Breaking Through

We have prayer warriors at our church in Texas. One of these prayer warriors has been praying for us and sending scriptures that are placed on her heart for our team and trip. A few mornings ago, she sent us the above referenced scripture from Micah. It's a verse we continually come back to in our morning prayer time as a team. Matthew Henry's Commentary states:

These verses may refer to the captivity of Israel and Judah. But the passage is also a prophecy of the conversion...to Christ. The Lord would not only bring them from captivity, and multiply them, but the Lord Jesus would open their way to God, by taking upon him the nature of man, and by the work of his Spirit in their hearts, breaking the fetters of Satan. Thus he has gone before, and the people follow, breaking, in his strength, through the enemies that would stop their way to heaven.

To begin Tuesday's training session, Josh put together a devotional for us from Ephesians 4:1-6 about unity in the Body of Christ. Afterwards, we went around the room and said an encouraging word to each other one on one.

Lesson 4: The Result

Adoption, Justification, and Sanctification

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:29-30 ESV)

The truths that never change:

Justification - legal act that satisfies the righteous requiremet of God because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Christ's righteousness is imparted to us, declaring us righteous.

Adoption - A change in status. We are adopted in to God's family and are his children.

Glorification - When we will be made glorified in God. 

Sanctification - The process of being confirmed to the image of the Son. Not completed until we die or Christ returns.

Two parts to Sanctification:

1) Mortification - putting to death those things that rob our affections for Christ. 

2) Vivification - filling ourselves with those things that stir our affections for Christ. 

RVF's leaders then spent the afternoon beginning their assessments. Our team noted that the training took a turn at this point and the tone became more somber. It can be an ominous task to re-open the doors to past hurts and sin. 

Each day we have a break between 4-6pm to do whatever we may choose. On Tuesday, Michael and Ryan spent the afternoon and evening at Naomi's Village with their sponsored children, Zakayo and James. Check out last year's posts  to see how much these kiddos have grown!

While at Naomi's Village, Michael and Ryan happened upon a piece of rebar attached to two concrete blocks, conveniently resembling a barbell and weighing about 150lbs. Missing Crossfit, the temptation was too great.

Meanwhile, our friend Kaziah took Rachael and Kristin, along with our other friend, Lucy, on a secret excursion through Maai Mahiu. We walked about 10 minutes to Kaziah's mothers house and were also introduced to her brother, sister-in-law, and baby niece, Jane. We were welcomed with warm hospitality which included chai tea and cake. 

Wednesday morning Ryan gave the devotional, speaking from his heart about the great work the The Lord did in his own heart during his Steps experience. We were all encouraged by God's faithfulness.

Next, we began our lesson on confession and prayer.

Our nature is to avoid the pain, but The Lord wants us to walk though that with him and the community around us. Here is what the Bible says about confession and prayer:

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. (Proverbs 28:13 ESV)

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. (James 5:16 ESV)

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah (Psalm 32:3-5 ESV)

The previous night, our Plano Campus Steps participants, leaders, and mentors attended A Night of Prayer and Worship. This is an evening to pray and worship God and to celebrate God's faithfulness in our lives and through the Steps process. We were sent an image from the service which we shared with the RVF leaders as an encouragement and illustration of the healing and freedom God accomplishes when we bring what is dark and hidden into the light. Our team then walked the RVF leaders through the specific prayers for their assessments.

Following this, men and women separated into groups to discuss where their hearts were before the Lord after completing a portion of the assessment. We were encouraged to already see how God was so faithful to reveal areas of sin and where they need restoration and healing. 

Lastly, we covered Examining Roots from James 4:1, which says we quarrel because of our selfish desires. 

Spiritual adultery is when we go to someone or something other than God to meet our needs and desires, even though we have been given all things.

God's desire is that we be satisfied in Him.

Selah.

Laying a Foundation

Truly we hit the ground running today. After prayer and fellowship early this morning with the team, we jumped into today's lessons. We continued in Genesis where we took a closer look at the 6th day of creation in chapter 2 and the fall in chapter 3 after a great time of praise and worship.

In Genesis chapters 1 and 2 we see that God has provided a sanctuary where God and man can dwell together. God as the creator has the rights and authority over creation. Man is formed out of the ground and God breathes life into him. This is something to truly marvel at. 

When we want God's care, provision and protection apart from his direction, which we can perceive as telling us what to do, we call that "entitlement".

