November 2007 - Posts

• Kendall Update #118

  Glenn and Kathy Kendall Update #118 of Saturday, November 24, 2007, Ferkessedougou, Ivory Coast Silly Saturday “I am the son of the road, my country is the caravan, my life the most unexpected of voyages.”  --Amin Maalouf (taken from Leo the African) For over 10 hours today we were sons of the road as we joined the caravan, not of camels or donkeys but huge trucks carrying loads from the docks of Abidjan north, always north, traveling among men whose life is the road and whose country is the caravan as they find companionship and protection among the other drivers. The road burrows between high grasses, higher than the car, trimmed by the passage of trucks.  Trees of teak, papaya, coconut, mengo are among the many which line the passage. The paved road has more uses than providing a surface for trucks; where grass doesn’t grow to the trucks passing grains of various types dry alongside the edge of the road, weavers string their long ropes of string/yarn/cotton on the roadside, stalls of food appear strategically along the road so that passengers can buy at the ‘drive-in’. Villages of round mud huts with thatched roofs appear from the grasses and trees and soon are lost to view in the journey. Small motorbikes carrying two or three passengers jostle with the big trucks….a grandmother sits tucked between two adults on a motorbike, a baby is tied to the back of a mother also holding a child between her and the father in front.  Bicycles carrying loads of long grasses flowing off the back and sides, women balancing enormous bundles of firewood walk on the edge of the road, a hunter with his rifle tied to the back of his bicycle rides the road with his dog trotting alongside. The unexpected happens in one town as we all, all the sons of the road are waved off the road by police.  We all wind the back roads and again and again are waved off the main road.  Eventually we are told that the president is coming.  We stop.  We wait.  Soon the motorcade of many cars, ambulances, helicopter overhead zoom down the road.  When he has passed the caravan picks up life again. And along the road are indeed some silly things in all the senses of silly: a child sleeping on the road (is it because of hunger and too weak to progress, or because of illness and too weak to progress, or simply tired or crazy?); clods of dirt with attached grasses march down the center of the road warning of a broken down vehicle ahead (not actually so silly as ingenious); and coconut trees with all their leaves fallen looking like tall baseball bats standing in the fields. “My life the most unexpected of voyages.” Praises, Prayers and Thanks PRAISE – We pray that we would be in the right places at the right time.  We plan our trip months in advance.  In fact much of our spring trip is already laid out.  We saw our prayer answered in our SALT (Southern Africa Leadership Team) meetings in Maputo, Mozambique last weekend.  (See attached picture.)  Two couples were processing potential major changes in ministry caused by external events.  A third couple was contemplating a new ministry.  The processing as a group seemed very valuable to all and we praised God that we were there to be a part.  We had a great worship and praise time and our learning time was beneficial. THANKS to several who emailed that you also have had floaties in your eye(s) and that they went away in time.  That was a real encouragement to us.  PRAISE, Glenn’s vision in his left eye is not as obstructed as even just a few days ago. THANKS for praying for Becky, our daughter-in-law and her badly infected tonsils.  Nathan, Becky, Philip and Marie are staying in our house in Colorado.  Becky is healing after her tonsillectomy.  PRAISE  They are planning on returning to Africa December 12. THANKS for your giving to our ministry this year.  Giving covers our ministry budget: our air travel, visas, guest houses, extra food costs, taking people out for dinner, and even leaders’ meeting costs.  Because of the weaker dollar and higher ticket prices (fuel surcharges) and because we are still spending through December, it looks like we will end 2007 a bit over budget on our expense side.   PRAY This week of November 25:   We begin with individual missionary meetings in northern Ivory Coast. Thursday and Friday we meet with the MMT (Medical Ministry Team) working in medical ministry.  Last year this team and ministries they supervise combined to help 97,020 people in surgery, treatment, training or aid.  They saw 123 people come to faith in Christ.  They provide jobs for over 100 people.  Much of their treatment costs are covered through patient fees.  They also provide free care as they have resources. Friday evening through Sunday we meet with the entire Ivory Coast missionary team. Next week of December 2: Tuesday through Saturday individual meetings in Mali. Week of December 9: Sunday through Tuesday WAFL (West Africa Field Leaders) Meeting in Bamako, Mali Wednesday through Friday catch up on email/office work, Dakar, Senegal. Thank you for your interest, prayer and gifts. Posted Nov 25 2007, 12:22 PM by chriswynn with no comments Filed under: Abijan

