African hospitality and warmth is iconic. Yesterday I sat on a sofa, sipping Coca-cola, in the home of one of our Kenya YFC staffers and his wife of only eight days. These precious newlyweds are living the incarnational gospel in ways that I could only have imagined before. Now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They live in the middle of the world’s largest slum, Kibera.
It is calculated that almost two million people survive in this melee of lives clumped together in the desperate search for work, food and dignity. YFC’s Youth Centre (built by a team from Colorado), is an oasis where children and teenagers are taught the love of Jesus as they learn to read, as they eat healthy snacks and as they receive the unconditional love for which YFC staffers are so famous.
I wanted to stay there, with them, relishing the fact that THIS is where Jesus would live, serve, and minister. I wanted to be a part of this strategic ministry plan, lived out in the flesh, embodied by called, committed and caring servants of the Lord. But, I had to tear myself away to go to the next ministry site, and then back to the Nairobi Catholic Retreat Centre where the YFCI Board is gathering to pray and deliberate about how best to scale and celebrate what the Lord has called us to do globally.
- Pray for the Kenya YFC Staff – that the Lord would be their Jehovah Jireh, that He would infuse them with His Holy Spirit power, that the salt and light of lives transformed by Jesus would flavour the tasteless and shine in the darkness.
- Pray also for our YFCI Board as we work to bless the nations and plan for the next four years of excellence and effectiveness in youth evangelism. We long for God to take great delight in our meetings and to receive great glory from the outcomes.
Praise be to the Lord for this African context in which to best set the stage for this next season of global youth impact.
African hospitality and warmth is iconic.