Jan 27

“LOVE NEVER GIVES UP…” (1 Cor. 13 – MSG)
“The secret of the saints: they ENDURED!”

Dear friends and family!
First and foremost, Carly and I have to issue an apology for our lack of communication since the holidays. The last month has been filled with many ups and downs and as we say to ourselves so often, we feel as if we’ve experienced more joy and laughter but also more tears and sorrow than ever before at the same time.

After celebrating Christmas and New Years with our family of 7 boys, Nancy and baby John, and Pastor Salito’s family, (many of whom experienced their first Christmas off of the streets) Carly and I dedicated ourselves to the task of getting the boys back into school, as the new school term begins in Kenya in January. Our two main priorities at the beginning of January were to get them back into school before it was too late in the term and to start medical records for each person (their first physical, complete blood testing, and such).

Although not without a fight and much persistence, God has been faithful to answer both of those requests! Although we’ve spent many hours waiting for appointments, being overlooked, pushed aside, and misunderstood, God has been giving us one word: ENDURANCE. One day we spent an entire afternoon waiting on a meeting that was pushed back for four hours, only to find that it would last ten minutes and we would emerge with a phone number referring us to someone else. Carly looked at me on the way home completely exhausted, “All that for a phone number! AFRICA!” I laughed, feeling just as irritated, but said, “Yes, but at least we got the phone number!”

“The secret of the saints:” one of our favorite songs right now tells us, “they ENDURED!” We’re finding that it’s in the little details of the day-to-day that our patience gets tested, our character refined, and our ministry gets validated in the eyes of men and God. More and more we’re finding that “missions” is something anyone can do; anyone can spend an afternoon waiting for a phone number, anyone can pull aside a boy that’s just started a fight and say the simple words, “I love you…God loves you…no matter what you do…” and watching the power of unconditional love completely melt their hearts and change their countenance. Every day we are amazed at how simple our job is; it requires no supernatural talent, no remarkable ingenuity, no graduate-level university degree – simply faithfulness. “He who endures to the end will be saved.” (Mt. 24:13) As I said to Carly about the phone number, anyone can wait all day for a phone number, but who will? In these monotonous details we are faced with the decision, will we be discouraged and tempted to write off our ministry and go home, or will we choose to see the resurrection light that’s coming through all the deaths we feel we’re going through every day? (1 Cor. 15:31)

We are learning to step into a new level of courage and endurance, as it says of the saints, “Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves…refused to give in…” (Heb. 11:32-24 MSG) When a school doesn’t want to accept the boys, we go to the next one. When someone cancels a meeting on us, we go to their office and ask why. We “make justice work”. When a boy breaks our hearts by coming back home high one night, we refuse discouragement and rebuke the enemy’s attacks– we love him stronger and pray harder. We “refuse to give in”.

In the midst of all these lessons (which include learning by so many mistakes!), we have several praises to report.

First miracle: Two weeks ago, after every individual received their first complete physical, we found that our house is HIV- free! Not only HIV-free, but all were declared very healthy. Malaria…TB….blood disease…a complete miracle, for eight people living on the streets, some up to 12 years. Knowing that some of their family members died of AIDS, Carly, Pastor Salito, Sandra, and I had spent much time in prayer and turmoil over these doctor visits, keenly aware of the anxiousness of the boys themselves over these tests. As Sandra said, “God gave us a complete miracle!”

Second miracle: God gave us two individuals that assessed our boys for schooling and they are currently half-way through a two-week tutoring program that is preparing them to re-enter school, joining this term a few weeks late, tentatively on February 2nd. Four boys will be entering into the equivalent of 7th grade and one boy, 8th grade (the last before high school). One boy, Mario, entered into Form 3 (Junior year of high school), this week and Carly and I are truly becoming mothers as we have to go to our first “parent-teacher meeting” for him in a few hours! (haha!) Please continue to pray for Mario’s transition and the other five to complete their tutoring and enter school on time – that there would be no change of agreements & no attack of the enemy would thwart that from happening!

