It is very exciting getting news about the building progress. How many buildings do you use regularly in your life?
How many times do we take good buildings for granted?
But we are bringing a good building to the Kakamega area. A missionary friend tells me, "Oh they love buildings!" and so do we. I never think about it, but what if I didn't have all these nice buildings in my life? I would wish we had something substantial and clean.
The foundation has been poured as we head into the month of April. We have wired more funds to begin the walls. We are praying daily for the computers to be donated, for the medical equipment shipping costs to be donated, and for our programmers to get up to speed in Java and C sharp so that we can begin the For Profit that will fund the community development. It will be the locals supplying their own community with relief! They are very motivated.
I was speaking to another missionary the other night. She, too, has read Walking with the Poor. She asked me if I had read, When Helping Hurts. She described someone who thought they were doing a good work and had to pull out because it was undermining the life of the locals. I suppose she was asserting that there is a problem with passivity when you come in and "rescue" the poor.
She either said or implied that people were passive. I assured her that our friends are anything but passive. That is why we got involved! They are already working on changing the community on their own. We are just joining them and adding to their efforts.
We have listened to what they wanted to see improve. Bishop Titus said definitely his dream was to have a library. What he really wanted was the computer lab. Later, he said with the change in the local medical clinic, he wanted to see the medical clinic come to his area. The people have asked for wells. And now they'd like to see some support for the orphans and widows.
In the meantime, they are working on improving agricultural yields and income by changing from sugar cane to corn. They have gotten a community tractor and they also rent it out to the area so that they earn income. The church growth has been phenomenal and is difficult for them to keep up with. In remote areas, they are planting many new churches. They are teaching the people the good news of the gospel and promoting a biblical culture above the traditional culture. Whereas a woman formerly had to marry her brother in law when her husband died, she now has freedom to remain single. A man who has many wives is told to take no more. Young men are told to marry one wife and to remain faithful to her. Men are to love their wives and treat them kindly. Women are to respect their husbands and affirm them. Great change has come! Many of the Christians have taken in orphans, even though they struggle. They resist putting the children in orphanages and strive to keep them in families. The churches try to aid widows who care for orphans. Oh they are anything but passive in Western Kenya. They are serving and loving God.
Obviously, all is not utopia. We are still on this side of heaven. Family members are killed so that someone can gain their land. A boy was killed for eating a farmer's sugar cane. A child dies because no one knows CPR. Children die of Malaria from lack of treatment--a bed net costing 1.50 can reduce malaria 100%. A house worker steals the furniture from the home. But changes have come and the quality of life continues to improve. People are eager to work, thankful for work, eager for education, thankful for education--this is not a passive people. God is at work in their lives and He is active and powerful. It is very evident.
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