Kenya II

Brothers and Sisters,

The youth minister from my church and I will be heading back to Kenya March 24-April 4 of this year to begin another church planting effort. We will be in the extreme southern region of Kenya, just south of where we were last time. Please pray that the Lord would bless our endeavors, that we would preach the Gospel effectively, and that He would grant us favor with the native Maasai people. Pray also for our safety from wildlife and disease. Finally, we have been raising funds and have raised 4750 of the needed 7000 for the two of us. Pray that we would be obedient in where we go to raise those funds and that the churches and individuals to whom we speak would be responsive. Thanks!!

I love that you are doing another trip, I will pray for all the above, God use you greatly and God's gospel be spread abroad and received. This is wonderful.

Heb. 13:5 -- for He Himself has said, "I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU"

Josh. 1:5 -- I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.

Will pray.

Blessings

I am back from my second trip to Kenya. The Lord did some incredible things while we were there. We saw 594 Maasai come to know the Lord. We preached in many, many places. A lot of those places had never heard the Gospel at all! I am so grateful to the Lord for what He did there.

We were able to meet the chief of the Shompole Conservancy and the Director of the conservancy, and we gained unilateral permission to present the Gospel to the entire region! We also have our next location for ministry found within that region. God is good!

We endured many dangers and difficulties, and a few close calls (I drove across a volcanic mudpit and the Lord kept me from dying, my friend sustained a serious injury and infection set in, but the Lord had mercy and provided us with an American doctor that just so happened to have what we needed to sustain him, and there was much spiritual warfare going on that was difficult, but the Lord reigned supreme). Thank you all for your prayers and may God continue to establish His church!

Psalm 67:1-2:

God be merciful to us and bless us,
And cause His face to shine upon us,

Selah

That Your way may be known on earth,
Your salvation among all nations.

The Lord is doing great things, brother. We get to be a part of it! Nothing special about me. I am just a redneck from Texas.

Psalm 67:1-2:
God be merciful to us and bless us
(NASB: God be gracious to us and bless us,)
And cause His face to shine upon us,
Selah
That Your way may be known on earth,
Your salvation among all nations.

Amen.

Luke 1:77-79 ”“
To give to His people the knowledge of salvation
By the forgiveness of their sins,
Because of the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us,
TO SHINE UPON THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH,
To guide our feet into the way of peace."

Luke 2:10 ”“
……for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people…… a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Ps. 89:15-16 ”“
How blessed are the people who know the joyful sound!
O LORD, they walk in the light of Your countenance.
In Your name they rejoice all the day,
And by Your righteousness they are exalted.

Ps. 72:18-19 ”“
Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel,
Who alone works wonders.
And blessed be His glorious name forever;
And may the whole earth be filled with His glory.
Amen, and Amen.

Amen! Thanks, Jade.

So we have two rednecks from Texas here? :-)

Brother havoc,

These types of reports bless me immensely to the utmost. May the Lord give you victory and fruit in this endeavor in which you are attempting to serve others. Amen.

Havok-

Can you share how you present the gospel to Masai who have never heard before? I mean where do you start? I am curious.

I remember a scene from the film ‘"Amistad” when two slaves in a slave ship came across a Bible which they could not read, but there were a lot of pictures from beginning to end that presented the gospel message to them that they were able to grasp.

That's a great question TMK.

So the Maasai are already monotheistic. Their word for God is Nkai or Ngai. So that is a plus. When you ask a Maasai about the character of God or how to reach him, they don't know. They don't have a working theological structure for those kinds of things. That being said we literally start from "In the beginning."

Oral tradition is how things are passed in the Maasai culture. So we tell them a lengthy story from Genesis to Revelation, focusing on Salvation through Jesus. It goes like this:

We lay a framework for creation, the character of God, and his expectations of mankind. We talk about the enemy of God, Satan, the fall of man and the consequences of it.

We then go into the concept of atonement (although we don't use that word) through sacrifice. We talk about various characters of the Bible as examples. Once that concept is grasped, we go into the depravity of man (of course we don't use that word) by showing that even though a man can sacrifice many, many animals on his behalf, his heart is still unchanged.

So by that point we established a clear contrast between God and men, established the fact that men need to reach God and that God wants to reach men, and finally established the fact that men simply cannot make it happen.

Then we lay groundwork for Jesus. We talk about who He is, what He did, and the power that He has to not only heal and save but to forgive people of their wrong-doings. We talk about the crucifixion in the context of the continued plan of God for the salvation of everyone. We establish the resurrection as a fact that proves that Jesus is God, that He can save, and that He can be trusted. We lay the groundwork for eternal life, for eternal damnation, and center everything that is discussed from that point around Jesus. It takes a good while to go through that, but they are accustomed to long stories and they enjoy it. Also, when we extend the invitation to them, many of them respond.

At that point, it becomes a game of discipleship. Our translators are pastors and generally, they return to plant a church.

I can imagine that would take a good long while. Do they ask a lot of questions that get you sidetracked?

So the Maasai are what you call Oralists--they tell news, stories, information, etc through storytelling. So there really isn't a question/answer session that goes on during the telling of the story. They basically take what you say at face value. If questions are asked, it is to our translators by the elders, never by the women or children.

Also, it takes about twice as long as you would imagine, because we have to stop for the translator every sentence lol.

We preached in over a dozen Bomas (basically homesteads) in 3 days. We spent 10 hour days and probably spent 3 hours a day traveling on motorcycles around the African bush. Probably preached to close to a thousand people, although I don't have an accurate count of the total number preached to, only those who made professions of faith.