Pure Christianity

Trust?

2009, what a year you have been, and you’re not even finished yet.

I have mixed feelings when it comes to reflecting back on the year. I approach self examination apprehensively. It is no easy task for me.

Why? Mostly because I screw up so often. I get it wrong on such a regular basis, that it is easy to miss where I get it right. Depressing.

Also I’m human, and tend to judge those who fail harshly. Know what I mean? When someone burns me, it is harder for me to trust them the next time around. I just don’t believe them, or feel that past failure points to future failure.

I judge myself the same, and the pattern of my life seems to indicate there is some truth in that judgment. I do tend to keep on missing the mark.

I’m trying to stop this. You see our Father(the one in Heaven) does not do the same.

Even though I have failed God on so many occasions, that I can’t even recall all of them, He does not hold it against me. He still trusts me to do what He has asked me to do. He still believes in me. (I believe, Lord help my unbelief.)

He has not removed me from “ministry” till I can get my act together. No. He just keeps on making it possible for me to be here in Kenya.

I hope that as we reflect back on the year, that you will be able to forgive me, and trust me. I will try and do the same for you. Don’t worry, I’ll leave out most of my failures, and leave you reflecting on the successes. Plus I tend to believe that our successful care of orphaned/abandoned children balances out all my failures anyway.

A Future and a Hope

Jeremiah 29:11 (NKJV) For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Put aside the context for the moment, and just think about what is conveyed in this sentence. Don’t try to think about prophecy, doctrine, principles, just let the emotion of the phrase roll over you.

I believe, with all my heart, that this phrase represents God’s heart towards us.

He is thinking good thoughts. Thoughts of peace, and not evil. When He thinks of us, He’s not like Santa with his list of who’s naughty and who’s nice. Nope. He only has one list. The list of who He loves, and everyone, absolutely every single last one of us, is on that list.

When we started the orphan care project, (the word project so does not do justice to what we do, life describes it so much better. It is our life and not just our project.) this phrase from the book of Jeremiah captured our intent or purpose more than anything else.

We want to provide or at least facilitate a hope in the future for our kids, who otherwise had no hope even in the present let alone tomorrow.

We see this as simply doing what our Father does. That is loving everyone, even those who have no apparent value.

December Needs

It was once suggested that we have a thermometer or something on the side bar showing how much money we needed for the month, and how much has come in. I’m not sure I can do the thermometer, for personal reasons, but I thought this list might be helpful. This way, if you want to help with a specific thing, you can. So here is the list in U.S. dollars:

• Rent on girl’s home (which is our home as well:)     $675.00
• A week’s worth of food for both homes:                 $206.00   (26 people plus usually a few extras each day) 1st week 2nd Week
• Electricity at the girl’s home:                                $ 88.00
• Electricity at the boy’s home:                                $   8.00
• Water at the girl's home:                                       $ 40.00
• Water at the boy’s home:                                      $ 20.00
• Cooking gas:                                                         $ 26.00
• Cook at the girl’s home:                                        $ 88.00
• Housekeeper at girl’s home:                                  $ 74.00
• Support Staff at boy’s home:                                 $ 68.00
• Household cleaners, toilet paper, etc for a week:    $50.00    1st Week 2nd Week
• Personal hygiene products for week:                       $38.00    1st Week 2nd Week
• Internet                                                                $150.00

That should cover the basics for December (not including aid to the community). I will put up January’s soon so we can get a head start. January will include school related expenses that we don’t have in December. Also this is not every single expense. There are things like getting the girl’s hair done, karate, etc. If you don’t want to designate then we will just take care of whatever is the priority at the moment. Or if you want to designate your gift for something not on this list, then let us know. We do our best to spend the money how it was intended by the donor.

I will strike through what has been taken care of. Of course these expenses will also be around in January, so if you had your heart set on helping pay the cook, don’t worry there’s always next month.

Almost forgot, I will put a link to this article on the side bar.

Checks can be made out to Kenya Fund and sent to: (include a note if you want to designate for a specific need.)

713 West First Street
Beaver Dam, KY 42320

or you can use Paypal, there is a space to include a note, if you want to designate. Use back2kenya@yahoo.com

Scriptures?

O.K. so technically Ask Johnny and Kate Week is over, however I have a few more inquiries to answer. Like this one:

As individuals, what scriptures have most resonated with your being, and been touchstones in your life and relationship with God?

Kate is not around right now, but hopefully she will answer this one as well. There are so many passages in the Bible that have profound meaning to me. Let me just list a couple that have had the most impact in the past few years.