Third miracle: Miraculous release from jail.
At the beginning of the week, while focused on schooling and the addition of a cook to help us with meals (another BIG praise!), Carly & I had no idea that we would be spending much of our week in courts, prisons, and the immigration office. Over the weekend, one of our boys had gone into town with the heartbreaking news they hear so often, “Municipal swept the streets this weekend and Farah & Issa are in prison!” Farah and Issa are close friends of all the boys. They were special guests on Christmas and we had set up days for them to come to the house every week, with the intention that one day (when we don’t feel so overwhelmed with the 8 we have now!), they would join our family. Because both the boys were scheduled for court dates last Monday, Carly & I had the house pray for us and went to visit their prisons immediately after church on Sunday.

It’s not easy for corrupt officials to take two young white girls seriously sometimes, but “Holy Spirit,” we always pray, “give us serious faces…give us the right words…don’t let them toy with us but pave the way for us to see Farah and Issa!” With only a few bunny trails, we were able to locate both boys, Issa on Sunday and Farah on Monday.

Issa’s meeting looked grim in the natural. We were able to bring him milk and bread, but as the head officer sat with us we heard that being accused of stealing an officer’s phone, he was faced with 2 years in prison (stealing is a very serious crime in Kenya). Though Issa was pleading not guilty, the evidence was strong. Carly & I looked into Issa’s eyes and reminded him that there is a Judge above all judges, a court above all courts and that whether he stole the phone or not, tells the truth in court the next day or not, one day he will have to answer to the One who is Truth. We gently reminded him that it would be better to plead guilty and suffer two years in prison than to face the greater prison of hell. (Mt. 10:28)“He will always help you when you call, He will always forgive you when you ask, but its based on one requirement:” we always remind the boys “YOU MUST TELL THE TRUTH. His very name is Truth, and He doesn’t play games.” We reminded him again that even if he were to go to prison, if he had clean hands before God, he would be free from prison on the inside.

After we prayed with Issa, the officer who had been closely observing us tried to offer us a bribe to get Issa out of his predicament. We told him directly that we were not interested in bribes but only justice and the truth. As we left, we promised Issa that our love for him would not change and we would be praying for him all night. The officer promised to call us the next day with the court results.

Pastor, Sandra, Carly & I interceded for the two boys for hours that night and urged the boys to keep praying as well. Carly prayed Acts 12:5: “So Peter was kept in prison, but the church prayed for him most strenuously” (MSG) The next morning, in the middle of the house morning prayer time, Issa’s officer called. “The boy you came to see yesterday,” he told me, “his charges have been dropped.” When I asked why I received the same statement: “His charges have been dropped.” No explanation. No bail and no bribe. And no two year sentence for Issa.

The house celebrated and Carly and I took it as a sign that our prayers have power and confirmation to keep praying for Farah. Farah’s story, however, became a bit more personal.

Farah’s Story
When we went to him in prison that day our hearts melted completely. I had been expecting to be taken to a room, sit down and have a conversation with Farah as we had with other boys, but what Carly and I got that day was “five minutes!” to barely talk with him through bars and a crowd of crude officers. This was 17-year-old Farah’s first time in prison; with his hair (which along with being the best football player in the streets had been a part of his proud identity) shaved, his body so small and thin, and his eyes so full of fear, he did his best to quickly shout his story to us. Like a few of our boys, Farah had been a part of a city council program intended to rehabilitate and educate street kids. Although the program receives foreign funding, as the boys say “the money is eaten,” and the program offers only little hope to a small percentage. Fed up with this program, Farah had decided to leave and upon his first night back in the streets was picked up by police for “loitering.” The city council program officials he knew would not bail him out and as he looked at us that day he pleaded, “You’re my only hope. I’m the smallest one here.” A subtle statement that might indicate he was being beaten and raped, young Farah couldn’t walk or keep food and water down he was so sick. We told him we were praying about what to do and I felt the urge to tell him strongly “PRAY, Farah! Pray hard…it’s important that you pray in the nights. God can help you.”

That afternoon Carly and I made the whole journey home without one word to each other. Our hearts were so full of pain for this young boy, without father or mother to care for him, whom Satan had pursued for so many years. “But what do we do?”, we asked. There were several other street boys in prison and we told the boys we had a policy that we don’t post bail. Even if we were to post bail, would we just return him to the streets? Could we bring him to our house which we felt was already filled to the brim with boys not getting enough attention as it is? Thinking of their own memories in prison, the boys were badly wanting to hear about Farah and insisting that we post his bail the next day. “Ah, two nights in Majengo,” one of them said, “will feel like two years.” “It’s his first time in prison – he will be different when he comes out.” We told the boys that regardless of what we did the next day, we knew that each night Farah was in danger. Feeling such despair, Jesus encouraged us through the story of Daniel in the lions’ den. King Darius, despite his own kingship, found himself unable to rescue Daniel from the decree that had sent innocent Daniel to the lions’ den. After attempts failed to free Daniel, he told him, maybe with one last flicker of hope, before he entered the den, “May your GOD, get you out of this”! (Dan. 6:16)

