Wednesday and Thursday

WEDNESDAY June 30, 2010 BLOG
I meant to blog the last couple of days or nights. Once again I could not get on and have forgotten what I even did. The time with the students has been good. It has been like church plus a business seminar. I am so pleased with the students! One thing they need is to be more aggressive. I put up a 100 kenyan shilling bill. It equals more than one U.S. dollar and you can buy 3 cokes, two loaves of bread, or some phone time. I told them to come get it. They sat there. I stood there. Then Catherine, our employee in the back, got up and headed towards me. Even as she came, she hesitated briefly twice. This would have given someone in front of her time to leap out of their chair and beat her to me. But they didn’t move. Not ONE! That afternoon class had maybe 12 students and not one moved towards me. Catherine got to me and snatched it out of my hand. She was happy! She got the money! For basically nothing. I looked at the students. I told them they passed it by. They were too afraid to move. What was holding them back? Only themselves. It was FREE! I was offering it! But because no one next to them was moving, they did not move either. Let today be the last day. Let it be the day they change. One of them said it was a GOOD LESSON! They could not believe themselves either. They were stunned. But I want them to learn to be in front of people and to move out when no one else will. I want them to learn to be WRONG. I want to create an atmosphere where they are willing to be sent back in front of everyone. I want to create an atmosphere where they are willing to be corrected. In the morning class, I talked about honesty. It was really, really good. I told them that before I was a Christian, I would lie easily. I would even make up stories to be interesting or make a true story much more interesting. I never felt any guilt about it but I did not want to be exposed as a liar. I was immoral and did not want to be exposed as immoral but wanted to do anything I felt like doing rather than having to conform to a society message about what was right or wrong. I wanted total freedom and no consequences. I am a totally different person today thanks to Jesus. I do not even tell white lies. I never ask my children, family or friends to “cover” for me. I always tell them to be honest. I am nowhere near perfect. I still may keep quiet when I should tell something. Or I may neglect to tell some part that might implicate me somehow. But I never lie to a direct question and I never tell white lies. They are all from the father of lies and I don’t want to be like him. Sometimes I end up confronting people who are telling me to say this or that. It is uncomfortable but I know that I am giving them a good role model even though it is not usually done. Regarding our lawyer who has treated us wrongfully, one employee was telling me to write him a letter with a certain slant—but it was not honest. So I told him that I could not do that because it would not be true. He back-tracked, saying that he meant something else, and I always let that drop because I am not trying to call him out, I just made it clear that would not be my approach. The next day in class, this came back to him and he testified before the class about what he did without meaning anything wrong—yet he was willing to lie in order to get the truth from the lawyer. He could see the duplicity in it. It is amazing to see we are having spiritual growth in the classes when the classes are about programming and business. But we are running everything with integrity and expecting integrity. We are running everything openly and expecting openness. I think it makes people feel confident and safe. I think it releases them to do their best because they have a joy inside motivating them. When they feel supported, then they can relax and put their mind to their tasks. When they feel that they have room to fail, they will take more risks. It is a wonderful atmosphere.
No roaches in my room for 24 hours now. Hallelujah! I managed to sleep very soundly last night by the grace of God. Yesterday, Henry was in the afternoon class and while I don’t remember all he said, the gist of it was that the roaches are a blessing to me. What? I remember that I followed his line of reasoning until he came to the last part. I’ve forgotten the foundation of the declaration. But I thought I would just try to conform my mind to accept the roaches as a blessing. I could not really see them as a blessing except to say that I’ve come a long way to be able to manage with a roach in my vicinity. I told the class a story about when Sarah was around 8. We were at my mother in law’s, sleeping in the bedroom all together with the children on the floor, and a roach crawled across sarah. I snatched her up by one arm screaming (she was asleep.) I was thoroughly disgusted to the point of vomiting. My whole body was on fire with the electricity of adrenaline. I wanted to go home immediately. IMMEDIATELY! Steve woke to my scream and turned on the light. He did not want to go home. It was a 10 hour drive and the time was 10 pm. PLEASE wait until morning. NO! Please! No! Please. OH man, I could see how difficult it would be to pack (and with a roach running somewhere in the room and it being quite dark and the lamp barely enough to see in the room!) and then God spoke to me. “Stephanie.”…………oh man. Like in the movies. “Stephanie. So you want to be a missionary?” Oh God! How can you say such a thing! Of COURSE I want to be a missionary with all my heart! Then silence. Silence. My heart pounding pounding pounding. Truly I was not up to dealing with this. I was scared. I was whining inside. I was weak. How could God ask me to deal with a COCKROACH!?! I was not on the mission field, I was at my mother in law’s, for God’s sake! Can the two be any more polar in distance???? I melted onto the bed. I took Sarah up with me. UGH! The roach could be in the bed! I startled. I shook. I wanted to cry. I yielded. Steve was probably already asleep but I can’t even remember him in my memory at that point. I just remember I could not sleep. I constantly strained my eyes in the dark to see if the roach was near me or on me. Every movement of anything was a suspected roach. I did not sleep. And if I dozed off at all, I awoke with a start and was immediately mobilized for action and scanned my perimeter.
