Hi all! I’ve just come through a time of “fire” concerning the busyness that’s been a reality of life for the past 2 months – so much to do, so little time. The problem is that our Adult pastor has started his M. Div schooling at NEGST, and the new pastor to replace him will not actually be in station until much later this year. So for the time being, I’m all alone, looking after the adult ministry, services and leadership of a 1,000 member church. Several nights over the past 2 months I have woken up in the night (panic attacks?) with my head buzzing with ‘to-do’ details that were falling through the cracks. Each time I’d get up and write them down . . . my to do list was 5 pages long, 3 columns per page in 9 size font! Finally one night I woke up and cried out to the Lord – “please help – I’m really sinking!”

The immediate impression I got from the Lord was to go through my phone address book and invite several people who are in transition between jobs to help me. So I did. I identified 6 people, called them up and divided my to do list between them (some things I still need to do myself, but I was surprised how much I can delegate if I’m brave enough to let the job go). The 6 are

On top of these six, I have 2 staff members assisting me – my personal assistant, Maggie, who joined me 2 months ago and is worth her weight in gold; and Thomas Omollo, our new Worship leader, who is managing the services for me.

Ahhh, I tell you, my life feels different thanks to these 8 people. Please pray for them as you remember me. Thank you Lord for the brilliant idea. I keep wondering why I hadn’t done this before!

On the home front all is well!  Chiru has just been elected Vice Chair of the Students Counsel at her new school - Nairobi Academy. Her Psychology teacher encouraged her to try going for the chair, even though she’s new. Apparently Chiru has integrated into school life very well, is outspoken, has tried to mix with both the miro’s and Asians, and has made a very positive impression with the administration. In her campaign speech for chairmanship, she promised to work with the students on 5 things. She surprised me in that she actually went to the Principal first to check if the 5 proposals were allowed by the school. She also memorized her speech and spoke it out instead of reading, but the person who beat her did so because he promised the students a disco every month! Ahh teen politics!

She’s doing very well in school, and her teachers had some good things to say about her when we went for PTA day. She’s told me she wants to get straight A’s so she can get a scholarship to an art school (our agreement being that they will study undergrad locally unless they get a full scholarship overseas).

Last week the youth band also went to Nairobi School to lead Sunday Chapel. The gals really enjoyed it and 3 boys got saved. Chiru is one of two lead vocalists. The band is doing very well, though it needs a lot more help from an adult leader.

We went for prize giving day last week. Chiru’s already left the school (she finished in May) but they honor the last Form 4 . . . she got 7 prizes at her old school – 4 subjects best candidate, 2nd overall position in class, and a prize for the most punctual student in school! I knew there was something about my genes . . .

Chiku too is doing well. She’s been asking for maths tutorials and has arranged with her class teacher to meet every morning at 7 am for 1 hr! Ohhhhh, moan! We have to all leave home at 6:15 am to make it in time. Sign. Poor Wanja and Janelle are still asleep when we leave home.

Here’s a funny story. We have rats in our attic. They seem to come and go (I think it has something to do with weather). Anyway we set a lot of traps up there – especially in the space just above our dinning table. So one day we’re having dinner and a big, fat maggot ‘plonks’ down right in front of Chiku. Chiku was puzzled not knowing where it had come from, and as she was examining it, two more plonked down in front of her! She stood up screaming and refused to eat her food. And still 2 more plonked down. I sprayed the ceiling area, and went into the attic to search & find where they were coming from. Never did find out, but for a week Chiku refused to sit at her place and preferred to eat standing. We had to put a basin under the spot for a few days to catch all the other maggots that kept  falling down. Infact – all my girls (including Bea) declared the dinning room “forbidden space” because it was ‘raining’ maggots.

Today Wanja is being commissioned as a class prefect, something she had prayed for and got. She’s enjoying Form 1, and has matured considerably, but she’s still very clingy and huggy . . . the last signs of childhood dying away?

Janelle is also doing very well – she’s grown in height, and has added a little weight, but the biggest miracle is her CD count – it has dropped so significantly that she is on a single dose of ARV AIDS medicine a day. She’s bubbly, lively and as someone commented – they’ve never seen her looking so good before. We continue to pray for a miraculous cure, or a medical breakthrough before too long. In the meantime she’s enjoying school tremendously, and is now reading quite well.

Because she grew up in a children’s home (5 yrs), discipline is a new and strange thing to her. She can be quite obstinate and argumentative. It’s been quite a job helping her recognize boundaries. She can also be quite manipulative (tears and all). I suppose everyone in the children’s home treats such children with such tenderness that they don’t get firm discipline.

We are now going through the adoption inspection process. We had a young social worker (looked 24-ish) visit us and ask us how our marriage is, what our philosophy of parenting is, what we earn, etc! I felt like telling him “Young man!”

