Guest Post Part 2 - Student Comments about Anthony and Sara

When Tammy visited us, she had the opportunity to have a good discussion with the students, where they asked her questions about herself, the church in the US, and differences between Kenya and there.  Then, she was also able to ask them questions.

Written by Tammy:

I asked the students: "Tell me what you have learned and what you would like me to go home and tell the church and the people that support Sara and Anthony to be here.  What do you want them to know about your time with Sara and Anthony here at the college?"

Here are the students' answers: 

⦁ We learn Ping Pong.

⦁ We get to have interactions with people of your continent and learn how you do things.

⦁ Sara and Anthony are the best to have; Sara teaching us to bake cakes, helping us to feed (this is how they talk about eating).  These are practical activities we have done with her: making kitchen gardens, fireless cooking, and new techniques in farming.

⦁ Anthony's classes: there were many things we didn't understand, but now we understand well.  He has helped us with controversial theological debates we had in our minds and helped us to trust the Bible.  And he has told us about practices outside of our country, like in Uganda and America.

⦁ Sara and Anthony are always a good example to me, they are serious in their work.  I had doubted the spiritual strength of US Christians.  Sara and Anthony are people full of muscle; they have concern for our welfare.  Often we fear strangers, but we have become friends.  We will be preaching with our actions as they do.

⦁ We are thankful for them as they have been praying for us.  Early in the semester we were struggling with sicknesses and Anthony stopped teaching so that he could pray for us.  They are very pastoral and care well for us.  They are able to respond to emergencies.  They are very approachable, we praise God for them.  (I understood this as Sara and Anthony are approachable and helpful in their long term spiritual, emotional and physical strength, they do not see themselves as better than another; they are doing life with these people)

⦁ They are one good Christian couple, they walk, do things together and have a good relationship, they use their time and resources well and they have challenged me in my time and now I have many resources.

⦁ In our classes, Anthony has taught us how to make an action plan.  This has been useful; before I could not read the full Bible, now he has given me the confidence that I can. (Anthony had taught them how to make an action plan when they want to see a change in their life, and one of the first plans they made was about reading the Bible daily)

⦁ Sometime we get confused about God.  Anthony is convincing everyone that God is there.  Some people want to write their own Bibles.  But we have learned to be in a relationship with God and to trust the Bible.

Guest Post - A Day in the Life of Berea

Written by Tammy Stevens from Midland, MI:

A day in the life of a visitor...

What does Berea College look like from the eyes of a visitor? After traveling more than 10,000 miles to arrive here, I was ready to be out of transportation vehicles and ready to learn. The day began with staff fellowship; praying and singing with new brothers and sisters. Followed by a class taught by Anthony, Homiletics, where I was able to hear students take their learning and create a sermon.  There were two that shared on this day.  God is using these men and women to spread the gospel. They shared later with me of the joy they had in learning how to study the Bible and the confidence they now have to preach it. Praise God for growth among His people!

Next we hurried off for chai and chapatti (tea with milk and a hot fried thin flour pancake).  We shared in this time, laughing and sharing stories of the US and Kenya.

Then we skipped off quickly to Sara's class on the Books of the Old Testament, where the students really seemed to understand and apply their leanings.  Each section had applicable lessons and clear understanding of how and why it is in the scripture.  This was also encouraging to me as there were things I had not known or understood, so I was able to get a quick lesson as well.

As class concluded, it was time to get back for lunch, rest for a few minutes before a multi-languages communion service.  Actually, the only things that were in multiple languages were the songs.  Different groups went up to sing worship songs.  It was so beautiful to see and hear people singing in different languages praising our Heavenly Father.  I was able to hear Anthony bring the message to the church for communion (they rotate who preaches and it just happened to be his week).