Let’s start with James 1:26-27 in The Message:

Anyone who sets himself up as "religious" by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

This forever changed my idea of religion. I had grown up being taught many rules, regulations, rituals, and patterns of behavior that God required of me. Never once was I taught that true religion or real faith is to reach out and help people who need help. It was liberating.

Another from James in the 2nd chapter has had a huge impact on my practice of the Christian faith. James says, “Faith without works is dead.” He also says that a man is justified by works and not by faith only. Believing is not enough, you must put that belief into practice.

The story of the sheep and goats from Matthew 25 helped me to define what works are. In that story the sheep who feed, clothed, cared for, and visited the “least of these” were allowed to enter into the Kingdom.

I absolutely believe in grace. God has given us the free gift of eternal life in Him. Yet at the same time this free gift should have an impact on our lives. We should change and become more like him, or more like the people he wants us to be. Grace should impact our lives in the here and now, and not just in the by and by.

Cure for Poverty?

A tough one:

What aspects of Western culture do you hope to share with your girls and which aspects to you hope they don't adopt? I imagine just like medications, sometimes the cures for extreme poverty might have some serious side effects. Have you found this to be the case? In what ways?

Like most Westerners finding themselves working with extreme poverty, I have had many ideas how to eradicate it. From the beginning, I have realized that I could not/can not solve the problem of world poverty. Yet I believed I could solve the problem of poverty for individuals. I hoped to enable them to learn to fish, and therefore feed themselves for a lifetime.

Notice the past tense in that last sentence. No longer can I say that I have any kind of solution for poverty, even on an individual basis. The causes of poverty, at least financial poverty, are beyond my control.

The basic assumption is flawed in my opinion. The assumption being that to solve the problem of poverty we need to get more money in the hands of the poor. If we can only do that, then all will be well.

Like the question above implies, this usually just brings about more problems than solutions.

Take a middle class Kenyan as an example. Most of them are just one emergency away from poverty. Just one major illness, car accident, loss of job, death of a family member, or some other unforeseen circumstance will see them moved back to the slum.

Money is not necessarily the solution. In fact it could be the problem.

Poverty is not only the absence of money. I don’t have any money, yet poor is not an adjective I would use to describe myself. We need to learn to free ourselves from the clutches of money. As a people we need to understand that there is more to life than acquiring possessions. Life is about life, not material objects. No matter how shinny they are.

What I want to share with the poor here in Kenya is decidedly not an American ideal. In fact it is very much un-American. It is something so foreign to the world, that most cannot get it. So counter intuitive, that we can be forgiven for not getting it.

It is this:

Blessed are the poor.

 

 

Ask Johnny and Kate Week

The Easy Life?

Here’s one that is similar to a previous question, but I had some more thoughts to add:

Do you ever wish you were living in the US - the easy life so to speak?  I think of you with the water situation, the cultural differences, the more than yucky bugs, the goat intestines, my personal not-favorite - fried termites and I guess I know the answer already but...........................................

I want to say "I don't know how you do it" but I do know how you do it - because of your commitment to the Lord & the needy.

Certainly it can be frustrating dealing with the lack of infrastructure here. Having to spend hours doing what should only take minutes. Not being able to find what we need all the time. It’s tough at times.

However I wouldn’t say it’s any harder than living in the U.S. Here I am free from the American Dream, which I found to be stifling and an unbearable burden. I can be the person God wants me to be, and not the person my country wants me to be.

It’s true, our faith compels us to be here and do what we do. Even if we were not here, we would still do the same thing. Reach out to the oppressed, loveless, and needy. That’s true Christian religion. That’s Pure Christianity.

Many times I want to flee from what we are doing. Especially during the hard times, which are often. It is then that I rely upon Jesus. I have come to understand that He really is strong because of my weaknesses. He accomplishes so much through such a person as myself. My shortcomings are many, yet the hungry were still fed yesterday. Orphans are still cared for today.

In my heart I understand that I can never go back to the American way of life. Not that I am condemning it, I am glad to be American, and love my people. It’s just that my journey has led me here, and here I must be.

Part of the Ask Johnny and Kate Week series.

A Plethora of Questions

Sometimes I wonder if people really understand how slow I am. Which means I talk slowly and listen slowly. I had to read this a few times to get everything to stick in my mind. Great questions, not sure if I can answer them all. There are still so many things I don’t understand myself.

I have a few questions.  How did you go about selling your stuff to go to Africa?  How did you pay off “debt” before leaving the country?  Also, did you have any financial support when you left America?  Was it hard to TELL others WHAT you were going to do as missionaries in Africa? 

I can tell you for sure that it was no easy decision to pack up and leave Texas. I knew then that I was turning my back on everything that was normal for my culture. I was abandoning what was important in the practice of my religion. I was leaving family and friends behind. I was leaving the things I enjoyed behind.

