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Please bear with me, as I don't know the best way to tell you about this.
Note: I do not get any money from this page, nor am I paid for any of my extensive services to Rose Creek Village Ministries.
Rose Creek Village Ministries is doing an awesome work, I believe. God has blessed it in amazing ways, and we are giving our lives to preach the Gospel, to do good, to give the Holy Spirit free reign, and to give our lives for God's purposes and not our own.
So here's what we're doing.
Kenya
In addition to teaching the historic Gospel that you'll find espoused on this web site—and that you'll find operating in people's lives with power—and in addition to supporting single mothers and providing homes to them and their children, we have started a church in Kenya.
I want to tell you why, and I want to tell you about the work we're doing to help the poor and to teach the Christians there how to help each other.
The story's amazing, completely the work of God.
We went to Kenya to visit a church in a tiny village called Mogonga. The pastor there had emailed us and asked us for help. A local ministry was taking a couple of us to Ethiopia, anyway, so we could see the work they're doing there, so we scheduled an excursion to Kenya.
Snapping pictures of children on our 2nd trip so we can pray for them.
That's the church building they rent, from the back.
Another missionary we know told us he could arrange a ride for us from Nairobi to the west Kenya, near the shores of Lake Victoria.
Our driver was a keyboard player and song leader at a church in Nakuru. He was relatively quiet, and he was along simply to give us a ride.
We had an overnight at a hotel near Mogonga, which is not big enough to have anything ever resembling a hotel. I agreed to share a room with our African driver. His name was George.
That evening we spoke, through a translator, to the church there, and George sat in on the service. Afterward, in our room, he asked if we were sincere about the things we said, and further, were we actually living those things out!
I assured him that we were.
He then began to tell me a story about gathering seven single brothers who agreed to share resources. Kenya is somewhat poor, and their unemployment rate is ridiculous. The lowest estimate I've heard is 40%, and I've read 66% in a newspaper in Nakuru.
Children outside George's house in Nakuru before we went in for the evening.
Worse, George lives in a slum. Most of his neighbors are scraping by, and death by starvation and sickness is not uncommon. It is not rare for some single mother or grandmother, whose husband or perhaps whose adult children have died from AIDS or other diseases, to get sick in their home and have no one to check on them. Without medical care and often without food, they simply get sicker and sicker and die.
George and his friends began pooling resources, taking care of one another when there was no work available. None of them had permanent jobs. George, for example, made a living for himself and his pregnant wife by driving for people like us, repairing cars when he could find work, and giving voice lessons. Others simply asked for work at whatever construction sites they could find, often digging or doing other menial chores for a mere pittance that would put a roof over their heads.
I commended him for his commitment to the Gospel, and I assured him that this sort of fellowship—a real Christian family, where every member cared for every other member—was exactly what we were trying to teach.
Then he told me something that shocked me.
His pastor told him that what he was doing wasn't good. He was told it's not what the Gospel was about, and that they should stop.
A pastor told him to stop taking care of his brothers in Christ!!!
I'm sorry if this seems offensive to any of you reading this, but I told him that was persecution and deceit sent from the devil to stop a real church from forming.
The devil is terrified of real church life.
When saints come together in unity, there is power.
The unity I am speaking of is not modern unity, where we agree to disagree, then we meet in separate buildings. I am not speaking of people who attend the same church and agree to the same doctrines.
According to the Bible, Christian unity is supposed to be just like the unity of the Father and the Son. Complete and total commitment, a new family, where possessions, relatives, and the things of the world don't matter at all, just the kingdom of God (Luk. 14:26-33).
George thanked me and told me he would go back to Nakuru and begin again.
Christ Is Formed in Nakuru
George was true to his word.
It was only two months, and he told me he'd left his old church and that he was now gathering with over 30 people in a soccer field. They were meeting regularly, checking on one another, sharing their meager resources, and going door to door preaching the Gospel to anyone who would listen.
It was awesome, but he wanted us to come back and teach them some more. I wasn't totally sure why he needed us, but we agreed to go.
We were scheduled to return to Kenya in January of 2008. On Christmas day, 2007, Kenya held elections that would send the country into a state of rioting. Thousands of Kenyans were killed, and churches fell apart, dividing along tribal lines.
Kenya has about 42 tribal groups. The president and the man who ran against him, Raila Odinga, were from the two largest. Odinga is from the same tribe as Barack Obama, and he's from the same tribe as George Olendo, our driver from Nakuru.
When I say that churches divided along tribal lines, I don't mean that they split into two churches. I mean that they beat each other up, set each other's homes on fire, and attacked each other with machetes.
The building in the background is their rented church building. Some of the children in the picture are homeless, some aren't.
This did not happen with George's church because they had embraced a different Gospel. They knew that they were called to leave their Kenyan tribes and become one tribe, one people, joined forever to Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
The violence, however, wreaked havoc on the church in Nakuru. George's sister and many other church members had to return to their old tribal homelands to ensure their survival. Nakuru had fires burning throughout the city. It was not the worst hit city in Nakuru, but there were deaths and violence.
By the time the riots had ended, months later, Kenya's economy was in a shambles and George's church was back down to 30 people. By the time we were scheduled to visit, they had increased to over 60 members, but many had left the city for their old homelands.
We were forced to cancel our planned trip, but we rescheduled for May of 2008.
The Growing Church
I'll spare you the details of our trips. We made trips in May of 2008, November to December of 2009, and one in between.
We've encouraged the church there, trained George in leadership some, and established some organization and oversight so that no one in the church ever gets sick or goes hungry without someone knowing and being able to help.
George likes to tell other Christians and the congregation there, "We're doing a new thing."
You cannot imagine what that means.
