Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are!
Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are!
I love, love, love you . . .
Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are!


About 30 young grade schoolers sang the words with gusto and hand motions as we stood in their crowded, hot classroom and took it in.

I had never expected that such a place would offer me such a moment of profound worship.

I had been forewarned that visiting Nairobi slums would be difficult and emotional. But no one had predicted I’d be so struck with what our Lord is doing in one of the world’s unlikeliest of places.

Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are to inspire dozens of educated, competent leaders to work in a place like this.

Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are to fill hearts with enough love to share with whole communities trapped in squalor and oppression.

Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are to inspire creative entrepreneurship that not only helps these people, but empowers them to help themselves.

Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are that you can redeem life on earth as well as save souls for eternity—and use the church to do both.

The church has made possible Hope Partnership, Christian Missionary Fellowship’s enterprise in the Nairobi slums of the Mathare Valley. The work serves Jesus with a three-pronged approach, each of which needs at least a 1,200-word essay to fully explain. But maybe my little summary will help you worship too.

Schools educate orphans and other children of families in desperate situations.

Community Health Evangelism (CHE) trains volunteers to offer a future to those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and recruit neighbors to address all kinds of basic health and sanitation issues.

Business Development Services provides small loans and skills training to those who will improve their situation by creating a business that can give them an income. (Read more about CMF’s microloan program here.)

As a result, children are being educated; in 10 years the school program has grown from 50 preschoolers in one rented two-bedroom home to an enrollment of 3,750 in 10 schools.

Meanwhile, 350 CHE volunteers have improved health and offered hope in ways too numerous to mention. Six support groups for those testing HIV-positive meet regularly.

And 457 clients are operating their own businesses in the slum, financed by microenterprise loans that now total about $100,000.

This holistic approach is demonstrating the love of Christ, not just talking about it. But preaching and teaching the gospel is also central to the strategy.

School children learn Bible stories and memorize Bible verses.

Adults seek a relationship with God when they are helped by relationships with his servants.

“Sharing Christ is the bottom line,” said Paul, a Business Development Services director.

And today there are five new churches in this slum, where there were none before the work began. And four of them started in the last two years alone!

Oh, Jesus, what a wonder you are!

(This is the second post from my dad during a “vision trip” to Nairobi with Christian Missionary Fellowship. Scroll down a bit to read part one.)

Filed under: family, giving & giving back, people, resources, RM Tagged: CHE, Christian Missionary Fellowship, cmf, Community Health Evangelism, Hope Partnership, Mark Taylor, microloan

On Tuesday of this week, my dad flew to Nairobi as part of a team invited by Christian Missionary Fellowship. I’ve heard from others who’ve participated in these trips how emotionally and spiritually exhausting (and fulfilling) they can be, and suggested that dad process the experience by writing his thoughts—and letting me post them on my blog. Here’s the first one.

“It is a hard trip,” Roy Lawson wrote me after spending a week in Kenya.

And, although I love to travel, my acquaintance with work sponsored by Christian Missionary Fellowship in the slums of Nairobi inspired some trepidation as I anticipated this trip.

I’m one of six in Kenya through March 17 led by Doug Priest, CMF’s executive director. He calls it a vision trip and told me how interest in Nairobi’s urban poor has multiplied in U.S. Christian churches and churches of Christ since he began bringing ministers here.


I realize now why the firsthand visit is so valuable. Even though Christian Standard has published more than one article from visitors to this work, words tell only part of the story. I couldn’t begin to grasp the desperate need faced here everyday until I encountered it myself.

CMF prepped us with facts about the slum where they work. It is packed into 1.5 square miles along the Mathare River Valley in the country’s capital city, Nairobi; 800,000 people live there. Their average income is $1.00 per day, and 40% suffer with HIV/AIDS.

And this is only one slum in this city. Keith Ham, serving with CMF here, told us 70% of Nairobi’s 5 million people live in slums like the one we visited today.

“This is the nicest slum home I’ve ever seen,” Doug Priest said of the tin-walled shanty where we sat for a few minutes this morning.

Maybe 12 x 14 feet, it is entered through a low door off a 14-inch alley bordered by similar huts jammed together as far as we could see. Jane, a single mother, lives here with her mother and two children.

A naked electric light bulb hangs from the ceiling. Sometimes power comes to it; sometimes not. A square-foot fiberglass panel on one side of the corrugated metal roof allows daylight to penetrate the dark hole. At nighttime, a government-provided light tower rising several stories above the slum banishes darkness, reduces crime, and sends a welcome shaft into this closet-home where Jane lives.

We sat on throws covering benches and some cast-off chairs. The walls were covered with an assortment of paper and cloth. A panel of see-through curtains, something like might have hung at my grandmother’s window, dangled behind Jane as she spoke to us.

“Welcome to our home,” she said. And the CMF-employed social worker who led our tour through the slum helped Jane explain her business. She cooks a stew and sells it on the street to earn her income.

