Midwest Estate Buyers

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The Real Reason

The day dawned with the sounds of the children preparing for their day. Dressed and fed and in classes by 7 AM.  Several times during the day we had dozens of eyes watching every move we made, crowding closer and closer till we had to tell them to move back again. But those eyes, full of intelligence and curiosity, wondering what these silly white folks with hairy arms are doing.  Hair on arms here is never seen. The only image they have of our Heavenly Father is presented by the pastor and caretakers here and they do it beautifully. They are safe and healthy and fed and cared for in a loving atmosphere. They will know a God who wants them and takes care of them.

This was the most complicated plumbing job FoH have ever done for an installation. For the tank to be of best use for the pastor, we needed to run 125 feet of pipe in 3 different directions with faucets and plumed into the main from the street. Thank God for Al who is trained as a plumber.

We got to go to another set of hardware stores today. As long as I do this, I don’t think I will get used to this style of shopping. As part of the group was shopping for parts, Ann and I went to the cyber café so I could get out last nights post. The house here does not have internet (it’s amazing that the children can survive at all). As I was getting it posted, I realized they were playing Christian music there; it’s the quickest the internet has worked for me since I have been here. Anybody see a connection there?

Kenya is a Christian nation with about 70% of the 40 million people here professing they are Christians.

The work got finished and we will be able to do the training tomorrow with all of the key people and still have some time to see some of the other amazing animals here at some parks that are close to Nairobi.

The thing that marked the day though were the conversations that I was blessed to be part of. I talked about Gods healing power with a team member and was able to share what my wife’s ministry is about with the pastor. He circled back around to the topic at dinner and loved the focus of being sons and daughters of the King. He thinks we place too much focus on all of our shortcomings and brokenness instead of living like children of the King. It was great conversation and illustrated for us that relationship building is as important to these trips as is the purifier installations.

One more full day here and then we are on a plane back to the states. Please continue to pray for our safety. I do need to let you know that we are all functioning as a team beautifully with no cross words or short tempers, another gift from God. If anyone has ever traveled with a group of people, you know what I mean.

Brian McCall

Hooligans and Rhinoceros

As uneventful as yesterday was finishing up the system at Neema House, that’s as eventful as today was. It is now 10:30 PM and we are safely at the orphanage in Nairobi. The children have eaten and remarkably bedded down without a peep. This is after we did our best to wind them up with songs and a game of Simon Says.

But let me start at the beginning; we had about an 8 hour drive from Eldoret to Nairobi and were able to leave shortly after 9 giving us a small window to put on our tourists hats and do a little sight-seeing on the way down. After spending a few minutes at 0 degrees longitude (the equator for those map-challenged), we hit Nakumu lake and nature park. It is home to the largest flamingo population in the world most of the year. Over a million strong. That would not be THIS time of year, however. We saw exactly 3 greater flamingos.

We were treated to some amazing wildlife though. We saw monkeys and baboons, zebras and gazelles, giant storks, a hippopotamus and even a herd of rhinos. Spectacular stuff.  We felt like we were truly on safari and got some amazing pictures. God’s creativity was truly on display!

We were nearly accosted at the vendors stands while we were looking for souvenirs and I thought I was being told I needed to go on a serious diet plan as they kept yelling “Jumbo, Jumbo” to me.  I finally learned that means, “Welcome” in Kiswahili.

I was relieved, but I might still need to lose some weight.

It was time to head out and we still had 3 + hours to Nairobi. As we hit town apparently the 4 million people who were headed out on Friday as we left were headed back today. We hit some horrible traffic, including a stretch that was under construction where we were four wide in an area meant for not more than two, where Tom and Jared said we needed to close are windows and be very cautious.  They started pointing out all of these young men they were calling hooligans; our equivalent of gang members at their worst. We were thankful for our guides and their caution and we finally cleared the traffic and made it back to the orphanage.

It’s a shame when you are more afraid of the people than the wild animals.

Tomorrow we will get to do another installation and be able to wrap the week up by midday on Thursday.