On our side, helping George to teach Christ in Kenya is not new. It's simply normal. His congregation is a giving congregation because Christ has taught them to be so. They share, and they cling tightly to the belief that they are all in this together. They are God's household, and first and foremost they belong to him and to each other.
Outside George's church is where we got our surprise.
We've met several really wonderful pastors of small congregations in Nakuru. We've found the Kenyan people very open to the Gospel.
But the stories those people and those pastors have told us are stunning even to Americans used to the division and competitiveness of American churches.
One man told us it's like the pastors have a stick. Everyone wants to be the pastor, and the pastor beats the others down so that he can have preeiminence. Even the pastors—and we know several who are not that way—acknowledge to us that this is simply normal in Nakuru.
Congregations are usually small, often no more than about 15 people with almost no men. The men compete for the pastor's spots, and when they don't get it, they simply don't attend church. The women of George's church tell us that it's not normal for men to go to church in Kenya. Mostly, it's women.
George has had some trouble getting the men out, too, but that's beginning to change. Several husbands have shown up asking what it is that has happened to their wives to make them so loving.
Loving people to the Lord is a slow process, but it is bearing fruit.
One Very Sticky Problem
One problem that you run into when you have a church where everyone takes care of everyone and where Americans are involved is what is known in mission work as "rice Christians."
"Rice Christians" are Christians who are only Christians when they are receiving aid. Basically, they are being paid to follow Christ.
Sorting between those who have come to the church out of a desire to follow Christ and those who have come because they have heard of the generosity of the Christ at what is now known as Lakeview Community Church is a difficult, difficult task. We don't get involved in that, we let the church leadership there deal with those things. In the meantime, we look over the shoulders of church leadership and help guard their hearts against greed.
I was actually trying to snap a picture of the child in the background, but one of the street kids jumped into it. Note the condition of his teeth and sweater. The street kids get their clothes from the dump, so they're sized wrong and often torn.
The Need
I've already told you what life is like in the slums of Nakuru. The need is simply indescribable.
Noah Taylor delivering rice and beans as part of the food bank program.
These people are stunned that muzungus (white people) will visit them in their houses.
Orphans wander the streets. Some have no homes because one of their parents died of AIDS, malaria, typhoid, or dysentery, and the other put them out because he or she couldn't feed them. Teenage boys wander aimlessly down the street, holding a can of glue, which they sniff regularly to obliterate the cry of their stomachs and the hopelessness of their lives.
We've already helped several people get small businesses started that will provide for their families. We've especially needed to do that for widows with children. There is no government program to take care of them if the church does not.
We've established a food bank that provides staples like rice and beans to about 50 people each month. That will need to grow because the need is so great, but it's not the best way. The best way is to help them earn their own money.
So we've also started a microloan program called FISH (Financing Indigenous Self-Help).
FISH provides money, approved and overseen by church leadership, to start businesses in Kenya. The loans are never over $100, and our program is patterned after successful programs done by other mission organizations. Similar leadership, similar accountability, and similar bookkeeping requirements. Programs like this usually have incredible repayment rates, usually over 95%.
These programs are overseen by Kenyans, who report to us. We've been encouraged by others who have done this before to exercise stringent oversight. We're doing that.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
- We need to start a health clinic for basic services and to administer medicines in the slum area.
- We need to station a medically-trained person to oversee that clinic.
- We need to carefully screen and appoint couples to run "Mercy Homes." These would be mini-orphanages, where one couple raises up to 10 orphans as their own children, supported by American donations.
- There is seemingly no limit to the need. Nakuru has about 300,000 people, many of whom are poor. One larger church there was feeding 400 orphans at a once per month lunch. I can assure you those orphans are in need of more than one meal a month and that they are a small portion of the total population of orphans.
- The church needs a larger building to meet in. The best way to do this is to purchase a piece of land we know about there that will cost $45,000. It will also provide some small buildings that can be turned into church-overseen businesses to provide jobs to the neighborhood.
Miscellaneous needs that come up every day:
- Medical needs, especially typhoid and malaria medication.
- Mosquito nets so that we don't need to provide so much typhoid and malaria medication.
- Sanitation and hygiene education and funds to provide running water and clean outhouses. Almost no one has flushing toilets in the Nakuru slums.
- Uniforms for children so they can go to school and money for books. No money, no school in Kenya.
- Funeral costs, damage to wells or water pumps if there's running water, furniture (which is usually just a bed), etc.
How to Donate
Rose Creek Village Ministries, Inc. is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organizations, so all donations are tax-deductible. If you donate over $250, we'll send you a tax-deductible receipt. For less than $250, your PayPal receipt will suffice for a tax deduction. We'll also send you a paper receipt if you request one even for small donations.
You'll be asked for the donation amount when you get to PayPal. Enter any amount you want, and don't forget to hit the "update total" button!
Amount Ideas
If you want some ideas for amounts, a dose of typhoid medicine costs about $12. A person can eat for a month on about $20, but not well. Starting a grocery store for a widow with children costs $50 to $100.
Our food bank program costs just $250 per month, but it could easily be enlarged.
The greatest need of all would be to buy land there that they could open a couple businesses on. There's a great plot available for something less than $50,000. Contributions of any amount toward the land would be a huge help, as we have no hope of coming up with such a large amount on our own.
To Donate:
Just click on the button below, and you'll be asked for an amount. PayPal has verified our 501(c)3 status. Click "Return to Rose Creek Village Ministries" when you're done, and you'll be brought back here.
Don't forget to hit the "update total" button after you enter an amount on the donation page at PayPal. I repeatedly forget, then sit stumped as to why it's not working.
Any money donated on this page will go 100% to our Africa fund for ministry in the Nakuru slums.
