gachunia

A speech for Sudan Mission MBI Dinner on 29th Saturday 2008

Its great privilege and honor to have all of you here for this dinner tonight, the lords bless you because you came. We are here to celebrate the love of God, the gift of God and the calling of God in our lives.

David submitted in my favorite Psalms 122 that I was glad when they said unto me let us go to the house of the lord. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth. I shall enter His gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Therein we savor the safety of hiding under his wings and the clarity of His leadership. The old hymn writer put it so well what a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and graves to bear, and what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.

2nd Samuel 6: 12 Narrates the story of a man called Obed Edom the Gittite. Due to David’s incapacity to take the ark into the city of David it got a temporary residence in this man’s house for three months. The report got to David that “The lord has blessed the house of Obed Edom and all that belongs to Him because of the ark of God. So David suddenly created time and brought the ark to the city of David with gladness. He danced before it all night wearing linen of ephod and the rest of the story you probably know it.

Of my great concern is how accessible the blessings of the lord are to those who live in the marginalized areas called the Frontiers. I believe that all who are gathered in this meeting share the same believe as I do that the blessings of the lord come together with His knowledge and sincere informed worship. There are millions of people within our reach in this country and in our neighborhoods who are still alien to these blessings as we know and have experienced them. They worship countless gods and they are lost in life sucking rituals. The question is if we believe the Bible enough that there is eternal damnation to those who do not believe and follow Jesus? We thank God for the labor and the sacrifice of white missionaries who never lacked in zeal to introduce to us the blessings of the good news. The demographics are clear in our country that the places where missionaries went first became the forerunners in all things raging from education, agriculture, infrastructure and religion. This is because the gospel that we preach is holistic in nature and the blessings of the lord are all encompassing.

This brings to memory one lady in my village Mama Githaiga who is today a hero of faith whose amazing story may never be told. They were among the first evangelicals to receive the faith and were more than zealous to make it known in a hostile zone. Not once was she stubbed by her husband and thoroughly whipped by the area chief for praying out loud and disturbing the status quo. They fought the battle of faith at the home front and we must therefore embrace the challenge and take the battle a little further to our neighboring countries, Africa and the world at large.

The missionary journey is both an exciting and a lonely journey. I have traveled it for two years and I thank God for that little experience. Words fail me tell you the adventures of missions and the fun and adrenaline thereof, missions proved to be my best learning moments. Its here that we learn to appreciate God for small things and praise when there is no ‘crisis for the day’. It’s here in the words of a Congolese missionary that we accept gratefully the plan of God to oversee the running of this universe. We learn that we are not going to introduce God to anyone in this planet but he is already there and at work. Only waiting for us to take action that he can manifest His being to His lovely people of the world.

However, my colleagues and I longed and talked about home with nostalgia. In our low moments foreign languages irritated us to the core and we yearned to speak our mother tongues, we relished Ugali and Sukuma Wiki and longed for the smell of Nyama Choma, at times we even missed funny things like a crowded street and traffic jam. Many time we got sick with no plausible explanations and some had to be deported in the process. But all this faded in comparison with the joy of making the blessings of God available to someone who had no access, when we became the feet and hands of Jesus in some little unknown places to people who are different than us. When we became in the words of Mother Teresa the only Jesus they will ever see.

