Welcome Back Kenya Team

It was great to see Regina, Carolyn and Elise tonight. They arrived back from Kenya this afternoon. I loved hearing their stories and loved even more the excitement they brought back.

This trip actually had two missions. One was to provide training to local children's leaders and pastors. They had around 65 people show up for the training. It's amazing to think that around 65 churches are going to be better at children's ministry because of the three of them.

The second mission was to listen for God's voice as He continues to prepare our church for The PEACE Plan. God has been leading us to Kenya for several years now. This past year he began to impress on a couple of people that He was leading them to be involved in PEACE through working with orphans.

At the end of their trip, I believe our team experienced a divine appointment. I've copied their blog entry from that day. I can't wait to see what God does.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

This is our last contact from Kenya. We had an amazing experience on Saturday and we will ask you to pray about this after I share with you. We went with the pastor and some others from church to the slums.....I had asked to see a children's home. I had been to an orphanage in Jamaica and thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. The orphanage in Jamaica was a palace compared to what we saw Saturday. If you saw Slum Dog Millionaire you MIGHT be able to picture what we saw. Raw sewage and house made from scraps. I was SURE that the orphanage would be better. WRONG AGAIN. In a building that we would not let our homeless guests sleep in, we found 70 orphans, street children. We would not let our children even step in a building like that. I though parts would tumble down around us. The building should have housed 20 and it had 70. That is very common. There was no plumbing so the people use bags and then throw them. That could explain the smell and the flies. The children are not allowed to go outside to play because they would be in danger, so they play in a TINY courtyard. The adults do their best to serve them. A building with no ventilation and dirt floors is better than a child being at risk is the theory. Some of the children have HIV, some do not, but they are not sure who does and who does not. It was AWFUL. Our dear Pastor Charles even shed a tear. He had not been in there before. Our driver is the pastor's wife. She looked at me and said, our ladies group has talked for years about helping orphans, and now I know we have to. I asked her how she would do that.. She then explained to me that she and some ladies took one year and saved enough money to buy a piece of land. They have been waiting for help to build something on it. I asked if we could see it. She called the other women and we went to the land. Three white women and 5 African women stood on top of a hill, the wind blowing our hair as we cried out to God together for this land to be used to get children out of such dark places. It was a powerful moment for everyone involved.

Great Songs in Kid's Movies

I think it's awesome how today's kid's movies are using songs from the 80's. My kids watched Bedtime Stories several times last week while we were making the 8 hour trek to North Carolina. They loved the songs so I went to Itunes and downloaded some of them.

Yesterday, as Andrew and I were driving, he and I were rocking to Journey's Don't Stop Believing. He also loves, thanks to Guitar Hero, the best song ever written - Band on the Run.

Is Customer Service Back?

I heard a financial guy a few months ago say that the companies that make it through the recession will be the ones who reinvent and retrain their employees in customer service. I was excited about that because for years now it seems, at least where I live, that customer service has been lacking.

This past week I was in Home Depot and it seemed like there was someone standing at the end of every other isle asking me if I needed any help. And then when I was ordering my latte at Starbucks on Monday, they actually had my drink ready BEFORE I had even paid for it.

Maybe it's back. We can all hope.

Saying Yes To God Before...

I'm reading Kay Warren's book Dangerous Surrender. Our small group is reading it together and discussing it each Friday night. The theme basically boils down to "saying yes to God before He reveals His plans to you."

Got to admit that's not an easy one for me and my guess is it's not for most of us. I came across a story on another Pastor's blog that really inspired me. It's the story of how Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life came about.

In the early 90's Saddleback church was starting a building campaign. Rick says he and Kay felt led to share publicly with the church what their pledge was for the campaign. Kind of like King David did when they were building the Temple. He said he felt very awkward sharing that kind of thing publicly but he knew the Lord wanted him to so he did.

They pledged their entire salary for three years and had no idea how they were going to be able to do it. A few weeks later Zondervan called and offered a book deal to Rick to write Purpose-Driven Church and Purpose Driven Life. The advance was the exact amount they had pledged.

I don't think there's any question why The Purpose Driven Life has become the best selling book that it is.