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FCBC in Kenya

Last Kenya Team Update!

Thursday, 12 November 2009 23:08 Jeremy Duncan

This will most likely be our last report from Kenya. We will be posting a little on Facebook on the way back tomorrow. We leave Nairobi tomorrow (Friday) at 11:00pm. We have a 24hr trip made up of two 8 hour flights and an 8 hour layover in Amsterdam. Please pray for us as we travel. While we have all been getting good rest, we anticipate the trip home being a long one.

Yesterday we spent the morning and part of the afternoon looking at some properties that the NGC leaders wanted to show us. It takes a long time to get around in Nairobi and the surrounding areas because of the heavy traffic and the poorly maintained roads. The first piece of land they showed us was the one that the women’s group in the church had bought. It was great to be standing there where much of this vision began. We had a great time as we travelled to the properties with them and imagining what God could do with it and how many children could call it home.

Later we returned to church and continue talking about the vision of creating a center for orphaned children. We had allotted three hours for the meeting and we ended up meeting for over five hours. In the end we had a vision and a plan to take back to both of our churches.
One of the things that have amazed our group is how we have talked about ideas that we have as a group or as a church and how we can bring those ideas up with NGC in hopes of bringing them alone. Almost every time when those ideas came up NGC had already discussed the same thing. God has truly united our hearts and minds even before our church sent this team to Kenya.

The dream that both teams have dreamed for our churches and for the orphans of Kenya is a big dream and will take many people, lots of resources and several years and we can’t wait to get back and begin sharing it with you. We’ve learned a phrase that NGC uses to guide the vision of their church. We will be bringing it back with us as well. The phrase is “Kidogo Kidogo Huljaza Kibaba.” It literally means “Drop by drop feels the jar.” Or “Little by little the cup is filled.” That’s the plan that this church has for taking on the giant in its land, orphans. One small step, or drop, at a time.

By the end of the meeting some of us were exhausted and ready for bed while others had minds that continued to turn. It was an emotional day for everyone involved.

Thursday we spent sightseeing, fellowshipping and preparing to come home. We went into the city center in the morning and did a little shopping. If you think the DC traffic is bad at 7:00 on a Tuesday morning you should try to get into downtown Nairobi at 9:00am. In the afternoon we visited a cultural arts center call the Bambas of Nairobi. It features traditional African music and dance from the various tribes and cultures. It was a wonderful thing to see. After that we went to an animal orphanage.

In the evening we took both teams to dinner to show our appreciation for their hospitality. The hospitality shown to us has been enormous. They want us to be comfortable and safe while we are here. Every time we travelled somewhere there was at least three, sometimes, four cars to drive our team of seven. They did not want us having to pack in a couple of vehicles even though we would have been happy to. They also made sure that someone from NGC was always with us. Even when we were shopping, Pastor Charles made sure someone was close to each of us at all times. Nairobi does not seem particularly dangerous; they just go out of their way to protect their guest.

At the dinner Pastor Charles let us know that, while they have worked with a lot of teams, ours was the first to spend this much time getting to know the people in their church like we have this week and in previous trips. Most teams come in to do their thing and then leave. They are very similar to our church in that they want to take time to build relationship with the people they partner with.

We all want to thank you for sending us on the trip to represent FCBC. We have worked hard this week and are tired and ready to be home with our families. Pray for us as we pack, and say some difficult good-byes and travel back. We look forward to seeing you all and sharing our many stories.

Wednesday Kenya Team update

Thursday, 12 November 2009 14:28 Jeremy Duncan

From David:

"Wednesday was a very long day. No time to send a report. We will combine with today's. We spent the several hours looking at land that they want the ministry to purchase. Then met to continue working on the vision and action plan.

It's a big dream and our team is pumped to come home and begin sharing.

Today we are sightseeing and then taking their team to dinner."

Kenya Team update (10 Nov)

Tuesday, 10 November 2009 15:29 Jeremy Duncan

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Monday and Tuesday
Our schedule is a little off from what was planned. We visited two homes yesterday (Monday) and went to Kiberia today.

