Missionary Monday

Kenya - I'm sure you've heard and seen on the news recently about the violence there. You may not understand about the tribal ties or history of a hard-won democracy or why one president would stay in office decade after decade but I do know something that each of us clearly understands. People are dying needlessly. Children are being separated from their parents, sent to refugee camps, and sometimes orphaned from this violence. Children and older adults and women with nursing babies are having their lives changed drastically for the worse. Mothers are losing sons, men are losing brothers and best friends and no one sees any end to this chaos. But there are glimpses of hope in strange places. Children in a church in the midst of one of the many slums in Nairobi getting on their knees and praying for peace. Not because someone told them to, or even asked them. They just came out of a sensitive heart, out of hope that the Giver of Hope has promised to always listen. And out of the idea that even senseless violence has some purpose and can be used to bring others to the One who loves them most.

Why does my heart ache so for Kenya? I wish it was because my heart was that sensitive. But in times past I have watched scenes like these from other countries and not been touched. This time it hit home. I know Kenyans living in Nairobi. I know American missionaries living there. I have faces to go with the violence, names to go with the despair, pictures of happier times to sit and ponder over. I have heart-strings attached to this place. Over 20 years ago I met and trained Kenyans to return home and do their jobs. Several years later when I turned my life over to Christ I ached at the knowledge that He had brought so many people from so many places across my path and never once had I shared the Gospel. Never once had I even thought about training them for what would matter in eternity. But the Lord is His Incomprehensible Mercy allowed my own child to go into the countryside in Kenya and preach and teach and baptize. Amazing. It still leaves me in awe of the Savior's love for me in my failures and shortcomings. Although it was over ten years ago and only a short-term trip, my mind has etched forever the vision from a picture taken of my son baptizing an old man in a muddy river in the same country that had brought such longing to my heart. And it reminds me that my heart should be attached to every place. I should be like those children in the slum. Racing excitedly to the throne of God, expecting miracles, pleading for grace and wisdom and safety for every child in every dangerous place. And then I can understand how very inadequate anything done by man is and how very much we should be turning to the only One who can stop us from harm. Pray today for Kenya. For peace to be returned if it is the Lord's will. For many to be brought to the truth of Christ in the midst of the turmoil. For the hearts of all of us to be sensitive to the many needs of the world around us, close by and far away.