Late-breaking news: October in Africa

The Nazarene International Board of Education and World Missions surprised us yesterday with the offer of a trip to several education-related events in Africa October 12-23. Needless to say, we are excited about the opportunity. The planned itinerary is:

• October 12-13: Kansas City to Amsterdam
• October 14: Amsterdam to Nairobi
• October 15: ANU Helstrom Student Center Dedication, Ordination Service, ANU Board Meeting
  
• October 16: Further ANU Board Meetings
  
• October 17: Nairobi to Johannesburg
• October 18: Regional Office Meetings
• October 19: Johannesburg to Manzini, Swaziland (Nazarene Fitkin hospital to right)
• October 20-21: Worship and Signing of New Cooperative Agreement
  
• October 22: Manzini, Swaziland to Johannesburg, South Africa
• October 23: Johannesburg, South Africa to Indianapolis (for Mark to be with his folks) and to LAX (for Nan to attend a family reunion).

We're very pleased by the opportunity to go and meet many of the people we'll be working with. We'd ask you to pray--not because we're worried, but because it's important--that we begin or continue to establish relationships with Jerry Lambert (current IBOE director), Leah Marangu (ANU Vice-Chancellor), Filimao Chambo (regional director), and the other educators at the nursing, religion and teacher schools in Swaziland. Thank you in advance! We feel and appreciate your prayers.

Things We Like in Kansas City Area

OK, Kansas City disrespecters--prepare for a sermonette!! Sure, if you just drive from the airport to World Headquarters you're not getting the BEST picture of Kansas City. That said, there's lots to like. Here's a list:

• BBQ. Best pulled pork sandwich and fries in the world are at Oklahoma Joe's barbecue in half of a converted Sinclair Oil station at 3200 West 47th street. (If you need trendy, attractive surroundings, your commitment to great barbecue is already subject to question.) We love the barbecue at Eagle Rib Shack and Goodwood's in Boise area, and we love the barbecue and especially the beans at Jackstacks in the Kansas City area, but you have not lived until you've had a super-moist and smoky pulled pork sandwich and a bag of crispy on the outside and moist and tender on the inside french fries. We also like Gates and a couple of others, but this is the best for pork barbecue. Amazingly good.
  
• The drive from Shawnee to NTS on 63rd via Mission Hills and Brookside. With much respect: this drive puts Warm Springs in Boise and Queen Anne in Seattle to shame. There are perhaps five square miles of beautiful, 1920-1940's era houses that look like a movie set: manicured lawns, mature trees creating a leafy tunnel for each street, interesting shops. It has been aesthetically healing to drive by these houses on the way to school. It's hard to imagine, but they will probably be even more attractive as the leaves begin to turn and Christmas decorations go up. Highly recommended.
• Craftsman-style houses. Perhaps it has a TINY bit to do with being "homeless", but we're finding ourselves drawn to the many craftsman-style homes in the area. They're much smaller than the houses above- they are a reaction to the perceived fanciness of the Victorian houses that preceded them. They are characterized by 1 or 1 1/2 story homes with a straight or bowed gable in the front, a porch, a fireplace, often built-in book cases. The homes we're looking at (many on The Paseo as you walk away from the NTS campus) are often poorly maintained and sad-looking, but you can still see the character underneath (it's a metaphor).
• The Jazz District. Remember the song "I'm going to Kansas City, Twelfth Street and Vine..."? Well the Jazz District hasn't preserved the WHOLE original section, but six blocks away, at 18th and Vine is a street that preserves the flavor of the original area. It has not only the Peach Tree restaurant, which serves the classiest "soul food" we've ever had, but the Blue Room, which features KC's best jazz (Ellis Marsalis was there last week); the American Jazz Museum and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum--all worth a visit.

Soooo--just a suggestion: if you feel yourself being dragged to Kansas City for a denominational meeting, consider an afternoon away from The Paseo or Troost exploring some of the interesting things to do in Kansas City. We're aware of the Plaza, the Royals (bless their hearts) and the Chiefs, but if YOU have suggestions for other things we should check out or want to arm wrestle about the best BBQ we'd love to hear from you.

Thanks to Summit View and Tonganoxie Churches

Our thanks to Pastor Dan and Teresa Eller and NMI President Trula Smith at the Tonganoxie Church of the Nazarene and to Pastor Dale and Kathy Jones and NMI President Gail Philip at the Summit View Church of the Nazarene for being our hosts the last two weeks. We continue to enjoy meeting and hearing the stories of Nazarene pastors and laypeople, and experiencing the WIDE variety of people, worship styles and missions of Nazarene churches.

Pastor Dan and Teresa of the Tonganoxie Church have an amazing story of God's patience and redemption in their lives. In his weekday job, Pastor Dale of the Summit View Church is the Director of the Office of Research for the Church of the Nazarene. It was fascinating to hear him talk about some of the information that is available, and some of the studies his office is doing to provide monitoring and decision-making information to the global church.