However the desire to be where God wanted me to be, was more than I could handle. So I had to pack up and go. Little did I know at the time that God had me do what I did, not for some grand ministry, but just so He could be closer to me.

Once we decided to go, we did just that. I gave notice at work, and we started packing. Selling our stuff was pretty easy. Well actually letting go was hard, especially since you never get what you feel something is worth.

What did not work out was selling our house. I did not put enough effort into selling it before we left, and we ended up losing it our first year here in Kenya. We simply did not have enough money coming in to make payments on it. I should have put it on the market sooner. Tough lesson.

I really felt like God asked me to avoid traditional fund raising methods, and just trust Him. So all we did was send out a letter, and speak at the church we were attending at the time. We ended up landing in Nairobi with 600 dollars. No house, no car, nothing.

It was tough to trust God, but we eventually learned.

It was not hard to explain to others that we wanted to be missionaries. With the exception of a few family members it was well received by everyone. The tough part for us is asking for money, so usually we just don’t do it. Most people appreciate what we do, even if they do not understand our faith all the time.

This post was part of Ask Johnny and Kate Week. (If you follow this link and scroll down the article you will find a list of the questions and answers so far.)

More Answers

Continuing to answer your questions: (You can see the post declaring this Ask Johnny and Kate Week here)

Terri asks a question that is difficult to answer in one blog posting:

What is the biggest cultural difference's that you see..both as a Christian ( because I found the Christianity much more fundamentist than what I practice, so it would be interesting to here from you guys) also just as people living in another country raising children from that country along with your own?

I think I’ll let Kate answer the parenting related question,(which she does here) as I am often times accused of not being able to parent, and I will make an attempt at the fundamentalist related inquiry.

Fundamentalism in my mind is basically narrow mindedness. It is not accepting anything different than what you believe or practice as being legitimate. This narrow mindset is rampant here in Kenya, as far as the Christian church is concerned. It is destroying the Kingdom of God with one act of intolerance at a time. The church here loves to condemn, which is amazing seeing as to how there is no condemnation in Jesus.

I have struggled with how to relate to this more radical or fundamentalist out look on faith for about five years now, and have come to an uneasy truce with my enemy.

When someone refuses to even consider something just because it is different, it tends to be counterproductive. So many pastors here approach me with proposals for projects meant to aid in development. Yet these same pastors are not willing to embrace a more holistic Gospel, one that is inclusive and not exclusive. They tend to accept my differences, at least the ones they can see on the outside, as just me being a white man. However they cannot accept that things such as H.I.V. are caused by a virus and not a demonic force. Or they will literally refuse to fellowship with a young woman who becomes pregnant outside of marriage. (Reminds me of a story I read on a blog recently about a group of Israelis who turned their back on a guy just because he spoke Arabic and had lived in a certain part of Jerusalem. I see that sort of thing here all the time. This is not a proper reflection of Yahweh or His son Jesus.)

It has been tough. I mentioned a truce earlier, that cease fire has been for my own sanity. God, for reasons He has not disclosed to me, continues to have me involved with Charismatic, Pentecostal, Baptist, and other more fundamentalist groups. I need a way to interact with them without going insane.

My differences limit my ability to enjoy their meetings, gatherings, rituals, or whatever. Good thing is that I don’t really need those things to thrive anyway, in fact I tend to thrive more when I am free of religion.

Johnny Brooks

Feeding the Hungry, etc.

Kate and I went to Nairobi on Monday to pick up a friend, who is here to assist Kate with the delivery of our baby. (Who still does not have an official name. So, Hey Kid, will suffice for now, or the baby.) It was an uneventful trip. We went to the Sarit Centre in Westlands, which is pretty much like going to a mall in the U.S. Otherwise nothing much happened.

This past Saturday we distributed food and clothes to a good number of folks involved in one of our HIV/AIDS support groups. I love doing that kind of stuff. Of course each and every day we feed, clothe, house, and love the orphaned/abandoned children living with us. We love them, and hope to be a part of their lives till death temporally parts us.

This week is possible the last week of school for the year. No one seems to really know when the last day is. Two of our girls will be going on a class trip to Nairobi tomorrow. They are excited.

Well that is enough update related stuff for now. There is so much more that could be put in this post, but then that is what tomorrow is for, and Facebook.

Johnny Brooks

Picture (s) of the Week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connie and her mom, Winnie. Winnie is doing much better now, eating and her spirits are high.

Our good friend Beatrice, she does the girl’s hair for us, standing at her front door. Due to circumstances that were completely out of her control she had not been able to pay her rent for several months. We helped her catch up. (Not sure who the kid is, maybe a neighbor.)

“Yes I can ride this bike.”