One of the homes we looked at yesterday is paired with a school that Pastor Charles' brother runs. The school allows 100 children from the home to attend for free. The school also operates in a way that the money they make goes to support the home making it partially self-sustaining. It also relies on outside donor support. One thing we have learned is that there is no financial support from the government in Kenya at this point.

The home was old but was a model that both our group and the NGC team seemed to like. It's set up as individual cottages with a mixed range of ages. There are two women in each home, a "mother" and an "auntie." Both teams seemed concerned that there were no male role models. NGC intends for any children that they support to be part of their church which would over ways to provide for positive male role models.

The second home was very new and was also attached to a school. The structure looked great on the outside but was very static on the inside. It was also built as a dormitory style. A concern for our team all along has been that however we decide to minister to orphans, it would not be through a large, dorm type home. Today when we got back both teams had the same feeling about the second home, that it was not a good model for what we want to see. The home did give us some good ideas however about sustainability.

Our team has been interested all along in finding out about the possibility of developing a foster/adoption ministry. We've been able to have a number of conversations with leaders at NGC and it seems that there are a lot of hurdles that will make that idea difficult at this time. The lack of government support and cultural (tribal) traditions particularly affect adoption and fostering.

Today (Tuesday) we started the morning at the local mall, which was as modern as any mall we have in the states. It had everything we needed for the back packs. We left there and travelled to the Kiberia home. We were fortunate that our team from April was able to prepare us for the experience. We all handled seeing the conditions there better because of that preparation. We also went into the situation knowing we were there to do something about it. We will be debriefing the experience later tonight.

About two years ago an individual who saw the conditions of the home in Kiberia decided to help build something better to move the children to. A team from Ireland built a new facility on a site very far from Kiberia. We visited that site as well. It was a huge improvement from the Kiberia site but was still not close to the kind of environment children need. They had moved over half of the children to the new site already. We decided to distribute the back packs there because the Kiberia home is also a school that other children come to. There was over 100 children there when we arrived. 100 children in an area about the size of our Blue Room and KidZone combined, probably a little smaller. At times they have had up to 300 children there for school. That included their sleeping space, classrooms, and play area, kitchen and bath room. We did not have enough back packs to give out there much less at both sites. The director promised to take the remaining back packs to the Kiberia home after school and give to the children still there.

This afternoon we had our first meeting with the NGC team to begin discussing a plan for orphan care. It was an amazing meeting. It's clear to us that everyone on our team was placed by God. Everyone has something unique that they bring to the table. The NGC team is made up of some of the most well prepared, intelligent and capable people around. They have put much thought into this ministry and have an abundance of capable people to meet the needs of each of the stages that will be involved. Pastor Charles is a very wise man who believes strongly in allowing other pastors and lay people to lead the church.

It seemed like we barely got started and it was time for our meeting to end. We agreed that we would stay as long as it takes tomorrow to complete what we feel we need to in order to come back and report to the FCBC. We were planning to do some sightseeing most of the day Thursday and have told the NGC team that we can forego all or some of that if we need to continue with things.

We all remain healthy and are getting good rest at night. Staying at the conference center has been both relaxing and great for team building, planning and debriefing. We appreciate all of the prayers. They truly made a difference today at Kiberia. Please pray for the children that are there and the children that are abandoned on a daily basis in Kenya. Pray for our team to continue to stay healthy. Pray for both of our teams as we continue to meet and plan and try to figure out difficult issues. Pray that both of these teams will be able to communicate the vision that is forming to each of our churches. And pray for our families back home. Since nearly every member of our team has children, that has been the biggest area of stress for us. And thanks to your prayers and the internet and cell phone we have managed to deal with the stress pretty well.

We have lots of picture but have not had the time to upload many of them due to the slow connection. We will be prepared to share them as soon as we return.

Kenya Team Wrap up so far...

