they found that nothing had been done to prepare the body. It just sat in the hospital morgue for four days necessitating an immediate burial. Upon arriving at Odumbe's home, Barry and three other men spent three hours digging the burial hole through solid clay, preached the funeral for the Ndisi church before returning home after dark and in a drenching rain. Believe it or not, there was a bright spot in that day. Odumbe's two brothers announced their intention to change their lives. Barry set up another day to go and teach further.

October 17: Team meeting day, when Roger Moon and Barry meet together to compare notes, schedules and plan for the future of the work in South Nyanza.

October 18: Barry went to Kibuon to teach a bible class at that relatively new church.

October 19: Another office day where Barry and Stacy fight over the computer in order to finish Luo lessons.

October 20: Week # 3 of the Teaching Our Children About Jesus course at the Ndisi and Ng'ulu churches.

October 21: We invited two married couples (one from the Winyo church and one from the Nyarach church) to our house this afternoon and evening. Both are faithful Christians and pillars in the church in South Nyanza. All four are excellent teachers. We shared a meal and discussed plans and prepared the lessons for the first South Nyanza Youth Retreat which will be held at the end of December.

October 22: Barry preached at the Mariwa church.

October 23: Another trip to Kisumu to have Luo lessons printed and an afternoon at the pool spent with another missionary family (the Eddie Rogers family) who we love dearly and rarely get to see.

October 24: Team meeting day. Barry also became messenger to round up men for a discipleship retreat to be held in November.

October 25: Back to Ndisi church. Barry and two other Christian men went and assisted the men of the Ndisi church to teach Odumbe's two brothers and some interested neighbors. No immediate results but we keep praying for them.

October 26: The ladies and I went to Oruba church today to teach the women there a course from the book of Colossians. We had intended to start and finish the course in one long day, but were interrupted by an unforeseen event. An epileptic eighth grade student in the midst of the biggest test in his life, the one that qualifies him or more likely eliminates him from attending high school, had a seizure and ran wildly into the road chased by three of his friends. He eventually ran right into my stopped car (don't asked my why I stopped when I saw him cause I don't know. I didn't even know he was in the throws of a seizure until after he hit the car. His friends had to tie him with a rope, stuff him into the little back seat of our car, and literally sit on him to keep him down, until I could drive him back to the school where the teachers were profuse in apologies and thanks.

October 27: With the same group of ladies I traveled with yesterday, we returned to the Ndisi and Ng'ulu churches and then walked with the ladies from those churches over to Odumbe's home to encourage his widow who is a dear sister in Christ to us. Four different women spoke words of encouragement from the Bible to her and to some of her relatives who had come for the funeral.

October 28: Barry traveled back to the Ruga Gem congregation for their midweek house-to-house bible study. They were a good group and Barry's lesson was well received by some unfaithful members who hosted the meeting.

October 29: Barry preached for the first time at the Winyarago church, an effort to build a new congregation of the church by two other churches in the area. Barry took five people to the river for baptism. It was a wonderfully uplifting day. I especially enjoyed the children's class as they performed some songs, skits and Bible memory verses for the adults.

October 30: Barry traveled to Homa Bay, the district headquarters, to try to arrange to have Havilah's sisters placed in the church's children's home.

October 31: On the road again! Today was the day to make final arrangements at the secondary school which we will use to host the Kenya National Church of Christ Meeting. Barry also searched down 400 mattresses for the meeting, and arranged for 300 loaves of bread to be baked by the local bakery.

That's it (not exactly in a nutshell) but that's it! Another month accomplished for His cause and by His Grace. 21 formal bible lessons taught, five baptisms, one church building constructed, one funeral including digging the burial hole, one course of teaching children completed, and 14 different churches visited (some of them multiple times). We thank God for a son who doesn't forget to pray for this family to have the strength to teach more people about Jesus. And for a God who listens and answers!

A SINGLE BEAUTIFUL THING . . .

Consider this scene for a moment. A hospital bed occupied by a very dear and very sick friend. The sheets are crisp and clean, tucked in neatly at the sides. The walls are painted a soothing color and the room has cards and flowers sitting in every possible spot. There's a TV going in the corner. The large window looks out over the street below which is lined with trees, grass and a few flowers. Everything in the room is spic and span clean and smells antiseptic. You walk into that room to visit your friend. And it's hard, terribly hard, to look at the suffering in that bed. Your eyes roam over the room as you talk. You consider the color of the paint on the walls, notice each little picture on each little card, you try not to seem to be staring at the TV, or out of the window. Even the sheets on the bed hold your attention. Anything to not have to see the suffering. Anything to divert your eye from a wasted body. It makes you wonder if the setting isn't designed for the comfort of the visitor and not primarily for the comfort of the sick.

Now consider this scene. I ducked my head as I followed the person in front of me into the mud house with the low thatch roof and the low narrow door. We were a group of about fifteen who made the visit that day. The house was round and divided in half by a mud wall. We passed through the main room and crossed behind the wall into the bedroom, which was just wide enough to fit a single bed into it. We were crowded so close together that I could hardly move or even shift my weight from one foot to the other. The walls of the house were crumbling in and there were places where large chunks of fallen mud had left gaping holes. The floor was rough and uneven. The thatch was blackened overhead from the smoke of cook fires, and large spider webs and the accumulation of dust from years past hung down and swayed in the breeze. There were several holes in that tired looking thatched roof allowing a little bit of light to enter that dark little house. Broken pottery jars and broken chairs were stacked along the wall. Garden hoes hung from the top edge of the wall, and the stones of an old cookfire were still firmly wedged into the mud of the floor. There was a little hole in the wall that separated the bedroom from the main room where a blackened comb with broken teeth and a few pieces of dirty soap lay. A line was strung across the bed room about three feet above the bed where hung a few incredibly dirty clothes. The bed itself was covered with a dirty sheet and blanket. The smell cannot be described. The man in the bed was wasted away, and lay retching over the side when we entered. Casmiel Odumbe was a Christian man we've known for ten years, and he has been, more times than not, somewhat of a thorn in our flesh, and in the flesh of his neighbors and fellow Christians. When he heard that we were teaching a course at a nearby church, he requested that we come and pray for him. So there we stood, crammed into that tiny, drab bedroom, singing hymns and praying for a brother in Christ that none of us was quick to call a "dear" friend. When we finished praying he asked for someone to read to him from the Bible. One of the ladies beside me opened her Bible and began to haltingly read. It was so dark she could hardly see. I was having trouble paying attention, not sure what was expected of me here, not sure how to feel about Odumbe, not wanting to look at that suffering in the bed, and unable to rest my eyes on anything that could give me any ease, I began to pray silently. Dear God, please help me here. Please give me something bearable too look at. Where are you in this dark, dank, dirty place? Please give me evidence that you are here somewhere. My eyes frantically searched for some place to rest themselves as I pleaded. And then I looked toward that bed, and it was as if God had loaned me His eyes for just a minute. For in that minute I saw past the dirt, past the wretchedness, past the wasted body, past the thorn in my flesh, and saw a single beautiful thing in that room. That single beautiful thing was the heart of a child of God, dirty as it may have been, it was the precious heart of a child of the Father.

For the rest of my life, I don't think I'll ever enter a sick room again and see all the trappings that ease the visitor more than the patient. For in that instant, when I stood at Odumbe's bedside, I saw the most beautiful thing in the world. I saw, for the first time in my life, I think, the heart of a man, the God created, loved, yes, cherished heart of a man.

Because of Him,

Barry, Stacy, Kit and Havilah

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