I read a missionary website mobilizing for missions and paradoxically they suggested to us 10 great almost romantic reasons why we should not become missionaries. Here you go:
• Ignore Jesus' request in John 4:35 that we take a long hard look at the fields. Seeing the needs of people can be depressing and very unsettling. It could lead to genuine missionary concern.
(John 4:35 "Do you not say, `Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest."
• Focus your energies on socially legitimate targets. Go after a bigger salary. Focus on getting a job promotion, a bigger home, a more luxurious car, or future financial security. Along the way, run up some big credit card debts.
• Get married to somebody who thinks the "Great Commission" is what your employer gives you after you make a big sale. After marriage, embrace the socially accepted norms of settling down, establishing a respectable career trajectory and raising a picture-perfect family.
• Stay away from missionaries. Their testimonies can be disturbing. The situations they describe will distract you from embracing whole-heartedly the materialistic lifestyle of your home country.
• If you happen to think about missions, restrict your attention to countries where it's impossible to openly do missionary work. Think only about North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China and other closed countries. Forget the vast areas of our globe open to missionaries. Never, never listen to talk about creative access countries
• Think how bad a missionary you would be based on your own past failures. It is unreasonable to expect you will ever be any better. Don't even think about Moses, David, Jonah, Peter or Mark, all of whom overcame failures.
• Always imagine missionaries as talented, super-spiritual people who stand on lofty pedestals. Maintaining this image of missionaries will heighten your own sense of inadequacy. Convincing yourself that God does not use ordinary people as missionaries will smother any guilt you may feel about refusing to even listen for a call from God.
• Agree with the people who tell you that you are indispensable where you are. Listen when they tell you that your local church or home country can't do without you.
• Worry incessantly about money.
• If you still feel you must go, go out right away without any preparation or training. You'll soon be home again and no one can ever blame you for not trying!


Despite all these romantic reasons, we are looking forward to send The Osborn’s to Bor in Jonglei by mid January 2009 and I believe that’s why we came. We are challenged and impressed at your commitment. This must be a clear putting God and His vision ahead of your checklist kind of situation. God will honor that commitment since he more concerned with the lost more than you or we ever shall be He cares about the lost and the fatherless. He is in the business of gathering them together like a chicken gathers her chicks. We understand that you have no Insurance cover but our word and promise to stand with them both in prayer and financially. The statistics of giving to International Frontier Missions is less than 2% of the church giving, this is not encouraging news especially in our city of Nairobi, but that will not deter us. Kenya is ripe to act what the prophets have said over the years as a sending agent in our region, Africa and the whole world. A quick analysis of our region especially our neighbors to the North starting from our very own unreached Northern Kenya, Somalia and Sudan its clear we can only feed them. If we sit and watch we shall only be absconding our duty and responsibility to our neighbors at the time of their great need. Kenyans must appreciate that we are endowed beyond measure and it is time for us to stop being inward looking and start looking outward, Stop whining and take our privileged position in our region and for us Christians to the advantage of the gospel. If we allow us to move at the heart beat of God and get hurt by his concerns of a hurting world and shed tears at the question of Phil Bogosian "What would we do about it if the 66,000 who die every day in unreached people groups were individuals trapped in a well?" - This is a huge calling by any standards brethren but I believe that all of us gathered here together we can say ‘yes we can’!
God bless you again.

Gachunia

Mission Base Initiative(MBI Africa)

Programmes Manager

Worry

A virtue of fools

God calls

He loves His rogue sons 

Happy go lucky

He is gona sort you out

oops shout when you jerk around

but don't stop men!

keep going

a carefree style

laugh at you when you mess

nothing too serious

relax and watch ball

have fun and give thanks

for the small things of life

laugh at the gals with the boys of course

but hey watch out

focus 

keep going

laughter is always a concealed pair

chuns 

Lately the lord has been teaching me from the small Richard Fosters book celebration of discipline!!He illustrates the discipline of study, meditation, celebration, and guidance among many others. I spent sometime last week in a quiet retreat center along Athi River in Kenya. This place is extremely quiet and peaceful and right now i feel like some sort of a contemplative.

Brother Dostoevski wrote and said

love all God's creation , the whole and every grain of sand in it, love every leaf, every ray of God's light, love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything , you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you  perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better daily.

I write

The divine mystery in nature

i see the river flow

the noise of the water so serene

it's unlike the hooting of the cars

it resonates with something deep inside me

feels like aligning my heartbeat and brain wave

 

The waters so amazing

looks like fate has conspired

they go to the ocean and become salty maybe..

yet they hurriedly go to that appointment

uncomplaining

taking time to dance with the rocks

slowing down to rest at the pool

and keep moving

blessing the people on the way down 

cleaning them up

adorning their farms and keep going

with an unrelenting passion to wherever their master calls.

Gachunia Simon