God has the right to set boundaries in which we should live to keep us within His creative order. This is meant to preserve our life. 

When we blur the lines between the Creator and creation everything becomes skewed and we tend to elevate ourselves and diminish God. We can do this with food, sex, work, etc. We elevate "things" over the one who created these things. When we depend on the creation, rather than the Creator, this is called idolatry.

In Genesis 3 the serpent comes on the scene, deceives Eve and now an unraveling and fracture of creation occurs. Every mental disorder, physical ailment, and suffering has come from this. We see the magnitude of the suffering that will ensue due to this. Ultimately, God curses the serpent and offers hope by pointing to a sacrificial system of redemption which is a picture of the Christ to come. 

Michael spoke about the Insanity Cycle of Sin and what the only Remedy is - The Gospel of Jesus Christ. In conclusion, we covered what is the response of faith: repentance.

Two (of many) attributes of God: mercy and justice.

We move from God's justice to God's mercy through repentance. 

We broke in to small groups to discuss a few questions in order to examine where our hearts are before the Lord in our suffering and circumstance. 

After training we all dispersed. Michael visited his sponsored child, Zakayo, at Naomi's Village, who has new baby rabbits.

Pastor Isaac and Ryan traveled to Navisha for groceries. Esther, Rachael, Pastor Timothy, and Josh walked around Maai Mahiu town, and Kristin stayed and visited with a few RVF leaders.

Guess what's for dinner? If you guessed ugali, you'd be correct. A Kenyan staple and favorite food. All of us mzungus ate it the traditional way - with our fingers. 

After dinner the team performed a traditional Kenyan dance? You decide.

Back to the Rift

Karibu!

After a long flight to Kenya via Dubai, we arrived in Maai Mahiu late Friday evening. This year rather than stay in Kijabe, which is up the mountain, we are staying in a recently constructed building that sits adjacent to Rift Valley Fellowship in Maai Mahiu.

The team of leaders from RVF are staying with us, as well, and we were all eager to dive in to training first thing Saturday morning. But the first order of the day: a scrumptious omelet breakfast. 

For about half of our team, there was a sweet reunion that took place Saturday morning we we reunited with several people we had met on our previous trip last November. Just as sweet was that we all met so many new people that day. It's wonderful to see how God is growing Rift Valley Fellowship.

There were many introductions and much catching up to do, but our first day's training began with a devotional from Josh on Psalm 1. Michael gave an overview of groups at The Village and then spoke more specifically about the two distinctives of biblical counseling - that it is rooted in scripture and aimed at the heart, based on Jeremiah 17:5-9. 

Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:5-9 ESV)

It was encouraging to have much participation and insightful questions from the leaders at RVF.

Men and women broke into groups for a time to share testimonies and encourage one another.

We all shared dinner with our new and old friends, followed by a time of prayer with our team.

Sunday is church service and fellowship at RVF, and being that the church now has three campuses, we had the great joy of attending services at RVF's Mwangaza campus as well as Maai Mahiu campus.

RVF praise and worship....one of the many things we have been looking forward to in coming back. We made a joyful noise to The Lord and prayed. The young children were presented to the congregation and cheerfully performed a few songs for us before shuffling off to Sunday School. 

Michael introduced our team one by one and as he was concluding, a woman who was seated asked us to sing a song for them, to which we happily agreed and sang "You're a Good, Good Father" by Housefires.

The message was given by Michael from Genesis 1, God's introduction of himself. In the creation account, God is pulling back the curtain and wants us to know him. 

In the beginning....who was there before time began? God has always been there, existed eternally. He was there when he laid the foundations of to earth. 

Just as the earth was full of darkness, many who come to recovery feel they are in darkness. But God doesn't leave us in the darkness. He brings his word to bring us hope and life. When God speaks, things happen. We can have confidence in God's word because when God speaks, it is done.  Even in the darkness, God is there. He is hovering, ready to act in power.

In creation, God declares, "It is good". Therefore, it is God who defines what is good. 

We are image bearers of God. We are to reflect his character on earth. He assigns us value above all creation. We have value because we have value to him.

The truth is that sometimes we do not reflect gods character because there had been a fracture. (Sin)

But God had promised a hope.