And Bea is also doing quite well. She’s just finished a seminar training children’s workers and Sunday school teachers from our daughter churches. She had 50 in attendance. It went very well and she was very encouraged by it. The only problem is that she continues to battle tiredness. She frequently wakes up at 2 am under stress about work (she has 300 children in Sunday School, manages 40 volunteer teachers, runs a Bible club with 50 children every alternate Saturday, etc). Recently God sent her a volunteer called Anne who has proved to be invaluable – one of those people who need very little supervision, gets the job done well, and is very honoring and easy to work with. We’ve invited Anne to join Bea fulltime as her assistant (she’s young, recently married, works as a freelance journalist, and has a passion for children). She wasn’t expecting this but is praying about it. Please, please pray.

On the church front : I’ve just finished preaching a series on “Money : Being Good Stewards of God’s Wealth”. The topic was motivated by 2 factors – first – I’m tired of teaching about tithing, seeing the giving go up for 2 months, and then drop down again. As I asked around I soon learnt that might be because people are touched by such sermons, but there is no lasting conviction, or their financial position quickly spins into chaos when they try and tithe consistently . . .  and so  after two months and they drop back into old habits. Secondly, I just kept meeting people who live without even a basic budget – just don’t know how to manage money. I began to think – how can they tithe when they don’t even have a budget. So I determined to preach a long series and talk about good stewardship, budgeting, getting out of debt, preparing for retirement, planning your estate, etc.

Even I was surprised by the response, and the buzz the series caused in the congregation. Our numbers went up as a result of people quickly inviting their friends to hear this stuff . . . and we sold more CD’s and DVD’s than we have sold all year long! Seems I really touched a need. I got more emails, SMS’ and telephone calls on this series than I have on any other. It also looks as though our giving has gone up by about 500,000/= per month (about 7,000 $). WOW. For the last 3 months we beat our projected budget (though we’re still catching up with past deficits).

I hope you’ve heard about Martha Buliva. Martha’s husband is one of our leaders at Mavuno Church. She gave birth to a gorgeous, beautiful daughter, and then passed away an hour later. Her death was very sudden but Pastor Muriithi’s church did a fabulous job caring for the family.

There are many, many things happening at the church. One (among many) that brings great joy to my heart is that we are supporting several orphaned children through school. We now have 10 church scholarships supporting 10 high schoolers.

We are also developing a closer relationship with Cheryl’s Children’s home – a home that has 40 orphans in it. Cheryl’s is situated on railroad reserve land – a tiny home that’s doing a great job. The children come from distressed families in the slum, or are brought to the home after being found abandoned in the streets. They now attend church with us on Sundays (you should see them walking along the road to church on Sunday – a long straight line. Very well behaved children). Last year we gave them our Christmas day collection (6,000 $), and also bought a pair of shoes, and some clothes for each child. This term we paid fees for 6 of their children. Several church members have started visiting the home occasionally, and we want to help them in more ways. One way is by buying a proper home for them – either land outside the city limits, or a simple house so that they are not living on railway reserve land. This is one of the grant proposals Faith is working on. Maybe you can chip in a little towards this cause.

Another ministry is “Tumaini Kwa Watoto”, a street ministry that tries to get street boys off the streets, reunite them with their families, give them a scholarship to go back to school, and even help destitute families with finances to start a business (like giving a family in the rural area a cow so they can sell milk). With this sort of help many of the boys will go back, though some like the reckless street life too much. The ministry is run as a faith based ministry and has no steady income stream. We want to sponsor some of their boys, and find other ways our members can get involved. This is a great ministry and any of you Kenyan Diaspora who feel a desire to “give back” to your mother land, this is something you could do. You can visit their website and read personal stories at www.KenyaChildrenofHope.com

A third ministry is our TULIP ministry. This one gets at-risk school girls who have dropped out of school due to lack of school fees and places them back into school. These young 13, 14 year old girls are heading for prostitution, but Mary Munyi, the director of the ministry, seeks them out in the slums, befriends them, inspires their dreams, invites them into her dorm home (some of their families are happy to get rid of another mouth to feed), disciples them in faith for 1 year, and looks for a sponsor to fund their schooling (boarding school). She also regularly visits her girls during the school term. Every holiday when they come home, they come to her house so that they are not at risk on the streets again. My wife and I sponsor one girl called Charity and she’s doing very well in school. We get to see her during the school holidays.

Mary has 30 girls in the program, but only 10 have sponsors, and so she struggles a lot to fund food and school fees. She also has 2 ladies helping her in this work, but the few sponsors she has fund scholarships, but don’t want to fund salaries. We believe in this ministry, and so Bea and I also support Mary personally (she could do with a lot more help), and as a church we also want to now directly support more girls. You can visit Tulip at www.tulip-ministry.com

In Dec we will be making a large appeal for scholarships for these 3 ministries and girls. Faith is writing up a scholarship appeal for each girl or child we wish to sponsor, and then we’ll give our members a chance to take on one or two. Hopefully all the children in need will be covered. Pray with us!

I’d love to tell you much, much more, but this is already a long newsletter. I'll try and post up something on the web once a month.

God bless.

Pst. Oscar