Sunday, 08 November 2009 23:42 Jeremy Duncan

We arrived in Nairobi Friday evening. Our flights went very well. Two of our team members were not able to secure visas before we left the U.S. so we were not sure what to expect with the process once we arrived. We were surprised at how quickly and easy the process was.
We were greeted by about 15 members from the Nairobi Gospel Centre Church. They were so excited to see us and meet us for the first time. Many of them remembered Carolyn from the last trip and were thrilled that she was back. There amazing hospitality was apparent immediately.
We were very unsure what our accommodations were going to be like. We were told we would be staying in a Christian guest house but did not know what that meant. We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived. It’s a retreat and conference center owned and operated by the Presbyterian Church of East Africa. We each have our own room with a private bath. The rooms are small and basic and very clean. Best of all the water is hot!
We had a very late dinner in the dining room and then turned in for the night.

Saturday
Pastor Charles encouraged us to rest most of the day on Saturday. The guest house is much larger than we expected and there were several groups, mostly Africans with some Americans and Europeans, already there. We have our breakfast and dinner at the guest house every day. The meals are very good. We were thrilled Saturday morning to find a chef making omelets to order.
We relaxed at the guest house until around 2pm and then went to NGC to have fellowship with some of their Pastors, Elders, Deacons and members. Pastor Charles gave us the history of NGC and a tour of their facility. The team was blown away by their faith for God to provide the facility that they need. The church is running around 1400 with most of that growth coming in the last 8 years when they moved from the city center to the current location.

Sunday
Sunday we left around 8pm for church. NGC has two services. The early service last 2 hours and the second one 2 ½ hours. We were all surprised at how quickly that time went by. Around an hour of the service time is just congregational singing led by an amazing praise team. It’s difficult to express the experience of worship in words so we will have to wait until we return to share more about our worship experience through personal conversations.
We had about 30 minutes between services and that time was spent on the Pastor’s porch with some of the pastors and elders. Following the service we had lunch at the church with their pastor and families. Again, we were so impressed by the hospitality shown to us.
We were able to spend a lot of time in conversations that ranged from church growth to Kenyan and U.S. politics. Kenyans have a strong appreciation for the American government and its support for the Kenyan people to have honest leaders in their government.
One of our objectives as a group is to continue building and growing the relationship that we have with NGC. We left Sunday afternoon feeling like we had made great progress in that area. One of the things our team saw was how similar our two churches were in many ways. The leadership style and philosophy is very similar to FCBC’s. They believe in sharing leadership and trusting the leaders with the ministry. Although they would not use the term “purpose-driven” they very much are. They are aware of their target audience and make adjustments in worship, programming and staff to reach that group of people. They are also very intentional and strategic in what they do. They are more concerned with reaching their mission than they are with church traditions and they want very much to do things with excellence.
Later, back at the guest house we met for about an hour and a half to continue working on our strategy for talking with NGC about how we can partner with them to care for the orphans in their community. It became even clearer that this team was put together by God. As a team we are all very different in our backgrounds, training, and experiences. We saw God use those differences to help us put a plan in place for this week’s discussions with NGC.
Our biggest prayer as we closed Sunday was that God would help us on Monday as we begin looking at some of the children’s homes in the area. We know that it is going to be difficult on all of us and are asking God to allow us to work through our emotions and still be able to focus on gathering the information we feel we need to bring back to FCBC.
So far everyone is healthy and getting pretty good rest. We are all experience jet lag in different ways. Please continue to pray that we stay well and rested. Pray for us as we visit the homes and debrief that experience.

Kenya Team has made it!

Saturday, 07 November 2009 16:53 Jeremy Duncan

This came in a voice communication from David. They seem to be doing well and are in high spirits! Keep on praying!

"We are all doing well. We feel pretty rested today. The guest house is wonderful. Good food, hot water, etc.

We were met by 14 people last night from NGC at the airport. We are meeting this afternoon to plan our week.

We hope to get an internet card by Mon. The connection is too slow with the BlackBerry to use it with the laptop. So we are not able to post much at this point or Skype."