After service, we quickly changed clothes and went off to Sara's "practical class" where again, I learned new things. We went out to the field, Sara taught about measuring without a ruler, the importance of spacing, when to and when not to plant, how deep, and how to weed and when to weed. Then the class ran lines, dug holes, and placed manure in the holes awaiting the rain so the seeds can be planted. Class ended one hour later and more than half the class would not leave as they were so driven to finish preparing the field. It was my great joy to see the ownership these people had for their land and for their learning. This part of the field is broken into 5 areas.  They will be doing comparisons to see which crops grow best from all of the different partnering products with the maize. I am very curious and look forward to hearing the results.

After this class it was time to go in for the night, dinner, and rest. Are you tired yet?  I sure was. Sara and Anthony shared that this was not how every day was, but I understood that this was still a fairly normal day.  I thank God every day that I have been here.  I can understand the impact of two people who used to live in my home state, how they can truly impact people all over the world.  They are impacting these people to go out and care for others, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, and physically. If you have ever wondered what a day looks like here... there you go!

ECHO Conference in Tanzania

By Sara:

In early February, I had the opportunity to attend and present at the ECHO conference in Arusha, Tanzania.  I am very thankful that I got to participate this year.  I loved being able to see my friends who I worked with in Uganda and to catch up on the work they are doing in Amuria, Katakwi, and Kaberamaido.

And I met with friends from Tanzania, other parts of Kenya, and even the US.  I admit I never met Austin, the guy on the left in the picture below, until the conference, but he worked on the WHRI Farm in Texas before I was there.  The next person from the left though, Eli, worked with me on the Farm, and Neil was the director while I was there and now lives in Tanzania.

Here's a photo from Kerry Nobuhle Wiens who took pictures of the conference - the two people on the right are Moses and Simon who I worked with in Uganda:

I also enjoyed meeting many new people, even from countries like Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, DRC, and Burundi.  It was really great to hear about the different things that are happening in their countries and to learn from them. 

There were many interesting presentations and lectures.  One of them was about a major weed called Parthenium Hysterophorus, which originated in the central US/Mexico and has now become a major weed around the world.  It can cause dermatitis and respiratory problems in humans and is quite toxic to animals.  And, it majorly reduces yield of food crops because it suppresses their growth and grows super quickly.  They've been seeing it in Tanzania, including right across the street from the conference, so we went out to see what it looks like so everyone can keep an eye out and get rid of it if we see it anywhere:

Here are some other highlights from the conference:
-it is important to start working with farmers from their home, rather than just looking at issues in their farm/garden so you can understand what they want and plan for their farm.

-some common plants have some pesticidal properties that I didn't know about, including spider flower.

-some legumes, like pigeon peas can make phosphorus available and soluble in the soil.

-we need to realize if when we introduce a new system of farming into an area instead of incorporating something new into what is already there, it can be risky and scary to people because we're destroying the existing system that they're used to.

-a good point that we should decide whether to work in a community based more on its openness for change than by the needs.

-and a reminder that we need to keep worldview in mind when we consider other peoples' behavior: we tend to judge others by their behavior (or the consequences of their behavior) through our own worldview yet we want others to judge us by our intentions ("what I really meant was...") instead of through their worldview (which is how people will judge our behavior).

Nothing to do with the conference, but here's a beautiful sunset in Arusha:

So, I don't have any pictures of me leading devotions during the conference, but that went really well.  One day it was about Luke 4:16-21, how our work as Christians in proclaiming the gospel is both to meet physical needs, but also to use our words to address spiritual needs.  It is easy for the church to forget about the importance of meeting physical needs and it is easy for Christian development workers to forget about the importance of meeting spiritual needs.

The other day it was about 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, how we often take the values of the world (power, money, education, etc.) and bring them into the church or our development.  But God doesn't value those things and uses weak, poor, insignificant people like us to do his work in the world!

Afterward, I had people come and tell me how much they were encouraged through those devotions and different ways that they want to apply them to their work or lives.  I am very thankful that God was able to use me to impact other peoples' lives in such a way.

