Msafara and My Week

Wow, its been a busy week and I know…It's not over yet. I started my volunteer job on Monday. Dad and I go in between 8:30 and 9:00 each day and it is a 30-45 minute drive there. The National Alliance of Churches Spiritual Arm Secretariat has its offices at Nairobi Baptist Church on Ngong Road. The Former Secretary General , Mutava Musymi, (a current Member of Parliament) is also the former pastor of Nairobi Baptist and one Pastor Oscar's mentors. Pastor Oscar is the head pastor at Nairobi Chapel (our current church) and the point man for the Secretariat.

The Secretariat has six offices – Spiritual Guidance (under Pastor Simon), Logistics (Under Pastor Owino Odera), Humanitarian Assistance to IDPs, Community Networking, Msafara: Wheels of Hope(Under Pastor M), Media (under Pastor Gowi Odera), and The Secretariat office itself (under Pastor Oscar). I am working under Media and Dad is working directly with Pastor Oscar.

There are so many things going on that it would take a lot of space to explain them all! So I won't. However, I will tell you a bit about what is going on. To start with, let me use the so nicely crafted message of Msafara Media Department. This message is the basis of everything we do and was the first job Bev (a woman I'm working with) and I got assigned to. What a start. As my Dad says: The volunteers are doing things they have never done before and probably don't know how to do, but they will get them done and then they will know what they are doing for another time!

Msafara Message:

Msafara Wheels of Hope is a church initiative that will act as a catalyst to lead the country into spiritual cleansing and bringing hope to Kenyans. A secretariat of eight pastors are coordinating logistics, mobilizing resources and team building to travel to Mombasa, Nairobi, Nakuru, Eldoret, and Kisumu. These five (5) major urban areas were where election violence initially erupted [after being targeted by spiritual forces of darkness]. With a focus on restoration, reconciliation and prayer, Msafara hopes to enable five hundred (500) pastors in each area to lead their people in healing. In each area Msafara will conduct pastors' workshops in reconciliation while others will distribute humanitarian aid and provide counsel to traumatized internally displaced people. Finally, there will be a cleansing, healing, prayer and jubilee service for each area. Msafara will be actively involved in spreading redemptive stories of hope through the media. It will also help resettle displaced people. In the same spirit of Ezra and Nehemiah, Msafara calls Kenyans to unite in the spirit of hope for the future.

 

That in a nutshell is Msafara!

My jobs right now include things like writing a packet which will be given out to pastors in each of the five urban areas. This packet will help them inform their church of what will be happening and ways to get involved. We need major involvement! Msafara will travel with 100-200 pastors and 200 volunteers. In each urban area we hope that 300 pastors join Msafara for two days as well as 200 more volunteers. Right now the Secretariat needs 200-300 volunteers to get everything done that it needs to do. In each urban area we hope that at least 30,000 people will attend the prayer service. Of course a venture like this needs money. The Secretariat needs immediate funding for things like stationary, computers, internet access, phone connections, printers, advertising, transportation etc etc. The Secretariat also needs funding for Msafara itself – 300-400 people will travel across the country in 10 days. We need buses, cars, trucks, whatever to travel in as well as places to stay and food to eat. Msafara is also planning major Humanitarian aid, including food and personal supply packs. This is a major initiative which will show that the church in Kenya is not sitting still watching the country be devoured by the enemy instead it will flaunt in Satan's face that the church believes God is in control. It is a major initiative to take back Kenya from the enemy and stake out God's territory. Its something that has never happened before in Kenya and it is being led by exceptional leaders who believe in a mighty and all-powerful God.

I'm excited to be involved and I hope that I get to write about this for many people to hear about. Right now I'm trying to contact Christianity Today to see if they are interested in an article. They published an article on Pastor Oscar about a year ago so the Media team and I are hoping they will be interested!

 

That's all for now but check out these sites:

www.msafara.co.ke – The official Msafara website, which should be up, and running by Saturday

www.everythingisinbalance.com/kenya - Pictures of Kibera and Nairobi at the beginning stages of the crisis. Taken by Bob Miller, who I got to know while he was here in Nairobi

http://www.pbase.com/sdimitriou/the_crisis_in_kenya - a photojournalist blog of the crisis. Some amazing pictures. Be sure to go through all the pages to see the most recent pictures

http://negst2008.blogspot.com/ - blog for the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology. It has two recent posts from Pastor Oscar explaining the reason behind Msafara and lots more information about what it's all about.

www.nairobichapel.org – The church's website and lots of information about it, its history, theology and ministry.