Thanks again to both of these churches, NMI Presidents and pastoral couples for their kindness and hospitality to us in the last two weeks. We appreciate your commitment to missions.

Personal Stuff

We're trying to keep this blog focused on the ministry and on Africa, but lots of you (bless your hearts) are asking how we're doing, progress on sale of the house, etc. What follows is a brief update on some of those things:

• Our moods are very good. We've gone from being people with huge "to do" lists and lots of responsibilities to being students who do presentations on weekends. We have lots of time to work on assignments, do our devotions and generally "regroup." It's really been a wonderful experience so far.


• It looks like we are near agreement on the sale of our house. We're in a very tough market, as you all know, and buyers can pretty well dictate their own terms. Even so, Arlen Gingrich has been not just a realtor but a wonderful friend and brother in Christ, it looks like we will break even on the sale, and we would be looking at other, much less attractive options if Eric Forseth had not pointed a buyer in our direction. Thanks to both of these good men for their help! There are still two couples in the cadre who have not yet had offers on their houses, so we'd appreciate your continued prayer for our situation, but also for the Burnells and the Porters.



• As everyone told us, the Ketchums have been great. We have had 3-4 meals with them, gone to an outdoor performance of the Kansas City Symphony together and are enjoying our time with them. Our 1-bedroom apartment has become our comfortable and peaceful home. The picture to the right is of Carol Ketchum (who has an amazing work ethic and a wonderful sense of humor) at the Kansas City Symphony concert. If you'd like to look at some pictures Nan took of the apartment, you can check out this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/nanpitts/KansasCityChapter



• Nancy says her thinking is being stretched in the interaction with the good minds in the classes and it's lots of fun to be a fulltime students. Mark wants you to know that he's using some of the extra time to (finally) get some exercise. He's bought a pedometer and is on a "10,000 steps a day" plan, that he's been sticking to faithfully for the last two weeks. For the math-minded, 10,000 steps with a 32 inch stride works out to about 5 miles a day or 35 miles a week--lots of good exercise!



• We're enjoying the (mainly younger) missionary couples with whom we're doing the training: Steve and Dana Porter have been at Fairview Village Church in Pennsylvania and are going to Angola. Spencer and April Baggott have been pastoring in Florida and will also be in Angola. Gavin and Jill Fothergill have been in Kansas City (Jill working for World Mission office) and will be part of the Nazarene cross-cultural work in El Paso Texas. Scott and Cindy Meadors were part of the two-week intensive and have already left for Romania. Judy Burnell (who has been associate pastoring in Maryland) and her husband Barry will be in the Eurasia office in Switzerland. Tim and Danielle Whetstone have been Nazarene volunteers in Italy and working with Compassionate Mission in Louisiana and have not yet been assigned. Very good folk. There are also several sweet young children who will be going with their parents on this trip. They range in age from Lucas Baggott who is 5 to Macy Fothergill who was just born on Thursday. When you pray, I'm sure these families would appreciate your prayers.
• Our instructor for the two-week intensive has been David Wesley, who with his wife Glynda were Nazarene missionaries in South America for 17 years. David served as translator and regional director for Bruno Rotti. He is now a faculty member at NTS and Glynda is the training coordinator and "mom" for the missionary interns. We are very impressed with both of them: their love for the Lord, their passion for missions and their care for us as the "newbies."

Thank You Wichita Eastridge and Emporia!

We had a great time with the folks at Wichita Eastridge and Emporia on Sunday. Pastor Will Haworth and his wife Diana took us out to dinner on Saturday evening and were great hosts on Sunday morning. They spent three years as missionaries in Montevideo Uruguay and remember former South America Regional Director Bruno Radi as a young, up and coming pastor. The Eastridge church has a wonderful ethnic and cultural mix that would do many more urban churches proud. (The picture on the right shows Pastor Will getting a toy missionary plane to fly for some of the children in the church.)

Gloria and Daniel, a Nazarene pastoral couple originally from Columbia, are ministering to the Spanish-speaking community, and the church is also reaching the African-American and Asian populations. Even more impressive, it was clear that the older members of the church are literally and figuratively embracing the newer members. Wichita Eastridge makes it clear that they have a local as well as global commitment to missions. Thanks to Pastor Gloria for her warmth and morning solo in Spanish, to Cheryl for help with our media and to Pastor Will and Diana for their hospitality!

