Advent in Africa

Wednesday mornings are precious to our team as we pray and share life. Recently, we were talking about how challenging it is to quiet our spirits and allow Christmas to permeate our busy worlds.

We’re pretty sure that all of you are just as busy as the four of us and you might be finding this internal preparation for celebration difficult as well.

Mulling this over as I drove home from the shops, the answer came in the words of one of my favorite hymns—an advent hymn, no less.

“Come, though long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free!
From our sins and fears release us, let us find our rest in thee.”

It’s an invitation, isn’t it? And an expectation.

Jesus, come. We long for you. We expect you. We rest in you.

As we move toward Christmas, we wish you blessings of His close company as you celebrate this season.

Dry Fruit Goodness

A couple of posts ago we mentioned Wild Hope's new income-generating project for women.

Safari Snacks is the new initiative that employs 2 local women in need. The ladies are busy drying fresh local fruit (mango, banana and pineapple) and selling it in our neighborhood grocery store. It’s a very popular product with tourists and locals alike and, at this point, we can't always keep up with the demand. We are being approached to expand and grow this project into a larger industry.

We would love for you to be praying for this project. We need wisdom as to HOW and WHEN to expand so as to benefit more women through training and employment. We need wisdom regarding our role-- when we stay with something and when we let it become its own thing alongside of Wild Hope. We want to see the project include some level of spiritual nourishment as the number of involved women grows. We already know that these 2 lovely ladies share their hearts and lives and encouragement with each other as they work and laugh and pray together.

We are so pleased to be a practical help to women in need. Thanks for your prayers.

Ibrahim Speaks Up

Liz Roddy (bottom right of photo), shared with us one of the highlights of her time here with the Christian Assembly team that helped us launch our on-going English classes with the young men in our football/soccer club.

Above, she and some of the others on the team are seen with the trainers they trained to carry the classes on. Below, you'll find her highlight story. Enjoy!

"We started the English club on a Monday and some of the students were very timid and afraid to speak up in front of the class. A lot of them had not had much opportunity to practice their speaking, so I think they were a little intimidated. One of the boys, Ibrahim, was particularly shy. He had a hard time understanding, and whenever we would ask him a question, we could barely hear his response...everything came out as a whisper.

Then on Thursday, our second to last day of class, we were teaching about "CAN and CAN'T." The boys had to do an activity where they walked around the clubhouse and asked each other what they can and can't do. They were to write their classmates answers down, so they could share with the class. Then, as we went around asking each person to share, we slowly made our way around to Ibrahim.

We were expecting another quiet response, when all of a sudden, Ibrahim, shouted in a loud, clear voice,

"I talked to David, and he can play football, but he can't swim."

We were shocked! And so was everyone else. All the other boys began applauding for him; they knew this was a big moment for Ibrahim. We gave him a prize for a job well done.

When Ibrahim spoke up, my heart was overjoyed. I could feel God in that moment, I knew English club was making a difference and that it would mean a long term change for these kids. I was so excited because of how much Ibrahim and the other boys had improved over just 4 days. Think of what we could have done in a month!"

Great Teachers/Eager Learners

Our first 10 week session of English Club is under way in the tiny little club house of our Nyota Football Club!

The wonderful team from Christian Assembly (who were with us at the end of August) poured their hearts into a full week of classes that included the training of trainers to take the English lessons on.

Wow! You've never seen such eager learners :-) Those Nyota guys hardly let us pause after the team left before they were insisting that they were ready to get the 10 weeks of follow-on classes under way.

We really could not have gotten this lasting effort off the ground without the preparation, training and materials that our friends from Christian Assembly brought with them. Thank you, CA!!



Team member, Christine Kim, reflected on the photo above, which she took when she arrived to teach one morning.

"When I arrived on the second day of English Club, I saw our students sitting on the grass reviewing and studying their books. It was such a blessing to see their eagerness to learn and acquire English. I remember sharing with the team that in all my years of teaching, I have never seen kids treasure education and the opportunity to learn so much. It gave me excitement each day to teach."