We too found encouragement in the fact that although Farah was in “the lions den” and we could not rescue him right away, prisons can’t keep God and his angels away. Carly, Pastor, Sandra and I decided that as long as Farah was at prison, someone would spend the night in the prayer room praying for him. What Satan meant for harm, God turned around for good because soon we found ourselves praying not just for the physical protection Daniel received, (Dan. 6:23) but devoting hours and hours praying for the salvation of this one soul. We prayed that while he was in prison he would receive a vision of Jesus (Farah has been a practicing Muslim) and discover that Jesus wants to set him free from the prison of sin and hell. As God’s perfect plan would have it, Farah had been at our house Christmas night and attentively watched The Passion of the Christ with our group. More than anyone he was moved by the film and ended the night asking, “Why did Jesus have to die?” We prayed that Jesus Himself would answer those questions while he was in prison and after one more quick visit the next day, I ripped Psalm 22 out of my Bible and reminded him that Jesus also knew suffering and He should ask Jesus to tell Him why He had to suffer.

While heavy with the reality of Farah’s situation on our hearts and trying to get the boys into their first week of tutoring as the school calendar was ticking, another challenge was thrown at as we found out that Sandra (Pastor’s wife) was arrested at her Bible school on Tuesday and letters were being passed around saying that we were doing social work here in Kenya illegally. On Wednesday we found ourselves sitting in front of the immigration officers’ desk being told that all four of us should be in prison. We knew in December when we took the boys in that our permits weren’t official but felt that God was having us take a step of faith anyway. That was a decision that none of us regretted and we were prepared to tell him the next morning that we’d rather go to prison than see the boys leave the house and return to the streets.

Because our own boys futures seemed up in the air with our legal status, we told Farah to pray hard to the only one who could save him, (Heb. 5:7) knowing that if Jesus wanted us to bail him out and take him in (despite all circumstances), he would make it clear to all of us. A few of us received dreams and by Thursday morning the Lord confirmed to all of us it was time to take Farah out and bring him home, adding him to the family. That day we were given a temporary pardon from the officer and told to see a man in Nairobi next week. It seemed that no one wanted to put us in prison or see the boys kicked out of the house. We praised the Lord, and responded to His call to bail his son out of prison the next day.

So in this blog we are asking for prayer for three major things!
1. Our work permit status. Pastor Salito has just left for Nairobi to see if he can straighten things out for us on his own so we can remain with the boys and their tutoring. We have explained to all the officials that we desire to honor the government and be completely legal in all that we do, but unfortunately have been continually misdirected as to how to get the correct status. Please pray that Pastor would find favor in Nairobi, for us to receive a righteous standing with the Kenyan government, and for the members of our house not to be ill affected.

2. The boys’ school and healing. This week the boys are finishing “re-entrance” tutoring; please pray that they will be enrolled in a school next week that is beneficial for them. Please continue to pray for their spiritual and emotional healing as well as we often feel that other things compete for the one-on-one attention and healing that they are all in such desperate need of. Their wounds are deep and addictions still high.

3. Farah Hussein. Our new addition to the family! Bringing him “home” that day from jail will always remind us of our Great Shepherd that leaves the 99 to get the one and brings him home around his shoulders. Pray for this special boys’ healing (from prison and many tragic events in his life) and transition into our house and family – that he would find his role and a new identity in Christ.


When we think about how we’ve felt these last few weeks and what we’re learning about endurance, we remember: “Love never gives up.” (1 Cor. 13:4 MSG) And because Jesus is love, this tells us that He never gives up…and because He never gives up on people, on circumstances, neither should we. Please consider this blog a personal and official apology for our lack of communication once again! We love you all and could not do without your partnership and prayers! Blessings to you all and may you be filled with the endurance of Christ Jesus, the endurance of love, today.

“Love never gives up…LOVE puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best. LOVE never looks back, but keeps going to the end…” (1 Cor. 13:4, 7-8 MSG)

Valerie