We were also impressed with the work going on at the Emporia, Kansas church under the leadership of Pastor Mark Hensen. Dr. Sheryl Lidzy, a professor of communications at Emporia State University, is the newly-appointed NMI President for the Emporia church and clearly has a vision for the work of the NMI at Emporia. Dennis and Sonia Irwin, the primary leaders for the new Celebrate Recovery ministry at the church, spent some time talking with Nancy about her experience with the ministry at Nampa First. After the service, we had a good meal and time of fellowship in the church activity center. Thanks to Pastor Hensen for his help with the media and for his prayer after the service, and thanks to Sheryl and Rusty Lidzy for their hospitality.

We continue to be blessed by the fact that at each church we visit people are attempting to hear the Lord's voice and to establish or strengthen ministries that will meet needs in the community and bring people to the Lord. Thanks to everyone at Wichita Eastridge and Emporia for your time with us this weekend, and for your faithfulness to the Kingdom!

Introductions #2

In this entry, we'd like to introduce the Vice-Chancellor (President) of Africa Nazarene University and a recent graduate. Both Nazarenes, both passionate in their relationship to the Lord, and both working for the Kingdom.

Professor Leah Marangu grew up in a poor, hard-working family on the slopes of Mt. Kenya. Her father, a Methodist minister with a 3rd grade education, was the best-educated person in the village and wanted his daughter to go to school. Over her mother's objections, Professor Marangu worked as a housekeeper to pay her way through elementary and secondary school in the Meru District. Later, she followed her husband John to Olivet Nazarene University where she earned her bachelors degree, followed by a masters degree and Ph.D. from Iowa State University.

She is the first woman in Kenya to become the head of a university and is well-respected and well-known all over the country. In 1969, she was the recipient of The International Award from Iowa State University for outstanding leadership qualities, character and personality. In 1983, Kenyan President Moi appointed her the chairperson of the Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. She helped develop and prepare school syllabus and textbooks suitable for Kenya’s education system. In 1987 the president honoured her with the Silver Star of Kenya for her contribution to the development of education. In 1989 she received the Maggie Sloan Crawford Award from her Alma Mater, Olivet Nazarene University. It was given to women whose lives and accomplishments mark them as outstanding role models.

An appreciative article in the East Africa Standard newspaper quotes Professor Marangu pointing to the central influence in her life: "I accepted Christ as my Lord and Saviour at the age of 13 years ...Whenever things took a turn for the worse I would cry to God and ask Him to help me, and He was and continues to be faithful." For the Church of the Nazarene to have one of the very few doctorally prepared Ph.D's in all of Africa as the head of its denominational university is evidence of God's blessing on the church and on ANU. More on Professor Marangu later.

Phillip Friday. OK, please take this test: Pastor Friday is the youth pastor and interim senior pastor of the Nazarene Church in: a) Kikuru, Kenya; b) Los Angeles, CA Eastbrooke Church; c) Labourna, Uganda d) Lamoure, North Dakota--read on for the answer. Phillip Friday is the son of Rev. Ganda Friday, a Nazarene pastor, district superintendent in Kenya and now global missionary in Sudan. At the age of 10, Phillip was invited to a Nazarene service in the Lake Victoria District to honor and exhibit the calling of God on the lives of children. Some children who felt a call to Christian music sang or played instruments. Some who felt a call to Christian art displayed their work. Phillip was given an opportunity to demonstrate his call to preaching by delivering a sermon on the 23rd Psalm before the audience of 400 people. He says it was an event which shaped the direction of his life til now.

Later, as a student at Africa Nazarene University, he got a chance to develop his preaching and pastoral skills as the assistant to then ANU chaplain, Michael VanZant. While Phillip was at ANU, his parents were doing missionary deputation work in the United States. As they spoke in churches, they showed pictures of and told about their children, including Phillip who was studying for the ministry and about to graduate as a religion major at ANU.

The following year, the Church of the Nazarene in Lamoure, North Dakota remembered about Phillip as they looked for a youth pastor. At the same time, Phillip was trying to figure out how to get to Nazarene Theological Seminary to complete a masters degree. When the Lamoure church called Phillip with an offer of the youth pastor, he saw an opportunity to serve the church AND to begin his graduate education. He accepted the position and made the trip to North Dakota. The people have always been warm, Phillip reported, but the weather was not. The first winter, the low temperature was 45 degrees BELOW zero! Nevertheless, Phillip has persevered and the youth group has grown. Today, the group regularly has more than 25 teens at activities, and since the senior pastor took another position, Phillip has been filling in.

We had lunch with Phillip in the Headquarters cafeteria last week, and were so impressed with Phillip's warmth, his intelligence, and his deep commitment to God. We are so lucky to have people like him as members and pastors. Oh, by the way, you can help us pray for one of Phillip's challenges: as much as he (genuinely) enjoys his work in North Dakota, he feels a calling to return to Africa to do pastoral and leadership training. Before he can do that, he needs to pay off his NTS debt. We know the Lord has a way to take care of this need, but we'd invite you to join us in praying for financial assistance as he completes his studies at NTS.