School’s Out

Spiritual adrenaline. Friday, February 14—CORAT conference center, Karen, Kenya The Bellevue Baptist team arrived Nairobi late last night. They finally laid their heads on their pillows about 2 A.M. At breakfast this morning their bloodshot eyes could not camoflage the excitement and anticipation in these mission team members God has loaned us for a week.

In a couple of hours we are headed into one of the toughest slums in all of Kenya, Mathare. We will dedicate the new school, have a celebration and feast (Kenyan style), and spend time interacting with our children and staff. It will be sheer sensory overload all day! I can’t wait to hear the team debrief this evening. These travel worn servants will be exhausted at a level they have probably never experienced before. But, they will be exhilarated at level they have probably never experienced before, either. You only get to experience a thing for the first time once. Today is the “once” that could change lives forever…for these missionaries and for our kids and staff in Mathare.

Into the Nairobi traffic jams and the God adventure ahead. School’s out! Holiday declared in the Mathare slum.

12 P.M. February 14, Mathare Slum, Nairobi, Kenya

The new school is all we imagined, dreamed, hoped and prayed for!

Bright, open, breezy classrooms. Beautiful new floors. Toilets and showers (some of the only running water and flushing toilets in all of the slum!).

There was no hiding the joy on the faces of our children and staff. Today the ribbon was cut to an unexplainable, undeniable, tangible expression of the limitless love of God toward all of His children.

The project cost more, took longer, and was filled with more challenges than either Pastor Kennedy or I could have imagined. But Pastor Ken has that one quality that distinguishes good leaders from great ones…he will not quit. For one year and three months Kennedy and his construction crew have worked 15 hour days in the equatorial sun and monsoons of the rainy season. They have taken turns standing guard over the construction supplies in a community were theft is a way of life. The report is that government officials from Nairobi have come to visit and left wagging their heads in disbelief. Ministry representatives from all over Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have