Who's thankful for you?

I am a big Thanksgiving fan. I like the fact that it's one of the few holidays left that doesn't focus entirely on us. It's a time when we get together with family and friends and reflect on all the things we are thankful for. If you're on facebook, over the past week, it was filled with people posting on all the things they are thankful for. I really like that; it's always good (and healthy) for us to look around and realize how blessed we are (more about that in my next post).

As I was thinking about all the people I am thankful for, I began to wonder, "Who is thankful for me?" When people make their lists of everyone they are thankful for, how many lists would I be on? Now, before you accuse me of being some kind of egomaniac and turning giving thanks into some kind of self-centered feel-good exercise, I just can't help but wonder how much better my world would be if I lived my life in a way that made people thankful for me.

My youngest son and a classmate of his are sponsoring a child, Abdalla Omar, in Kenya through Compassion. I'm pretty sure that if you ask Abdalla to make a list of everyone he's thankful for, my son would be on his list and that's a good thing. A friend of mine helped start an organization to help the people of Kenya who are HIV+ get physical, emotional, and spiritual help while at the same time teaching them life skills to help them become self-sufficient. Thus far they have impacted the lives of hundreds of Kenyans. I bet my friend would be on their list of people they are thankful for and that's a good thing. I have another friend who is helping build an orphanage for special needs kids in China. I bet he'd be on their list and that's a good thing.

Here's my point. I think it's great to make a list of all the people and things we are thankful for. But how about making another list of all the people that are thankful for you? And, what if we made the conscientious decision to be intentional about making that list longer? How much better would the lives of those around us be? And, how much better would the world ultimately be?

I think that would be a very good thing.

I was totally speechless

One night at dinner in Kenya, I met Dean. The first remarkable thing about Dean is that he is completely blind but still manages to travel all over East Africa (he's from Dallas). The second remarkable thing is that Dean heads a ministry that builds wells in Tanzania, Kenya, and Ethiopia. I thought wow, what a coincidence, we need to build a well on our property in Ethiopia. Furthermore, his engineer, Bob, was in Tanzania and was headed to Ethiopia later in the week. Dean left for home the next day but I managed to get some contact info about Bob and fired off an email. He said, yes he was coming to Ethiopia and he gave me his cell number and the cell number of their Ethiopian national so they could hook up in Ethiopia with our director. I flew back to Ethiopia a few days later and I was standing in line at customs and noticed a guy wearing one of those Christian witnessing bracelets. I asked him if he was on a mission trip, he said yes. I asked him what he was doing, he said I build wells. I thought wow, another coincidence, two well diggers in Ethiopia at the same time. Nope, it was Bob! How is this possible, the guy I have been emailing and trying to hook up with our director is standing right next to me! I was totally speechless. We managed to introduce him to our national director and they are going out to see about building a well on our property on Saturday! The other cool thing is that the town of Dukem has been without running water for a month! I'm talking a whole month for a whole town without running water. We are praying that Bob may be able to help with that as well.

I don't know why these kind of things surprise me, they happen all the time. I think maybe I have a too small view of God. But after meeting Bob at the airport, it just might have grown a little.

Top Ten Things You Should Know Before Coming to Africa

10. You have to be careful when saying hello to someone in Swahili. Jambo means hello, jamba means I have gas.


9. The lines on the road are merely suggestions for drivers.


8. If an African tells you he will pick you up at 9:00 and he gets there at 9:59 he considers that on time.


7. A matatu is the primary means of public transportation in Kenya. Matatus are small vans that in America would seat about ten people. In Kenya they can hold as many as 21 people. Trust me, I know.




6. If you order 2 scrambled eggs for breakfast, don’t be shocked if you get 2 orders of scrambled eggs.


5. When walking through the slums you need to be on the alert for flying toilets. There is no proper sanitation in the slums so when slum dwellers go to the bathroom they put it in a plastic bag and throw it!


4. The most dangerous thing in Africa is not the wild animals, it’s crossing the street.


3. If an African tells you the place you are going is not far, don’t get your hopes up.


2. The Swahili word for a white person is mzungu. It translates to “here’s a sucker we can get to
pay twice as much for our trinkets.”


