mission

Miracles at Tenwek

A few years ago, one of our sons used to sleep with a small backpack, full of some of his favorite treasures and things he deemed necessary, near his ladder to his bunk bed. When I asked him what the packed bag was for, he said it was “in case there was a fire and I need to get out quickly.” Fire is scary. Fire is powerful. Fire usually shows up quickly and unannounced. In those days, our son was obviously feeling anxious that there could be a fire in our house. We have witnessed one huge house fire, and seen the aftermath of another, just on the small street we live on here in the States.

Last week there was a fire at Tenwek. We heard about it within hours of it having started. We prayed. We saw a picture of the flames soaring high above a building. I got chills and felt sick about what was happening. We had walked in and out of that building many times last year. I sat in a social work office there with baby Melanie. Two of our sons attended a Sunday school class in the dining room area of the building. Multiple times Tom went there to buy a soda and a mandazi. We walked by patients from the wound ward in the bottom of the building, who were often laying on the grassy areas surrounding the building when the weather was nice. And the building is used heavily by kids doing Bible Quizzing during the spring months each year.

Amidst this scary time, though, we learned there were so many things God was doing, miracles He was working. First of all, NO life was lost! In this huge fire, with no true fire station or firefighting equipment nearby, there were no casualties. That is amazing in itself. God’s protection and provision was in the timing of the fire and every other detail. We’ve heard also (and are not surprised) that the community of missionary families & staff at Tenwek stepped up and everyone was helping. They went into “go” mode and everyone worked together beautifully. There were surgeries going on, babies being born and critically ill patients who were being cared for during the fire. God provided. And the fire did not spread! Our church there was only a few steps from the door of the burning building (as seen in the picture below), but it did not get burned at all. So many miracles.

I was sad this week to think of the mess that our friends are dealing with at Tenwek, and the big job it will be to recover and rebuild after this devastating fire. I am reminded, though, of God’s amazing faithfulness. We don’t understand his ways, but he is God. He is loving and good and kind and just. And so much more. I struggle to believe this sometimes, but it is true.

We don’t know why this fire happened in the grand scheme of his plan, just like we don’t know why any tragedy happens. But we know that who God is will never change. There are always his miracles to be found. And that gives me great hope. Praise be to Jesus who cares for us in such tangible ways. He doesn’t have to, but he does. All the time. Great is his faithfulness.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ~Romans 11:33

*To learn more about the fire, click here.

Posted: February 17, 2018
Under: hope, mission, Tenwek
By: Emily

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The waiting…and HMA

Patience has been a word I’ve wrestled with over the years. Some well-meaning friends have even told me outright that I should not pray for patience…because then I might have a situation happen where I’ll need a lot of it! Well I don’t know if that’s really true, but I do know there are many lessons to be learned involving times of waiting, and that I can always use a good dose of extra patience.

Many of you know that we homeschool. God led us to homeschooling similarly to how he led us to foreign missions. Despite us! We never set out to homeschool, neither of us were taught that way, nor are we teachers by trade. But God. He called us to it about 7 years ago, and he has amazingly seen us through it ever since. If I am honest, I would say that homeschooling is one of the primary ways God uses to refine me and humble me. Every day. Enough said.

Seriously, schooling our kids is hard. Really hard. And not primarily because of academics. I truly believe that God equips us for everything he calls us to. I am praying for that equipping every single day, because I cannot do it on my own. And I can get seriously discouraged when I go through day 457 of seeing my boys veer off the path they know is right and instead throw things, wrestle, play and make a serious mess in the 10 minutes that I might be downstairs changing a diaper or taking care of some other quick necessity. I get discouraged. I feel like they’re never going to get into college, never going to have the character we hope for, never going to take responsibility and live for the Lord. It can get really serious really fast (in that 10 minutes)! But there is hope.

This is when I have to take a step back and realize that God is still on his throne. HE is bigger than all of this. He is bigger than my daily circumstances or challenges with my kids. He knows them better than I do. And He who began a good work in them will carry it on to completion (Philippians 1:6).

So this all relates to our mission work too. There are many details that need to be taken care of for us to get back to Kenya. We know God is faithful, and we trust He is good. How He is going to work out all those details still remains to be seen in a lot of ways. It can get stressful and we don’t always have answers to the questions people may ask, but we know God is leading the way and He will provide for all our needs.

One question we get often is what exactly is HMA or furlough, and is that what we’re doing right now? The answer is HMA literally means Homeland Ministry Assignment, and yes! We according to our mission agency, we are considered to be on furlough, or HMA, right now. That just means we are in a time of ministry here in the States, and we are in sort of a holding place for our mission abroad (in Kenya), waiting to go back when God’s perfect timing comes to fruition. The more practical details are that we hope to go back to Tenwek at the end of the summer, if we are fully funded and things here are in order for us to go.

