Worship and Street Bases

This morning we drove in to Eastleigh to attend worship at the new church at our Center there. With us were Samuel Mburu, member at Kamulu and WBS student, who was on his way to Southwest Kenya with Larry Conway and Jerry Drennan (from Abilene) to officially open Sam's Place, an orphanage for deaf children sponsored by the church. Also our two former Aggies for Christ interns, Jessica and Laquita, and Phillip, our lead teacher at MITS who was to preach at Eastleigh. Traffic was already heavy with matatus and vans carrying people to church and to other Sunday activities. Dust on the roads and a really bumpy 2nd Avenue in Eastleigh.

As we came in, we were enthusiastically greeted by our guard Isaiah, and Larry Conway, whom we had not seen for two months. We were happily surprised to see not only quite a number of youth from the streets but also several families, including some refugees staying in Eastleigh. On the front row was Jane Njeri, one of our very first students at MITS in 1996, when we started at the Eastleigh Church, which is down the street from our current center. She lives in a small "village" of very poor people in Eastleigh.

Phillip had a great message. One of things he talked about was a visit he had made to a base a couple of weeks ago. The base was located not far from a police post, and recently the police had killed a few street youth at the base. There are women there with small children, and they are worried about their children, talking about how they could protect the kids and continue to care for them. Young women forced to sleep on the streets are as concerned about their kids as the rest of us.

And Phillip applied it to Jesus, as he prayed in John 17. He said that Jesus is like those women, that he cares for us, that he prays for us, that he will not leave us alone, that he will protect us and use even the troubles of our lives to bring blessing to us. And we can trust him and know him.

Now isn't that a good message for all of us today?