1. Never leave home without a roll of toilet paper. (You don’t want to know.)

Evangelism is not enough.

I'm all for evangelism. To me it's the number one job of the church and by the church, I don't mean the place we go on Sundays, I mean you and I, we're the church. The problem is that many of us view salvation as the end product when it's actually just the beginning. While there is an instantaneous transformation that occurs in us when we accept Christ, there is also another transformation that is just beginning at the point of salvation. That transformation is the transformation of you and I from immature baby Christian into fully devoted followers of Christ.

When I accepted Christ as my savior, I was the primary benefactor. I got eternal life, I got the power of the Holy Spirit, I got a new life. But if I mature into a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ, the people around me are the benefactors. Think about it for a minute. As I become more like Jesus Christ, I become a better husband and my wife benefits. As I become more like Jesus Christ, I become a better father and my kids benefit. As I become more like Jesus Christ, I become a employee, and my employer benefits. Every person I interact with benefits from my transformation into a fully devoted follower of Christ. Salvation is for me, becoming a fully devoted follower of Christ is for others.

What would happen to the United States if we could raise a generation of wild eyed crazy fanatics for Jesus Christ? I'll tell you what would happen. Our government would be better, our businesses would be better, our families would be better; every aspect of life in the US would be better.

This is one of the reasons I love what Source of Light is doing in East Africa. We are providing Bible study materials to help turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Right now we're working with about 25,000 kids. Within a couple of years, our goal is to increase that to 100,000 kids, that's 25,000 kids graduating from high school every year who are well on their way to becoming fully devoted followers. Just think of the potential impact that will have on the nation of Kenya in ten or fifteen years!

To learn more, go to www.soleastafrica.org.

Dukem is your passport to Ethiopia

I had lunch while in Ethiopia with Ambassador Kassa. Am. Kassa was the Ethiopian ambassador to the Soviet Union for over 40 years. He was just returning from meetings in Moscow with the President of Russia. He is now the Minister of Human Rights and has great influence within the Ethiopian Government. He has set up meetings between Source of Light and the President of Ethiopia as well as with the Minister of Health. During our conversations over lunch he made this comment: "Dukem is your passport to Ethiopia." In case you are not aware, Source of Light Ethiopia has a 9-acre piece of property in Dukem, Ethiopia where we are building among other things a free clinic for the town (population 60,000) as well as a Christian school where at least half the students will attend free or significantly reduced tuition. I am not sure how SOL connected with the ambassador but I think it has something to do with our director, Halie. He is one of those guys who as the Bible would say has "favor with God and man." I am not even sure if the ambassador is a Christian. What I do know is that he sees the interest SOL has in the people of Dukem and is willing to use his great influence to help us not only in Dukem, but literally all over the country. It is fair to see that without Am. Kassa, we would not be in Dukem nor would we be where we are in Ethiopia today. I don't know why, but I am always amazed at the people God uses to carry out his plans.

On a lighter note, I have really enjoyed Ethiopian food. They have this coffee called makiato and I don't know what's in it, but I can drink it by the gallon. Unfortunately, when you order it, it comes in little tiny cups. One thing strange about Ethiopians is they do not like to use silverware. They prefer to eat with their hands. They have this stuff called engira they eat with. The best way to describe engira is it's looks and has the texture of thick prewrap (you athletes will know what I am talking about). It comes in rolls and you break off a small piece and kind of scoop up your food in it. It's actually not all that bad.

The best laid plans...

I’d like to think God has a sense of humor. After all, we are created in His image and we have a sense of humor (at least most of us). Besides, how else can you explain giraffes, elephants, and cheerleaders?

I have this scene that plays in my head from heaven. It actually starts here on earth with us. We start most days with a plan and a pretty good idea of how things are going to go for the day. What meetings we will be attending, who we will talk to, what project we need to get done, etc. God also has a plan for how our day will go; only His plan is a little more accurate than ours and sometimes He does not give us a lot of notice regarding His plan. So here’s the scene, God’s up in heaven and He calls all the angels together and He says, “Hey, ya’ll watch this.” And then He proceeds to introduce something into our day that turns everything upside down. Ever been there?