Here are a couple more pictures taken by Kerry Wiens, to let you see the set up for praise and worship, devotions, and large-group sessions, and how many people were there:

Another day, I did a break-out session presentation about how principles about poverty alleviation can impact our agricultural development work.  I based a lot of it on "When Helping Hurts", "Two Ears of Corn", and "People in Rural Development", all great books!  Again, there were people who appreciated the information and felt like it will be helpful in their organization's work.  Eli kindly took some pictures for me:

Things We Discuss In Class

By Anthony:

I figured it was time to update all of you on some of the good class discussions I've had with students since this new semester started in January.  These are from the three classes I'm teaching: Homiletics (preaching), Church History 2 (mostly the Reformation), and Development (poverty alleviation), as well as the discussion group I lead on spiritual growth once a week.  Also, I always give the students a 5 minute break in the middle of each 2 hour class session to walk around outside, go the bathroom, etc.  Sometimes I join them and we get talking.  Strangely, some of best discussions happen while standing around outside.  They can be quiet in the classroom, and then completely open up with their opinions, struggles, and questions when outside.  Because of this, sometimes I let the 5 minute break turn into a 30 minute break!

Some of the interesting class discussions:

- I learned that for most of the students, Sara and I are the first Western missionaries they have ever met.  This is shocking to me because when we came, the students didn't act like it was a new thing to see us.  And we see missionaries all over around Kenya so it's strange to think they haven't interacted with other missionaries.  It's a bit overwhelming or disconcerting when you realize that the students are basing their perceptions of missionaries, or Americans, on their interaction just with the two of us.  Most of the students are continually asking us to find them an American wife or husband.  When we ask why, they say that they like how Americans act, but then we try to help them realize that Americans are very diverse and they do not all act the same way we do.  But they don't believe us, and they keep insisting they must have a mzungu wife!  Then we learned that some of them want a mzungu wife because they think that is a ticket to riches.  Sigh.  We hope they are joking!

- We've had some discussions about titles for pastors and Jesus' warnings against titles in Matthew 23.  Yet in the Anglican Church there is an abundance of titles.  I'm not against church positions and using titles in a small way.  To me, there is a difference between having a title to differentiate our different tasks in ministry, and insisting on people using your title for your honor and glory.  In our discussion, we agreed while Jesus warns against titles, it's hard to even keep track of all the titles in the Anglican Church:  Archbishop, bishop, lay leader, archdeacon, deacon, doctor, honorary, provost, suffragan bishop, canon, reverend, right reverend, the most right reverend, vicar, etc.  The students said there is a problem that a lot of church leaders want titles for power and prestige.

- In Church History, we had a great discussion about the Reformation, about the corruption, the pride, the greed, and the sexual immortality present in the church and priests of the Roman Catholic Church of that time.  It led to a practical discussion about the Anglican Church of Kenya.  They saw that many of the same problems are here, albeit to a lesser extent.  We discussed whether the reforms could be made from within, or would a new church be necessary.  They are hoping that change is possible from within the Church first, which I also advised them to try to do.

Teaching class outside for fun:

- In Development class, I found out that almost all of their churches have no Benevolence ministry to give anything to the poor, and most of the students themselves have never given anything to a poor person or to help the poor.  At least this is what they told me.  It was quite a shock.

- Over lunch with some students one day, I received an excellent compliment.  They said they noticed how Sara and I do our cooking together, washing of our clothes together outside, and they really appreciate it.  They want to have marriages like ours where the husband and wife do work together and try to serve one another.  They said, "that is the way to have a happy marriage, we want to do it the same way you are." In the culture, as in Uganda, women and men have very divided work roles, and often the women do way more work while the men sit around.  So it's awesome that these students want to make change.

