"Where is Him?" "Who's Him?" "Him, what's his name?" "Him! We want to kick Him!"

Okay today was as awesome as the rest, yet challenging in a new way. Over the past few days we've been experiencing Mission and Public hospitals, uniquely motivating and eye-opening respectively. Today we visited the private sector. Strangely, The Nairobi Hospital looked like a US hospital from the facilities. What a bummer I thought, there is nothing I can provide the people being seen there. However, it really was more about me than I thought. The faces were different. Everyone was smiling, happy to be in a hospital, happy to be served, happy to have the job they were very thankful for, and just really happy.

Lets analyze what we've just seen, because that is what I do. These are 200 beds of adequate facilities for serving 3.5 million Nairobi Kenyans, the numbers don't add up if you are wondering, many can't go here, so what determines that? Money. This hospital was made for privileged people like me, those carrying a special card in their pocket.

Hospital number two for the day was the Gertrude children's hospital. Hard to describe it, but it was nicer. Seems like this lovable population melts peoples hearts and donor's wallets, still there are restrictions, the location makes this virtually unreachable by poor people as it is in the heart of the embassies and state houses of foreigners. Once again this was serving the people like me that live in Kenya. Somewhere I missed the point, I was almost angry that the facilities were nice, something that each person deserves. Yet, I should have been more concerned with the disparity from my situation to the rest of the world.

We went to a third hospital, a Coptic (Egyptian orthodox) missions hospital, and it was nice, yet obviously a step below the others. After these three impactful experiences, I have some serious thought that needs to be put into the understanding them, and I'm sure God will speak through what we have seen, he hasn't failed yet.

Now, lets look back to the lessons on missions yesterday that I obtained from talking to Dorothy, a German missionary, serving the hard to reach Muslim Somalis in Kijabe. She and her husband have a really cool story, just believe me on this one.

Lesson 1: When God calls you to missions, and you want to know if it is right, ask the question: Do you have any reason not to go? This came from her mentor 30 years ago. What a great truth.

Lesson 2: Find a burden. Dorothy's husband was looking through a book and saw that Somalis were 100% unchurched and hard to reach, and that was enough. You can see from what you have heard about large parts of Kenya and the developing world, or urban US cities, or far eastern KY, that the need is there. What burdens you? Do something about it with sharing Christ's love in mind, that is a mission.

Lesson 3(for overseas missions): Learn the culture and work with people at home before you choose to go long term abroad. You know nothing at first. You cannot assimilate to the community until you have learned their language and ways of doing things. The awesome thing is that there are Bantu Somalis in Louisville, getting involved with them is really easy. For other groups that burden you and have refugees in the US, you can easily move to where they are. This is a great means to get your feet on the ground and start out running.

Lesson 4 (nearest and dearest to my heart): You must first have a set of believers that you call your home church to support you in your mission efforts. God speaks through these people in marvelous ways. They can hold you accountable, and they can prayerfully support you. I am so blessed that this has always been evident in my life, a supportive family that we call Mt. Olivet, but now even more as I take this journey. You guys have shown the perfect model of sharing faith by action, and not being afraid of God-sized projects when they come your way. I love you guys.

So as you can see, we are being challenged. Pray for us, pray that the directions we take are driven by God, and not our own selfish motives. I wish I could type for hours.

Lastly, we want to send a special shout out to our Polish Mi2 counterparts. Be sure to check out their www.mi2poland09.blogspot.com one as well. Erich and Dane are doing some amazing things and we want to share our encouragement of them with you all.

-Dan, the guy the Kenyan kids in our apartment complex like to kick, pinch, and play soccer basketball with.

Ps: I like comments, and bragging that I got feedback.
Pss: It is Benry's birthday tomorrow, or in like 2 hours here.