I got up this morning with a plan. We were going to spend the day training some pastors, teachers, etc. on how to use of Source of Light materials with their organization. My part was easy. I was going to deliver a 30-minute mini-sermon which I spent the previous night putting together (which was if I might say so myself very good) to the group.

Before training, we had to stop by the court house because some of the workers had been stealing things from our ministry center and they were in jail and the case was proceeding and Halie, our director, needed to meet with the prosecutor. Halie comes out of the meeting and says he has to come back at 2:00 that day. I say, “That’s impossible, who’s going to do the training this afternoon?” He looks at me and says, “You do it.” So my talk suddenly went from 30-minutes to 3 hours! Have I mentioned that I have never done this type of training before. And to make matters worse, everything was in Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia. All the materials were in Amharic and I was supposed to spend 3 hours talking about them and I don’t understand one word. Can you say panic!

To make a long story short, I had some of the material on my computer in English that I was able to use and I had an incredibly good beyond words afternoon teaching a group of incredibly committed men and women how to disciple the people in their organization.

So my day didn’t go as planned, in this case, it went better than planned.

My Excellent Adventure

After spending most of my morning with our staff in Ethiopia, I spent the afternoon in search of a projector. This would definitely fall under the category of TIA (This is Africa). When I arrived at customs the sent my bags through the x-ray and discovered the projector I was bringing for the office. They confiscated it and we were expected to pay duty on it. The only problem was that they did not know how much it cost nor could they find any info in the computer so they sent us on our way and told us to come back today. We came back today to a different office several miles from the airport and they could not find the specific model in the computer so they sent us to the airport to get more info. After about 45 minutes we got to look at the projector. We wrote down every number we could find and took them back to the other office (did I mention the office was several miles away? After another 45 minutes, we finally got a price of $500. We were feeling very good about that since the projector cost $700 in the US. We took the paper work back to the airport and presented them to the customs officer to see how much duty we would have to pay. The customs officer informed us that it would cost us $450 to get the projector! But it would only cost $20 to bring it back to the US, so guess what will be making the return trip to the US with me?

First day

Had a great first day in Ethiopia. We traveled to Dukem (about 30 minute drive) to look at the progress of our new facility. We are building a 12,000 sq ft. facility that will house a medical clinic, a 17-room guest house, a restaurant, and meeting room. The medical clinic will provide free health care to the 60,000 people of Dukem. Upon completion, the clinic will be staffed by a full time doctor, nurses, and a lab technician. Not only is medical care very limited in Dukem, it is expensive. Our clinic will provide free health care to the community. We will supplement the clinic with short term medical trips from the US. We would like to bring four teams a year and provide medical care not only for the people of Dukem, but for the less developed regions of the country as well.

On a lighter note, I like to sleep with the noise of a fan so when I got to my hotel in Dukem, I asked a housekeeper if the hotel had a fan. She did not understand so I proceeded to use all my acting skills to demonstrate what a fan was. I was waving my arms and blowing trying my best to communicate. She did not understand nor did two of her colleagues. Ten minutes later I get a knock on my door and it’s the housekeeper and she hands me an electric power strip! Apparently my acting skills need some work.

First day

Had the best first night of sleep I think I have ever had in Africa. Maybe the weather has something to do with it. 50's at night and 70 for a high. Off to Dukem this morning where I will be spending the week. Can't wait to see the progress of our facility.

Ethiopia

At least 14 straight hours on a plane. Crappy food. No movies. But all is good because I got an exit row seat. For those of you with short legs, you have no idea what you are missing being crammed into an airplane seat.
This is my first time in Ethiopia so my first time going through customs and that's always an adventure. Besides taking forever, they confiscated the projector I brought for our director to use! I think he's going to get it back, but it will take a while.
I am staying in Addis Ababa, the capital, tonight but not really sure what it looks like since it's dark. The hotel has free wireless in the rooms which is a first. Tomorrow I will travel to Dukem, the location of our ministry facility. I'm very excited after only seeing pictures to actually see the progress.
Off to bed.