• Kendall Update #117

  Glenn and Kathy Kendall Update #117 Saturday, November 17, 2007, Maputo, Mozambique, Take Two Today, the 17th of November, I read Psalm 17.  Verse 8 states "Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings...'. Have you ever tried to put an apple in your eye?  It's a sweet thought, a special thought...a delightful little phrase...but the action...ouch...that is totally silly to put an apple in your eye. For the past several days, Glenn has had things floating across his vision in his left eye, but nothing inhibiting his sight or painful.   This morning his vision reached a new bad level...not quite an apple in his eye, but definitely not good vision and a black section of non-vision. So at 7:00 a.m. we and our host were sitting in the general hospital of Maputo waiting for the eye doctor who was on call to arrive and tell us if Glenn had problems or not. When she showed up, we walked to the eye section of the hospital.  She unlocked the doors, turned on lights, and there we were.  For African hospitals which we have seen, it was pretty upscale.   While waiting for Glenn's eyes to respond to the medicine dilating them, we learned some of her history as she could even speak English.  Our host had come with us to make sure we got to the right place, as well as to speak Portuguese for us which we do not speak.   So we learned this lady was one of seven eye doctors in the whole country.  Mozambique is a country twice the size of California with about 20 million people.  She had gone into medicine because as a child she had watched her father, a nurse, treat people and seen the many many health needs of her country. As she checked Glenn's eye, she confirmed lots of floating substance in the vitreous, but his retina was still attached.  She was a gracious and competent doctor and we were so thankful and grateful that God had provided this person at this time and that we were in this place. We returned to the home of our host rejoicing that while Glenn's vision in his left eye is definitely impaired, cloudy, and limited that there is no need to do anything until January when we are back in the States.   And so we were able to spend the rest of the day meeting with folks from Mozambique and South Africa discussing significant issues in their lives and countries.   And in the best sense to be thankful that we could be the apple of God's eye. We hope you had a good Thanksgiving.  We spent ours in Nairobi, resting, walking but no football or turkey. Posted Nov 24 2007, 12:25 PM by chriswynn with no comments

• Kendall Update #116

  Glenn and Kathy Kendall Update #116 of Saturday, November 17, 2007, Maputo, Mozambique What do you say to a 49 year old man, father of six, who has lost his wife, likely caused by an atheist neighbor who is now taunting him that His God can’t help him… (Last Sunday’s event.) Eight of us, three Americans and five Rwandese, seven men and one woman, all involved in New Creation Ministries in Rwanda made the 2 hour drive south in Rwanda to visit the graduate of New Creation Ministries. The man was waiting by the road to show us where to drive down a dirt road and then park and walk the path still further to his house.   Church people were at the house and preparing a meal.  But first in good African fashion we all introduced our selves, said our names, where we were from and whether we were married or not and how many kids we had and what church we were members of (interesting what different cultures think important in introductions.) Then the man asked what our plans were so that he could prepare…we had come a long way, would we all be staying the night what did we want to do?  The selected leader of our group responded thanking the man for his hospitality and saying that first we wanted to hear his story then we had a couple of testimonies and something from the Word and we would leave before dark…and the program proceeded. The man told how he moved from the rural area to Kigali in 1977.  How all, every one, of his family in his home area where we were had been killed in the genocide in 1994.  How in 2004, he and his wife moved back to their historic family land and built a house, how this neighbor had designed to take over his family’s land and how their presence was an interruption to that plan and all the series of bad things and bad blood from this neighbor including the likely killing of his wife and the evidence they had of who and how it had been done up to the hitting with a stick of one of the children of the man the day before. And a great meal was ready: beef, macaroni, sauce, large French fries, mixed vegetables, salads, and soda, coffee and yogurt. Then we all sang and the family and others gathered and the “program” continued. Glenn’s testimony was, how he was the same age as the man’s second and his father was also 49 when his mother died.  His father’s consistent faith and going to church after his mother’s death was one thing that helped him through that hard time. Gary Bennett shared how hard it was when his wife died and how he questioned in his heart what he would do and were he would go if he gave up on God.  He concluded that he had no true place to go but to trust in God. The leader noted how white people who are so rich and have so much and good medical care and believe in God have deaths in their families. Then the woman shared from Habakkuk, the same verses that sustained us in the Rwandan genocide.  She first read about how bad things were then, how desperate and still the prophet said, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” We sang, prayed took pictures (one attached) and left.  The man went with us back to his work in Kigali and some near him talked more, his thinking on caring for his kids, what would be best for them. While it is hard to read what is in the heart of another and especially hard across cultures, it seemed he was encouraged. We finish our SALT (Southern Africa Leadership Team) meetings, meet with church leadership the beginning of the week, travel to Ivory Coast via two nights and Thanksgiving in Nairobi and arrive in northern Ivory Coast next Saturday, November 23 to begin meetings there. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving praising God for His goodness to us.   In the picture DSC 4967:  The widower has the camera around his neck.  All but one of his six children and the orphans he is caring for are in front of him.  His sister, who previously lost her husband, is two people to his right, in front and in black.  The visiting team is around, behind him. Posted Nov 23 2007, 12:24 PM by chriswynn with no comments Filed under: Mozambique

• Kendall Update #115

  Glenn and Kathy Kendall Update #115 of Saturday, November 10, 2007, Kigali, Rwanda                     Blue, green, red, yellow, pink, orange, purple…. Fat, skinny, long, round…. Helium filled, air filled… Balloons… Smiles and laughter…. Function deficient…. Silly things. A three year old boy smiles as he holds a pink balloon, bouncing it back and forth in his hands, holding its string, smiling, happy, a balloon- so simple, so silly, so mindless bringing gladness.  Minutes later tears stream down his face as he wails in sadness over the burst balloon lying on the gravel in shreds; irreparable, damaged, destroyed. Five acres of land on a hillside are the location of a school where several of our folks have invested time and energy.  Plots of land are used for new agricultural technology, other sections for new animal husbandry techniques.  Land is scarce in Rwanda, people are subsistence farmers.  Are there better ways to farm, to raise animals, to provide more for their families?  These are some of the questions trying to be answered by these experimental plots. But the main purpose of the acreage is for the school where men and women are taught to read the Bible accurately; ascertaining its application to their lives, to the lives of people in their churches, to their culture.  Can the Bible make a difference?  Does it teach truth that is applicable to all people at all times in all places?  How can one learn this truth?  How does one apply this truth? One of the graduates is like the burst balloon of the little boy.  His life is damaged, destroyed, shredded seemingly beyond repair.  A jealous neighbor lady threatens him, his wife, and family.  The threat becomes reality as the student’s wife becomes ill and dies.  The threat becomes reality when the two of the graduate’s children becomes ill, but do not die.  The threat is understood by neighbors to be real as the neighbor is jailed.  Her son, a policeman gets her released. The threat stands that three members of the student’s family will die before he lives in his new house.  The neighbor, an atheist, taunts him, “Where is your God now?  Why couldn’t He help you.  He is not real is he?  I am more powerful than your God.” The graduate is like the burst balloon; in pieces, deflated, torn, hurting.  Is the Bible true? Is the God of the Bible more powerful than the powers of the neighbor? Can he trust God?  Can he trust the Bible?  As a balloon bounces and floats wherever the air takes it, the graduate is ambivalent and vacillating.  What to believe?  Whom to trust?  His world, like the burst balloon has come apart and he cannot put the pieces back together by himself. Tomorrow Glenn and several others, American and Rwandese, will go to visit him.  What do they say?  How do they comfort? How do they reassure him?  Can his life again be a beautiful colored balloon, whole and floating, soaring high with gladness of spirit? What would you say? Thanks for Praying for our Rwanda Field Meetings.  They decided to pray for 30 days before making a final decision about starting a university level degree program to train pastors.  They want to prepare culturally engaged, Biblically informed leaders for the church in Rwanda.   If they commit this will be a huge project involving $1.5 million for new facilities, more for programs and materials, many more missionary and national teachers, advanced degrees for some current faculty, many work teams and the possibility to deepen the face of Christianity in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.  Please PRAY with us and them. Monday, with a two night layover in Nairobi, we head to Mozambique.  Pray for our first ever visit to that country, that we would listen and learn well and quickly.  Pray for our SALT (Southern Africa Leadership Team) meeting next weekend. Thank you for your interest and involvement. Posted Nov 12 2007, 04:06 PM by chriswynn with no comments Filed under: Rwanda

• Kendall Update #114

  Glenn and Kathy Kendall Update #114 of November 3, 2007, Kigufi, Rwanda “Let us sing, not in order to enjoy a life of leisure, but in order to lighten your labors.  You should sing as wayfarers do-sing, but continue your journey.  Do not be lazy, but sing to make your journey more enjoyable.  Sing, but keep going.” --- St. Augustine Life by the shore of Lake Kivu is lived to a different rhythm. It is the rhythm of song…the songs of birds, hundreds of them all day long making their song known as they do their work of seeking food whether diving into the lake for fish or poking their beaks into the ground for bugs or delicately resting on grasses to eat the seeds or prodding the skin of a papaya or guava for the succulent fruit within. It is the rhythm of the song of the fishermen going out at night in their dugouts and their song in the morning as they return with their catch from the large nets which they drop into the lake.  Some of the dugouts are small holding only one person.  Some are larger and look like water spiders with their long, long, poles balanced on the edges of the boat. It is the rhythm of men in dugouts paddling across the lake carrying their loads of produce to market. It is the rhythm of men doggedly paddling in the rain taking a sick child to the dispensary.  The child and mother sit huddled under a hollowed banana stalk for protection from the rain while the men persist in their work of paddling against waves rolling their little dugout as the rain pours from the sky. Dugouts…silly looking as water spiders…(foolish looking) Dugouts…on a silly mission of mercy…( deserving of sympathy). Sing…”not in order to enjoy a life of leisure, but to lighten your labors”.  The rhythm of Lake Kivu is song. This past week we met here with East Africa Field Leaders for prayer, discussion and insight: -          We prayed.   -          We worshiped. -          We shared good things, hard things and important things. -          How do we best structure teams as we grow? -          There are a number of mid-term missionaries in East Africa, How do they best fit in long-range planning when they have a mid-term commitment?   -          How do we get more families into WorldVenture? -          What constitutes a good meeting?  How can we make them better? -          We discussed the book “Invitation to a Journey” by M. Robert Mulholland. -          We reviewed where each team is at in Strategic Planning and what is needed next. Praise – It was a good, beneficial time together. Monday through Wednesday we meet with the Rwanda Team again for prayer, planning and discussion about how we can advance the kingdom better.  Then we’ll play together. Thursday and Friday we meet individually with Rwanda Team members. Thanks for praying for our week. Posted Nov 07 2007, 05:18 PM by chriswynn with no comments Filed under: Rwanda

• Kids Capture My Heart

  It was one of those magical evenings.  After a long day of traveling from Uganda to Kigufi, Rwanda on the shores of Lake Kivu looking across to Congo we went for a walk.   The evening light was perfect, colorful, bright but muted and streaming across the water, onto the land and into the hills. A little boy in a very soft voice asks me if I would take his picture.  How could I resist? He posses as best he knows how, with a very gentle, sweet face, folded hands.  I click and its an incredible picture.   I ask him to smile and again click and again another outstanding picture. We walk down the path a bit further and there a young girl is caring for still a younger boy.   She too wants her picture taken, another great picture. They tug at my heart.  I cry inside.  I know there are thousands of kids, just like these, even the same tribe, just across the border in Congo that are going to sleep in their grass refugee shelters on their rocks, cold and likely hungry.  They want to smile.  They too want to be innocent.  They have desires and hopes but all is dashed to pieces. We read in the paper and saw the picture on the front page of 18,000 new refuges from Congo in Kisoro, Uganda, just across the border from Rwandguba and our huge mission complex where there are thousands more refugees from the recent vicious fighting. When will it end?  These poor children, innocent people, kids with hearts and hopes just like our kids and grand kids caught between greedy and powerful men, destroying their hope, destroying their lives. And then I realize even if we had thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars, yes it would help, but what they really need we can’t buy, peace. Later I go to bed.  I can’t sleep.  Kids’ faces play in my mind. I am thankful for WorldVenture and what we are doing.   I wish we could do more. I pray.  I commit the kids to the Lord.  I sleep. Thank you for your part. Posted Nov 07 2007, 04:49 PM by chriswynn with no comments Filed under: Kendall, Lake Kivu

• Kendall Update #113

  Glenn and Kathy Kendall Update #113 of October 27, 2007, Kabale, Uganda The world is robed in soft white, blanketing green terraced hills.  Slowly the power of the sun warms lifting the mist from the valleys, floating over the hills and into the blue sky. For several days we had the privilege of sitting with the Uganda team praying, talking through ministry and planning for more as they conducted their yearly get-together.  What a privilege for us to be part of this group who works into Sudan, in the far north of Uganda with refugees from Sudan and the LRA (The Lord’s Resistance Army who kidnap, kill, steal and rape) and churches; in the capital of Kampala with children at risk, university students, prisoners, mental patients, pastors and church leaders, the education committee overseeing hundreds of schools and thousands of students; in the far west of the country working with churches and Bible schools.   This morning was serious indeed.   But by evening, all silliness broke loose as after a fine bar-b-que supper, some of the ladies stood in the kitchen doing dishes laughing and talking and giggling and….just being silly.  It was so fun…so silly.   And then there were the games, Carcassone, pond scum, computer games, others watching DVDs.  Isn’t it fun to be silly? And on a very different note, our children, Nathan and Becky with their children, Philip and Marie will be flying back to the USA the end of the week.  Becky has been sick since July with seemingly a staph  infection in her tonsils and they have run out of medical options in Guinea and Mali.  Last week the medical office of WorldVenture contacted them, directing them to return to the USA for medical treatment.  We would ask for prayer for them.  Thank you. Posted Nov 01 2007, 05:19 PM by chriswynn with no comments