- We had a very honest and blunt discussion about pornography during one class period.  It came up because we were talking about how true born again Christians will still sin, but they won't live in sin, they will repent and confess and keep on fighting against sin.  One student asked a very important question about how to think about a Christian who keeps trying to fight pornography but keeps failing.  It led into a good discussion about the nature of addiction and the need to get real help from others when fighting this sin.  I encouraged them to come talk to me privately if they are struggling and I could help them and not tell anyone else.  But so far no one has come.  I'm sure many of the students are struggling with pornography on their smartphones, but it's hard to admit it when you need help!

- We had a great discussion in Homiletics about political sermons.  In this culture, it is extremely common for churches to acknowledge politicians in church and let them speak to the church if they happen to attend a church service.  We discussed how it is favoritism in a way since they don't let other visitors speak, and also how dangerous it is to have a church appearing to support one political party.  In addition, sometimes pastors are asked to preach at political functions, and some of the students have already done so.  The danger there is that instead of preaching the Word of God, you might preach that people should vote for a certain person.  I am not an expert on all the complicated issues concerning the Church and politics.  There are hard decisions to make.  You have to be apolitical often in terms of supporting one candidate over another, but at the same time, also be willing to speak out on the issues.  When I encouraged them to be careful about mixing up their church with politics, they asked a very fair question - "but shouldn't we preach about corruption and speak out against the specific abuses happening in our community?"  I think our country, the USA, is struggling with many of the same issues right now.  How do we speak about abortion, immigrants, poverty, homosexuality, racism, and refugees without becoming too political, or too attached to a political party?  We become ineffectual and even guilty when we fail to speak out the truth on the important issues of our day.  Yet we want the Church to be a place that welcomes people of any political party.  Tough things to sort out.  We had a long discussion about such things.

- We had a fun activity in Development class.  I wanted them to realize that in doing community development you need to hear the voices of the voiceless, to get opinions from a wide variety of people in a community since they all have different wisdom and knowledge to share about the assets and needs of their community.  I divided up the older students into 1 group, and the younger students into a 2nd group.  I told them to imagine there was a gift of $2000 for Berea College, and they should discuss and write down what they thought the money should be used for.  I was happy to see that the answers were very divergent, illustrating well the point I was trying to make.  The older students wanted to use the money to pay salaries that haven't been paid yet for staff, and to increase the security at the school, and help some needy students with school fees.  The younger students wanted to give cash to each regular student (but not the modular students), and then use the rest of the money on a party!  With age comes wisdom and maturity it seems :)

- Also in Development class, we had a discussion about how to overcome corruption in Kenya.  I showed them these two videos below which explain that an audit of the government showed that only 1% of the government's money is spent according to the law (the rest is "eaten" through corruption, or used on good things but not the things it was intended for).  And also they give the statistic that on average, each citizen in Nairobi gives 16 bribes per month.  The two videos are below.  I was highly disappointed by their reaction.  Some of the students immediately said the videos were political and that they were "all lies."  They just dismissed it.  They know corruption is a huge problem in Kenya, but there is so much tribalism that often, people don't want to admit that leaders who share their tribe might be corrupt.  Unfortunately we've noticed tribalism among the students as well, as those from minority tribes are not treated as well sometimes.  This leads me to remind you that the election is coming up in Kenya this August.  Pray for peace and that there would not be violence again this time as there was violence in 2007.  Pray for Kenya, especially for an end to corruption!  Very little development can happen in such a corrupt place, and the students tell me the corruption is coming into the church as well.

If you can't open the video directly, here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3fw7Jxj28k

And the link for the second video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwDGmJtgWL0

A Baringo Village Visit

By Sara:

We have an epic blog post for you that is just packed with pictures and all kinds of fun experiences!  We traveled to an area in Baringo to visit one of our students, Philip, and his church.  We went there on Saturday, got great tours of his parents' home and farm, and spent the night with them before going to church on Sunday.   They've trained a beautiful bougainvillea plant to be a shade where they can sit outside:

The barn where they store grass and feed for their animals (the grass on the outside is to protect the inside from rain blowing in):

The kitchen (the chickens know where food can be found...):

This is the family's mango-loving cow.  They said that they have to keep it away from the mango trees or it will eat all of them before the family can get any!