Please continue your prayers, we are feeling them and have for sure been protected thus far!

Quickie

Sorry I could not get something out last night; no internet service. 

Thank you all for your prayers. The ICC ruling came down and it was a non event. Our driver, Tom, and out interpreter, Jared, both thought it would be prudent to be back at the hotel before the ruling came down. So we erred on the side of caution and were back at the hotel by 12;30. This gave us just enough time to play a quick nine. Ahhh, the life of a missionary.

Once it became clear that there was going to be no violence, the group went back to the orphanage to set up a second tank for the children to wash their hands. 

Thank you all for your prayers! They work!

We are headed to Nairobi today, about a 6-7 hour drive, and we hope to be able to do a little sight seeing on the way. 

Have a great day!

Brian McCall

Mission Accomplished

I would like to amend my last thought from yesterday. I have to confess that I was very tired and words were not coming easily. When I am speaking of God and what He has done and created, I could go on for paragraphs and pages and never get to completeness because of God's unsearchable depths. After I had sent my post and was nodding off, a picture came to me that better illustrated what I was trying to say: Imagine a 7 year old child who has just learned how to do a cartwheel. She runs inside the house and gets her mom and dad and says "Come quick! Look what I can do!" She does it for them and turns around and says "Wasn't that cool?" She wants them to share in her exuberance. This is how I imagine it with God. He throws a few billion galaxies in the universe and says "Isn't that cool? Share in My joy!"

Now imagine that same 7 year old who runs in the house and says, "Come see what I can do now!" And she does a triple flip with 2 1/2 twists in the full layout position and sticks the landing. Her parents stand there in slack-jawed amazement. So it is with God, "You think those galaxies are something? Watch this!" and he creates mankind. This is what I was trying to convey.

Church today was quite good with the pastor teaching from Genesis 13 about slowing down to do the right thing; fulfilling the commission that God has on each of our lives. There were over 3000 people in that service this morning and there were two more services yet today.

After church today we were able to have some fried chicken and milk shakes at The Oasis not far from here. It was a welcome bit of comfort food for us. We then had a few hours to kill and were able to take a little drive up to another part of the Rift Valley. Other than some more incredible birds we did not see any other wildlife, but were treated to magnificent vistas that rival what we see at the Grand Canyon. We learned that the Rift Valley is a giant crack in Africa that is approximately 10,000 miles long and runs from Egypt to Mozambique. We were several thousand feet above the valley floor and able to see for many miles the rich valley.

From there we were able to go back to the Neema House and finish the installation, with one minor problem. When putting in a water purification system it is usually customary to have water. The government turned off the water in this area without warning for several hours meaning we will be doing training tomorrow and be delayed a day getting back to Nairobi.  We would ask for prayers of peace in the people here in Eldoret as Monday at 1:30 the ICC ruling comes down for the accused political insurrectionists. You will have to Google it for the full story but just know this is where the worst violence was post election 5 years ago and this is what the ruling has to do with. The feeling is that it will be a non event either way the ruling goes as the mood is quite different now, but the media here seems to be blowing it up (sound familiar?).

Finally we shared a meal with Mariam and Joshua who are founders of Neema House. There are 42 orphans there, 32 of which are HIV positive and 15 have AIDS. All of these children are considered theirs legally. They provide them with clothing, shelter, education, medical treatment and most of all an unconditional love which shows in every one of the children's faces. By the way, they made it to church this morning with 14 kids under 9 all well dressed, fed and on time. We were all mesmerized by the testimony they were telling about starting the home. Miriam was an orphan who was angry at God. Joshua was a pastor at the hospital where she was training to be a nurse.

When you want to get a sense for how far some one has come in their healing process, just listen to them for a bit. When they get to the place where they thank God for the hardship that they have endured in their lives, because without it they would never have made it to the place they are now, you know they are completely healed. This is the story that Miriam tells. 

If we do and see nothing else this week, we will feel accomplished because of our experience with Neema House.

God bless you all for your thoughts and prayers.

Brian McCall