Today there are no monkeys
around to distract me, but I am still late in getting this out. A partial reason is that I have a horrible
cold and I’m not sure if my being a little ‘dinghy’ is the coughing/sinus
infection or the medicine. We did love
having a break last week from life in the city of Nairobi, which included long
walks in the Kakamega Forest, but my allergies were not as grateful! The other reason is I simply have so much to
share this week.
I always find it amazing how God
guides me in composing our updates. This
week’s guidance came in the form of a comment made to the March 10th
Prayer Nudge from East Africa, which included a photo of a woman with items on
her head and in her arms, followed by a shoeless little girl. “Thank
you for posting this. I bought my daughters 2 or 3 pair of new shoes each least
weekend and it appears this dear child has none. What do we
do?”
Later she offered another comment: “I am praying that the
church, starting with ME, can overcome our (MY) worldly desires joyfully for
the advancement of His kingdom. My family does sponsor 2 children and we give
to other causes, but is it enough? Are we doing enough when I can still go to
the mall and buy pretty much whatever we want?”
To be honest, I live in plastic
sandals in Kenya and my first response to my Facebook Friend was: “Many
people in East Africa do without shoes - partially due to the costs, but often
due to the dust and mud that makes shoes rather useless. Many of the top runners
in Kenya - the ones who make it to the Olympics - PREFER running without shoes!”
But, her questions lingered in
my mind begging for better answers. Then
God led me to Romans 15:13: “May the God
of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may
overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” He also led me to
Isaiah 11:3,4 which talks of being led by what one sees and hears, rather than
by righteousness. These verses reminded me that those of us
who do trust in God must claim His joy and peace and we must overflow with His
hope – not with our power, but through the help and guidance of His Holy
Spirit. Only then can we truly serve our
Father and bring glory to Him and accomplish His will rather than satisfying
our human desires. I’ve tried to explain
this better with the aid of a few of the hundreds of photos taken last week – “What Can We Do?”
I’m ready to rest my fingers, eyes and weary mind, but I
will share our current prayer needs before I complete yet another LONG
update! Jack is at the Kenya Baptist
Theological College today teaching Baptist History, Faith and Practices, as
well as Communications, at our seminary.
Pray for safety as he travels and strength and wisdom as he teaches
daily through next week. Pray that I
will be patient and heal quickly from this flu/cold/sinus infection/ whatever
it is! This is likely one reason that I was discouraged last week as I wrote,
but your prayers, comments and viewing so much of God’s awesome creations
helped! Thank you for the many ways you
support us, BERT
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To view 2012 Prayer Nudges from East Africa at http://easternafrica2012prayernudges.blogspot.com/ or
find the Prayer Nudges and other updates from East Africa on Facebook – Bert
Yates (https://www.facebook.com/bert.yates) or
become a Facebook Friend of Imb EastAfrica ( https://www.facebook.com/Imb.East.Africa )
“WHAT DO WE DO?” can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150846014900130.518785.685050129&type=1&l=7944f4f7da
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