So our overall goals on this HMA are pretty simple: be faithful to the Lord’s calling in our family and in this community where we live, and raise support to be able to go back to Kenya. We are constantly seeking God’s will and hand of guidance, and we pray that we would not be swayed or deterred by anything not of Him. We would appreciate your prayers too, and we thank you so much for your care and support of our family. We are open to speaking to more churches or small groups who are interested in our ministry, so please contact us if that is something you can help us with!

I close with some words of hope. Hope is a beautiful word that I am trying to set my heart and mind on this year. The great reminder that it is nothing of our own doing that is of any real worth or significance.

In this world that seems to be teetering on the brink of disaster any given day (in the broad sense and in our own hearts and homes), Scripture tells us we have a strong and unshakeable Kingdom.“We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” (Hebrews 6:18-19)

Christ is our hope. Praise the Lord!

Posted: January 24, 2018
Under: Family, mission, refining
By: Emily

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Hope

“She’s my Favorite Daughter…”

If you are like me, those words probably make you a little uncomfortable. You’re not supposed to feel that way, and if you do, you are definitely not supposed to say it. Sitting across from an older Kenyan gentleman, I shifted uneasily in my seat. Maybe it was the cultural divide; perhaps it was simply a challenge of translation; or maybe he meant exactly what I heard the translator say… I couldn’t be sure at that moment. The meaning the words carried were intensely clear, though. The young teenage girl lying in the ICU bed beside us was immeasurably important to her father, more important than his own life. The comment was not the only reason I felt uncomfortable, though. I was fumbling with my words, trying to tell him that there was very little we could do for his daughter. She suffered from a condition called rheumatic heart disease, and it appeared that her disease had progressed beyond the point where we could help. She was going to die. The best we could hope for was to temporarily stabilize her and ease her discomfort, and even that would be very expensive. Despite the dramatically reduced costs in a mission hospital, ICU care can be financially devastating when you make less than 500 shillings ($5) per day. It soon became clear that he understood her extremely poor prognosis and the cost. He chose hope. I couldn’t blame him. Even as I desperately tried to block the thought from entering my mind, I could still see the faces of my own precious children lying on the hospital bed beside me. I didn’t understand at that moment, though, how deep his hope went.

Most of us in the West have forgotten, or never known, the devastating terror of rheumatic heart disease. We know we are supposed to take strep throat seriously, but we’re not sure why. Without a simple treatment with antibiotics, somewhere between 1 and 3 percent of people who have strep throat will develop rheumatic fever. Many who develop rheumatic fever will subsequently develop rheumatic heart disease, and without surgery, almost all of those will die. In my 10 years as a pediatrician in the US, I never saw a single case of rheumatic fever. In my 6 months in Kenya, I saw at least 10 children die, and many more suffering from the cruel clutches of this terrible disease. Thanks to the heroic efforts of a few surgeons and teams of specialists from the US, some of these kids are given new hope with lifesaving heart surgery. Many are too sick, beyond the point where surgery is an option. Every single one of these tragic stories is preventable.

A few hours after our first conversation, I again sat with this kind Kenyan man. This time, fighting back tears, I had to explain to him that his daughter had died. I didn’t know what to expect. I had seen this news crush the strongest and reduce them to a weeping pile on the floor. As I lamely said “I’m so sorry,” his response was shocking. With tears on his face, he looked at me and said, “Why are you sorry? You did everything you could.” He went on to explain the depth of his hope. He knew his precious child had trusted in the saving mercy of Jesus, the same Lord He had given his life to. Because of this unshakeable hope he could boldly say, in defiance of the tragedy, that he knew he would see her again. He could even rejoice that her earthly suffering had come to an end. She was in paradise with her Lord.

The testimony of this man’s faith shook me. It is rare that we catch a glimpse of the shining crown of glory our Lord places on His saints on this side of eternity. My prayer for this new year is that I can live out what I know to be true, what this humble man so vividly revealed. The lyrics of this song say it better than I even could:

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow’r of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.

I pray the same for all of you. If you don’t know that hope that we have in Christ, I would love to tell you more about it (please contact us!). If you would like to partner with us as we seek to share this hope with others and work to prevent the scourge of diseases like rheumatic heart disease from devastating other families in Kenya, please consider donating to our ministry.

“so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” -1 Peter 4:2

Posted: January 1, 2018
Under: Africa, hospital, mission, the gospel
By: Tom

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