The team filled our 40 students with encouragement and the excitement to learn. Their impact carries on as these young men, aged from about 8-18, continue to come in with a hunger to improve their language skills.

Visiting Team

We have a wonderful team from Christian Assembly in LA visiting with us right now. They are here to work hard during their 2 week stay and we're excited about the ESL type training they'll be doing so that English Club can carry on even when we don't have volunteers around.

If you're interested in what types of adventures they're up to while here, check out their
BLOG

We're thankful for their great hearts and willing hands :-)

Endless Thanks

Recent news said that 22,000 state employees in California are to be laid off. Another 200,000 are to have their salaries reduced. Pretty sobering news and we know it reflects the challenging times so many of our friends all over the globe are facing.

In these days of financial uncertainty, we want you to know how much we appreciate the gifts of support that keep Wild Hope in operation. We don't take it for granted that people partner with us in these efforts here and we count each and every gift as a blessing.

Our 2 families, the Russells and the Bordens, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

75 Maasai women and their families thank you for the opportunity they have to participate in a fair trade project that provides so much for them.

The ladies of our new venture, the dry fruit project, thank you. Eva's husband left her with 2 kids and nothing besides. She was holding down a full time job to pay for rent and groceries and everything else--but it only paid $25 a month. It's no wonder she sings hymns while she slices fruit as she earns her first decent paycheck.

The young men on our soccer team thank you. As they help host the teams visiting from other countries for the tournament during August, they are thankful that Wild Hope was able to sponsor this event. As they look forward to the skill enhancing English Club coming their way later this month, they are thankful that Wild Hope wants to see them grow in all areas of life.

Mr. Edward, who just finished paying off his first micro-loan (never missing a payment!) thanks you for the chance to open a little shop that supplements his meager income at the wonderful children's center where he teaches. He is excited to have a new, larger loan out now to expand his business.

There are other stories too. Lives have been impacted by the redeeming and persistent love of God and, as a team, we get to watch all of this in awe.

So thank you, thank you, thank you.

We appreciate you.

(We really do!)

Wild Hope and Wild Romance (!)

This post is just to celebrate LOVE :-)

We mentioned last time that the Russells and Bordens would be making a quick trip to Zanzibar to share in the wedding of Jeremy Stephenson and Kendra Woods.

It was such a nice celebration and we wanted to say how honored our team felt to play a special role in their lives. Peter has really enjoyed his mentoring relationship with Jeremy and he did a wonderful job officiating the ceremony. Byron and Lisa enjoyed the many dates they had with J&K in the months leading up to the wedding. It was fun to share in their journey of growth as they prepared to join their lives. Tammy assisted with many wedding details that day, and made sure the ladies entered to the processional at just the right time. It was all so beautiful!

Congratulations, Jeremy and Kendra! We love you!


(Heather Borden and Sianna Russell with the lovely bride.)

Summer Days

Well, it's summer in other parts of the world but it's our cold time here in Tanzania. Still, we can't help but refer to June, July and August as "summer."

So what's up these days for the Wild Hope family?

Val James arrived in early May and has earned the name Val the Valiant Visitor. She is volunteering with us for the "summer" and has proven to be a hard-working, multi-talented relief person for our over-worked Tammy Russell. Val's particular passion is kids and she has stepped in to cover the end of the home school year for the Russell twins and provide a lot of neat extra activities from kick-boxing to sewing class for the twins plus Heather Borden. Taking this major work-load off of Tammy for the final six weeks of the school year freed Tammy to concentrate on many other growing projects.

The development of Wild Hope's property has begun. It may not sound like a lot but we have started the process of fencing the acreage and we're excited to see little trees making a start now that they are protected from goats and cows.

We have a lot of visitors coming and going. Making guest beds and welcoming people into our homes is a weekly thing right now. We are currently 10 at the table in the Borden house and it's fun, (if a little loud and messy.)

