Understanding God’s missions 2018
Report 2
Since my last report in March about Kenya, much has happened. God had identified someone I could trust, and someone I could not. The amount of corruption and deception among pastors seems to be great. My contact information has been passed around to several people, most likely by the one that God said not to trust. When someone successfully makes contact with an outsider, they are almost considered their property. Anyone that would communicate with them would be considered a traitor. Unfortunately, there was a significant church split because of it. The powerful dynamic personality of one individual pretty much overpowered everybody else. The problem is, this is the one that God said not trust. In the future when God says “Do not trust them,” I will immediately walk away after telling that person I cannot work with them. The following calamity was caused because of my desire to fix my screw up.
How it all started was a good will gesture to help the one God said I could trust. My mistake was that the instruction never included giving him extra money. God had made a provision for the church members to have seed and fertilizer plant. In addition to that money, I included some extra funds for the person I could trust. As it turned out, the pastor that God said not to trust ended up keeping half of the money for himself. In fact, he used it to buy a cow which he wanted me to take a picture with. Almost as a validation to that, I agreed with his deceitfulness. This was only after we had a several-hour meeting with different church members to try to resolve the problem.
There is another thing in Africa that is completely different than America. In America if you tell someone, “I will think about it,” most generally, people assume that means “No.” Several occasions have arisen now that any answer besides no is a promise that you will. “I will let you know,” “I will pray about it,” “I will think about it,” “let me get back to you,” “maybe,” and any other variation is a promise. You are better off just to say “no” if the answer is undetermined. Later, come back when you have confirmed the direction God wants you to go.
After learning about the mishandling of the funds, I gave the trusted one a small loan to start a business. This served as a catalyst to start severe division that occurred in the community. We were not aware of the great division until we met at his house. Forty or fifty people were gathered together to share their desire to start a new church, orphanage, and school. This would have been located less than a kilometer away from the original church. Visions of the Hatfield and McCoy’s was a real possibility. The trusted one was a kind and gentleman, but he was a coward. More on that in the next report. I told him that to his face and he received it and understood why. His name is Duke.
There is a mystery group that I am now in contact with in Kisii, Kenya. When I say “mystery,” it seems as though God planted one of my cards in the seat of a car I was traveling in. When the evangelist was riding in that car, he saw it and felt as though the Holy Spirit was prompting him to contact me. Based on our interactions with James, Jeremiah, Pastor David, and Peter I would say that it was all God. We went to Pastor David’s house where he lives with maybe a dozen orphans and also with his father Jeremiah and mother. I sensed a prompting to give a provision to Pastor David. The very next day, he went and distributed amongst the community that in which he had. We also went to a school that they were running. The classrooms seems very much like animal pens in America. As I walked around the grounds, my heart was deeply troubled. Even writing about it brings tears to my eyes. In America, we must rally together and not allow this type of thing to happen anyplace in the world. You would be amazed how few of dollars it would take to remedy this situation. If only the Americans that could afford it would not go out to eat once a week, huge strides could be made to combat this. Are you willing to sacrifice going out to eat once a week so that children in Kenya do not have to have their school classes in animal pens?
After meeting with Duke and his people, it became quite clear that there was a big problem. The original church where I met the first time was anticipating a visit that day. Because we had gone to Pastor David’s home and school, we ran out of time. The following day, they were quite adamant about us visiting them, even to the point of them tracking us down the following morning to make sure we came. The entire day was focused on everyone talking and trying to resolve their problems. Back in America, we had just went through a bit of a church split ourselves. I am very opposed to such things and unity in the body of Christ is crucial if we are to be suitable warriors against the enemy. The deceitful person asked Duke for forgiveness. He even wanted me to take a picture with him and his cow that was an ill-gotten gain. After all this, it was quite shocking what took place that evening and the next day. Praise God no one was seriously hurt.