One will be sent to free us and he will be wounded in the process. God made that promise thousands of years ago. The fulfillment of that promise is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

In John 1 we see that Jesus was there in the beginning:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." The word became flesh and dwelt among us. God becoming a man to come rescue his people. Fully God and fully man. With God from the beginning. Three in one, acting and orchestrating the creation. 

In 2 Corinthians 4:6 there is a creation account echo.

For God who said let light shine out of darkness has shone on our hearts.....

Our prayer is that God would enlighten our hearts to the reality of Jesus Christ. As his word goes out.

No matter what our circumstance are now, there is a time coming when He will make all things new.

And that is worth giving our lives for.

Amen.

Last Days

 

The Recovery Conference may have been over, but our last couple of days in Kenya were just as special.

Wednesday morning, the women on our team met with RVF's Women of Courage (see this post for more on the Women of Courage) to talk and pray. After prayer requests were given, our team was blessed to pray for them. After we prayed, the Women of Courage prayed for us, all together at once. It was powerful and nothing quite like we had ever experienced before. Though there was a barrier of language between us, we knew these women were boldly imploring The Father on our behalf, and we were brought to tears. Their prayers enveloped us and the visual Kristin received in the midst was of the prayers rising like incence as a fragrant offering to The Lord.

Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!
Psalm 141:2 

While the women gathered together, the men fellowshipped and made home visits. One of the visits they made was to Peter's home, the gentleman whom Julie counseled on his marriage earlier in the week.

We all met back at RVF for lunch with Isaac and Esther and leadership. After we ate, we went around the room and each said a word about our experience over the week.

We then headed to Naomi's Village to visit with the kids one last time. Ryan and Michael were able to see their sponsored children and say good-bye until next time.

Michael with his sponsor child

Ryan with his sponsor child

Martha at Naomi's Village

View from Naomi's Village

Isaac and Esther met us back at Daraja House for dinner and we had a great time with them.

Thursday was our last day in Kenya!

We began with a bit of shopping in Kijabe at Pride of Africa where we found so many great gifts for family and friends.

We had a quick team meeting and photo and then Rebecca had to leave for South Africa.

Team photo from the roof of Daraja House

Sam is staying with Tim at RVF for the next 8 weeks and he is so excited to spend more time ministering to the people of Maai Mahiu!

The rest of the team packed up and left for Nairobi. We stopped at an overlook outside Kijabe to take photographs and see the curio shops.

Man from the curio stand trying to get one last sale from John

View of the Rift Valley

Panoramic View of the Rift Valley

Our next stop was the Kazuri Bead Factory, a local business that employs many women in the area. Our guide, Caroline, was fun and friendly and made a real connection with Martha. We prayed for Caroline and later she spoke with Martha about how God was beginning to stir her heart for Him.

The factory was such an uplifting place. In one of the production rooms, Caroline asked us to sing a song for the women who were working. We had just been listening to old country music on the way into Nairobi so the only song we could think of on the fly was a song we just heard - Johhny Lee's 'Looking for Love' from the movie Urban Cowboy (it was this or 'Islands in the Stream'). We were butchering the song so badly, John saved us by jumping into the aisle and dancing to distract from our singing. The ladies at Kazuri loved this! We were then treated to a song in Swahili from them, actually one we recognized that we sung at RVF.

John busting a move

At the bead factory - with our awesome driver, Benson

Next up, a brief visit to The Giraffe Center where we were able to feed the giraffes. Let's just say there was also a lot of kissing going on. 

John getting smooched by a giraffe

This appears to be quite mutual

Ryan allowing things to go a little too far

We were also given a brief presentation on the giraffe.

Giraffe femur - you could Crossfit with it

Fits like a glove

Our final stop before the airport was the Java House for dinner with Isaac, Esther, and their daughter Naomi. Naomi is headed to the DFW area in January for school - yay! It was fun catching up but sad to say goodbye to our friends. This was an unforgettable trip and our team is not leaving the same as we arrived almost two weeks ago.

Isaac drinking Naomi's much desired iced coffee

Some highlights of our trip:

 

RVF praise and worship. (Video)

Kids being kids. They could see themselves in the camera as it was recording. (Video)

Ryan (far left) being initiated as a true Kenyan. (Video)

The Longdrop

Maai Mahiu rush hour traffic jam and Benson's aunt

Breathtaking views

The beautiful ladies of Daraja House who took such great care of us

Our wonderful and gracious hosts, Isaac and Esther

And all of the men, women and children of Rift Valley Fellowship we will be praying for!