Philip has his own plot on his parents' land.  This is the grass-thatched house he has (which he built and decorated himself, by the way):

And in case you thought that a grass-thatched house means people are living in a primitive way, take note of the computers inside of Philips!  He studied IT before he came to the Bible college, so he's got some of the tools of the trade in his house.

But that hut is mostly for storage because he built a more permanent house next to it:

Here is part of the inside:

A random picture of one of the containers the family uses for storing water:

Some of the cows in the pen where they stay at night.  The one looking at you is the one that eats mangoes:

Baringo is a pretty dry area of the country, so they have to be really conscious about storing up water for the dry season, especially since they have various animals.  Now, it's the dry season, so they are working on digging a new pit that will collect water when it rains so they have enough when it's dry.  Look how tiny Anthony is!

Here's a ditch that runs into the water storage pit- rainwater will be directed by this into the pit.

And this is the second pit they have that still has some water.  But it's drying up pretty quickly, so they're waiting anxiously for the rain to come!

Every time the family has visitors, they have the visitors plant a tree.  Their land is actually very distinctive from the neighbors because they have so many trees all over!  Anthony's tree:

Since they love farming so much, I brought seeds from some of the plants in my garden to share:

Philip used a really long stick to pick a white sapote fruit for me to taste:

Philip and his dad are really experienced beekeepers.  I was a little nervous getting so close to this hive, but Philip assured me that we would be fine.

How do you get over a fence if you aren't near the gate?

They have so many banana trees, as well as mango trees.  They have to be fenced off so goats, sheep, and cows don't get into them, though:

A really cool new experience we had was tasting honey from stingless bees.  They're really tiny insects, from a different genus (Meliponini) than honey bees, and Philip and his dad had found them somewhere, put them into a tiny gourd, and hung the gourd from the house.  As time went on, more of them came and they keep adding more gourds for the little bees.  They've got them hanging up all over around all their buildings. 

These bees don't produce a lot of honey, so you don't harvest the honey in the same you do for ordinary bees.  Philip just opened up a gourd for us to taste:

While eating the honey, you end up eating a lot of stuck bees at the same time, but they tasted like honey!

There is some kind of local fruit that Philip sent home with us.  I still haven't figured out what it is, but it apparently can be soaked in hot water and used like tamarind:

Philip's mom made us good food for the whole time we were there.  Saturday evening, she was cleaning millet that the family had grown.

And it was strongly suggested that I help out :)

She also shelled some maize (homegrown of course) in a really clever way that I had never seen before:

Then, we helped to grind the maize and millet into flour with this awesome hand mill they have:

Here's our dinner, which included ugali made from the very flour we ground:

In the evening, Philip put on all his beekeeping garb and cut some wax out of a hive for me.  He uses that padded cap under his bee hat so the bees can't get to his head through the hat:

After a very interesting and busy day, we slept very soundly and woke up ready to go to church.

Before the service, I got a demonstration of a fireless cooker started with the people who were around that early, including many of the youths from the church.  We boiled beans (that had soaked overnight) for ten minutes, then covered the pot and wrapped it in a sheet and put it inside the fireless cooker we made:

I stumbled through as much explanation as I could in Swahili:

We used a big saucepan instead of a basket as the main container, then dry grass as the insulation.

After that, people started arriving for church.  Anthony preached an inspiring message about how the pastor is like a coach who equips the people of the church for ministry.  So everyone should be thinking about the gifts God has given them that they can use to serve him, in the church and in the community:

After the service, Anthony also got a chance to answer questions from the youth:

And then, we had the moment when we unveiled the beans that had been cooking in the fireless cooker for the past 4 hours.

People were impressed at how hot the pot still was:

Then everyone got to taste some fireless cooker beans:

It was a really nice visit and we are thankful for the opportunity we had to learn from Philip's family and enjoy their company.  Here we are with Philip and his parents: