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Mzuri This entire year I have been praying for the recent project visit in Kenya. Like most things worth doing, CBF of Missouri sputtered trying to figure out best connections and relationships in this project. We now have discerned with confidence how God wants us to engage with good people in a poor village to bring change for children. Change for Children is about building an Integrated Children Development Center in each of Kenya’s provinces. Our project is in a village near the Indian Ocean with a name that is hard to pronounce — Ngerenya. One of the participants on the project visit was my 15-year old nephew from Atlanta. Cole realized his passport was missing as we started through the airport customs line in London to change planes. I realized in that crowded airport line that all of us were in for an interesting experience. The three women in our group headed on to Nairobi with Cole and me stranded in London trying to contact the American Embassy (where getting a passport on a Sunday is impossible and also Monday if it is Columbus Day). Sam and Melody Harrell, CBF field personnel in Kenya, were left to host a partial group without its leader (and the only person who even superficially knew Sam). It was shaping up to be a real disaster for our first group foray to Kenya. Alas, with answers to prayers and the cleaning crew on United Air, the group finally united in Nairobi. Elsewhere you can read what was accomplished during our stay in Ngerenya. It was a humbling experience to see a young child eager to receive a bag with school supplies and personal hygience products and the grateful look in the mother’s eyes. My white tennis shoes still have dirt on them. As we played with kids outside the Ngerenya school I had them place their bare feet on my shoes and walked them around like I did my daughter many years ago. Those shoes are "dirty" to anyone who sees them, but I cannot yet clean off the memories kindled by that red dirt. Our group was welcomed and worshipped at the Ngerenya #1 and Calvary Baptist churches. I sang my first (and last) trio there – "Joan Glowa and the Temptations" singing What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Sharing meals under a tree eating the clumped rice dipped in broth with greens added made for an interesting meal. The fellowship with Pastor Simon made it a sweet time with brothers and sisters in Christ. Sam Harrell told the story of the school in Ngerenya. Pastors Simon and Rafael had been visited by Baptists from Texas years ago with promises of help. The Texans never returned to the village. But these two pastors knew God had planted the seed idea for a school and someone would come along later to work with them to achieve the dream. The prayer answer came with Sam Harrell and Change for Children. I returned home knowing two Swahili words — one is jambo – "hello" or "greetings". The other work is mzuri (pronounced mm-zoo-ree). Mzuri means "good" and I heard that word often in conversations. My prayer is that the CBF of Missouri will be mzuri in our partnership with Change for Children in Ngerenya Kenya. Thanks for your own prayer and financial support for this CBF of Missouri initiative.
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