I listened to her story and smiled at her and tickled the belly of her babbling toddler whose runny nose Jane wiped on the child’s shirt. And I sighed with relief as we finally stood to leave and escape back into the noontime sunshine that penetrated the narrow aisle between Jane’s shanty and those beside it.

This is our privilege, we wealthy visitors whose vision is broadened while our eyesight is blurred by the tears that flow when we try to grasp what we have seen and smelled in the slums.

I sit in the comfortable surroundings of Gracia Gardens, the guest house where we’re staying, and reflect on my opportunity to come and see—and walk out of—the oppressive poverty of these people.

Surely we who are blessed with the means to walk away cannot ignore what we have experienced, as if we could ever forget it.

And there is hope. Christ’s love IS making a difference here. I will try to describe how in my next post.

Filed under: family, giving & giving back, people, resources, RM Tagged: Christian Missionary Fellowship, cmf, Doug Priest, Keith Ham, Kenya, Mark Taylor, Nairobi

The Upper Hand: Awarded for juggling three bags of groceries, a large purse, a cell phone and mail while successfully unlocking the front door without dropping anything. Bonus points if the grocery bag contains eggs or you are also holding a baby.

The Slim Chance: Awarded to any woman who can wear a size eight after age 40.

The This Too Shall Pass: For handing the communion tray to the person sitting next to you without bitterness that you’re not allowed to stand at the end of the row and receive it.

The Sick and Tired: For keeping one’s mouth shut when, after you’ve spent years of your life pregnant and endured the subsequent excruciating deliveries, your husband a) whimpers like a toddler from a splinter; b) takes to his bed for three days during his annual cold and demands 24 hour bedside service; c) refuses to consider a vasectomy because of his fear of medical procedures.

The Don’t Cramp My Style: For attending two business meetings, accomplishing four things off the to-do list, swinging by the grocery store, and attending a ballet recital/T-ball game/soccer practice while wearing heels instead of curling up under the covers with cramps like you want to.

The Clothes Call: One badge awarded for each shopping trip with a daughter age 8-18 in which you successfully prevent purchases of halter tops, low-rise pants, short-shorts, and anything designed to show one’s navel. Award is not invalidated by daughter’s tears or public outbursts proclaiming her hatred of you.

The Grace Note: For smiling and nodding when, after the meeting you helped lead, one of the male participants asks you to Xerox his notes.

The Big Event: Automatically awarded upon completion of your 20^th ladies banquet, tea or retreat involving hats, finger sandwiches, scrapbooking, and/or “spa” manicures.

The Shear Magic: For blowdrying your hair into a style remotely resembling anything you left the salon with after your last cut.

The Wonder Woman: For somehow summoning the superhuman strength not to say, “No, PMS isn’t the problem. You’re just especially annoying today.”

Filed under: fun, life, men and women Tagged: chauvinism, marriage, motherhood, women

Originally posted in 2007, this may still be my favorite video on this blog. Well, this or John Daker.

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Just in time for Monday morning, here’s a video to help you start a new and exciting ministry at your church.

You’re welcome.

Filed under: fun Tagged: clown, clown ministry, john daker

I’m a firm believer that it’s unfair to criticize something if you’re not willing to be part of the solution.

For instance, last Sunday the person clicking through the song lyrics and scriptures during the morning service at my church was either high, unable to read, a high schooler, or all three. Sometimes the words never appeared. Sometimes they appeared late. Sometimes we were treated to the chorus during the verses. Eventually I just sang with my eyes closed, which had the double advantage of keeping me sane AND making me seem super spiritual.

To be fair, this rarely happens, and I found out later it’s because the team recently switched systems and is still working out the bugs. But that’s my point—I found that out because I made a beeline to one of our staff people after the service and offered to help.

So, a few weeks ago I wrote a post questioning the NACC’s current mission and calling for “an overhaul of messaging methods and branding.” I can’t fix the mission part, but I already spend hours creating blogs, email updates and social media for other organizations. When Ben Cachiaras, this year’s president, asked me to do the same thing for the NACC I was more than willing.

The 2010 convention has a really strong program, but not enough people know about it. A few months of me sending emails won’t reach everyone or convince everyone, but it’s a good start at spreading the word and, yes, being constructive instead of just constructively critical. (Full disclosure: I am being paid a little bit.)

So over the next week I’ll be developing a weekly eblast that will not only promote the convention but will link to resources: articles, blogs, and videos by the 2010 main speakers and workshop presenters. We’ll also be sharing some of this info via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. I may organize a blog tour in April.

I’m willing to help, but we need you, too. Join our Facebook page and invite your friends. Follow us on Twitter and retweet our stuff. Subscribe to the YouTube page and pass along a video you find interesting. Leave your blog URL in the comments if you’d be willing to write something about the convention on your blog this spring (I’ll even send you sample copy!). And email me (jen@seejenwrite.com) if you want to be added to the weekly email list.

The NACC still needs to address some bigger issues, in my opinion, but I’m willing to help this much, this year. Are you?

Filed under: opinions, resources, RM Tagged: Ben Cachiaras, nacc, North American Christian Convention