How different was my sleep last night. I considered the roaches a blessing. I considered how far I had come to have had several (NOT TO MENTION EXCEPT THAT I MUST MENTION----THESE BEASTS FLY!!!) in my room already. And I am still here. I am still motivated to love, serve, give, submit. How amazing! Truly, only God could do this because I have had a life of very few roaches ever. It is not as if I have gotten used to the ugly creatures from hell. No, I ran screaming on the first three that I encountered here. And the termites? Oh my gosh! I am so thankful they do not scare me! There were over 35 randomly crawling all over the floor one morning. We’ve told the story from an earlier visit when my mother learned of termites. The termites came in droves during the night and Titus opened the gates so the people could come in and harvest the bounty. As people shuffled outside her window, she feared a burglar. Turns out it was just neighbors gathering a nutritious manna from heaven. (Ugh.) Titus laughed and ate one, expecting me to be grossed out. Well, a little, but not much. Eat bugs if you want to eat them. Chinese eat them, too. I understand. But roaches? Even people picking one up just rips me apart and gives me the willies. I scream and run away as if they are touching my skin or they will taunt me with that nasty insect and freak me out further.
Enough about them. I’m doing well. God did not give me a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind. I lie down and sleep in peace because You alone oh Lord make me dwell in safety. I slept like a baby. I am refreshed today. What a miracle. Even I can’t believe it. But God is so good to empower you to do what He wants you to do that He can take a yahoo like me and do something GREAT! Woo Hoo! How I love him! Let the weak say I am strong! Let the poor say I am rich! Because of what the Lord has done for me! And I love passing this message onto the students. I am always able to hearken back to the early days when I was unsaved or when I was first saved. How weak I was then. How small my dreams. How faithful God has been to me. I have really only had three major traumas in my life. Two were my own fault and one was leadership dishonoring me when I was victimized. How I have grown from that! All of those events, and even trauma in the lives of my children, have brought me close to God and in such dependence on Him.
WEDNESDAY June 30, 2010
HALLELUJAH!! GOD IS SO GOOD! He has surely required much work from me and it is my joy! I went to the police office again today. This time to make a report. The District Chief Investigative Officer, Wambua, was there and he listened to my story. I had been there yesterday but not told the officer what the lawyer’s name was. Today I told the name and he wanted me to go get a receipt for the 60,000 shillings but I explained to him that the man does not return my calls. He does not return Titus’ calls either. He’s never in his office when we come. He never gets back to me. I sent him a registered letter yesterday describing our negotiations. It was to set up a legal framework for my case. He didn’t even call me! He made no attempt to give me the copy of the constitution I was requesting. However, the DCIO called him and requested him to come visit the police station. They made an appointment for tomorrow (Thursday) noon. Funny thing. Within 20 minutes of that call, a courier was at Cornerstone with my constitution and a letter. Hmmmmmn. Obviously, the lawyer knows exactly who made the call. Which is actually a good sign because that means he may not have cheated a bunch of other people. Hopefully, for the general public, it was only me. But he will have to explain himself now. Praise God! I trust Justice is coming. I am so thankful for good police officers. And I am so thankful for good lawyers. I am so glad that things like this do not happen all the time. It has been so difficult but we have overcome. And now we must find a way to make the NGO happen before that container comes.
In the meantime, I have had Anita send papers with signatures stating that she has signed the forms. I have had Sarah find the IRS 501 (c ) 3 acceptance letter and Laura has faxed them to herself then created a PDF from that and then emailed it to Steve. Now Steve has to send it to Frank and Walter.
I met with the students today. Just the morning class so far. I followed up on the brief talk on teamwork by Joseph. He discussed dependence, independence, and interdependence. I talked a little more on how each person has to contribute, even if you know you are the weakest member. If you see something that the top worker has overlooked, you are in charge of sharing that. I talked about body odor. I told them that today I came in and smelled bodies. Usually I don’t. So it reminded me to discuss how important it is to come to work with your clothes and body washed. I talked about brushing teeth and flossing (and how it affects your heart.) I talked about deodorant—they don’t have to use it here, but if they go to another country and represent us or if they have meetings with people from other countries, that they need to purchase some. I went on more extensively than that, but suffice it to say they were actually quite encouraged that I even discussed such things. Just knowing what we expect is helpful. And I’ve given them some assignments to help them grow in risk taking and professionalism. I’m having them give a small presentation on Monday and I will gauge their progress and give them feedback. They are doing great on programming. They are going to be so good when they get a computer to work on by themselves!
I just feel like singing! To have gotten that constitution! Praise God! Sarah found the IRS papers! Praise God! Laura sent them through email after faxing and turning into PDF! Praise God!
I showed the students their photos. I’m getting to know all their names. Praise God! I have explained to Walter that I need him to work on the website. I am not getting any donations. I am so surprised that I am here in Kenya and giving has just stopped! Well, it doesn’t stop us from giving. The needs are so great and God is providing for us. I pray people can see with spiritual eyes where the need is and they can prioritize orphans, widows, and the poor, like Job. I would trade this for any luxury vacation any day. I would trade this for any remodeling any day! I would trade this for cosmetic surgery any day! (hence why my facial skin is surgically perfected. It surely is a temptation for there are so many possible treatments to get your skin to be one nice smooth color!)
I praise God that my husband is so generous! I praise God that I am here in Kenya! I praise God that my children are beautiful and healthy! I praise God for my little puppies! I praise God for my TGD workers! I praise God for my Cornerstone Kenyan Family! I praise God!