We're working to expand the Artisan Project and this means experimenting with new products and doing test runs with new women. It's a pleasure to see traditional Maasai art done so beautifully as we look at ideas for new product lines.

The friendship and support between local pastors in the Matale area of Maasai north of Arusha has been neat to see developing. Peter and some of his close Maasai friends have been instrumental in encouraging this gathering for growth and mutual encouragement.

On the family front our kids are happy that the school year is over and we are all pumped for Skyler Russell who has done a good job on his SAT and is now beginning that whole college application stage of life. The Borden and Russell boys (and Jonny Pollard) are leaving today on a long trek to cover some major ground along the Kenya/Tanzania border. We expect them home on the 4th of July. Those of us who remain behind are preparing for a quick trip to Zanzibar (how fun is that??) to share in the wedding ceremony of Kendra Woods and Jeremy Stephenson. The Woods were our teammates during our years in Kenya and the Stephensons have been good friends to Wild Hope in these first few years here. We delighted to share in this special time.

As I look at these weeks we're in, I'm struck that while we might be piling on the jackets and cranking up the fires, our summer is probably still pretty similar to yours. We have friends and visitors and work and play and days out of school and weddings and trips and barbeques and camp-outs, (though you may not be expecting elephants around your camp!)

Fullness and joy seem to be the order of the day :-)

(Photo by Jesse Borden)

Artisans Make Designs on Christmas

The artisans of our Wild Hope Artisan Project have been working hard on new products to release for Christmas 2008. Gathering for a design seminar is always a great event. Some of the women travel for 2 days just to get to Arusha! During our recent days together, the artisan leaders worked with Tammy Russell and Byron Borden to perfect new ideas. It was 3 days of beads, beads and more beads, not to mention inspiration, fun and friendship.

There are now 65+ Maasai women earning a fair trade through our project. It is always wonderful to hear the stories of the difference their income is making for their children, extended families and the communities they live in.

The photographs below capture some of the collaborative effort of the Artisan team.

Tournament Joys

At a recent small tournament, Wild Hope's Nyota FC took first place for both the U17 and U12 teams. We were very proud of them! The photo above shows the U12 team (in blue) waiting to collect their trophy :-)

The longer we know these young men, the more we learn about their lives. The more we learn about their lives, the more we want to see them succeed in both football AND life. Their community is a challenging place in which to find joy and hope, but we know it's not impossible.

Please join us in prayers of blessings for these guys, and for our efforts to do increasingly more than sports alone for them.

The crowd of impressionable young ones looks on.


The goals we made for the pitch come apart and get carried home so that they don't get stolen.


The team enjoys a little post-game chat.

Let's Do Lunch (AKA We Have the Neighbors In)

Saturday the 8th of March was a fun day for the team at Wild Hope. With no kitchen or permanent structure of any kind out at the new property, we managed to throw a lunch party and serve about 150 neighbors a big, hot meal of pilau rice and stew. We took the opportunity to buy a nice fat ox and make it into the main dish.



Under the shade of our tented pavilion, we told the neighbors how happy we were to be among them and we shared a little about who we are and what we do. Later, when a heavy afternoon shower broke over our heads, we squeezed together under the tented roof and danced and sang.

It was a lovely day, made extra special by the fact that Peter's sister, Alice, and her husband, Mark, were with us from the U.S.



We could not have pulled it off without Philemon and his crew of willing and able volunteers. They gathered all the utensils we needed and did the cooking over open fire pits on site. It was tremendous.



Celebrate with us the joy of building relationship with our new neighbors!

Proud Graduates :-)

Education is such a luxury! In developed nations we hardly ever realize the privilege it is to have easy access to learning.

The team here at Wild Hope is extra proud of our adult-learners who have been gathering faithfully to study in Torosei, Kenya. In the photo above you see the 7 recent graduates of the first phase certificate level of the International School of Ministry. These men, leaders in local churches, have worked hard because they know how important it is to be trained in solid foundations if they are going to encourage others in their growing faith.

To set the scene, imagine that you live hours from a power line, a paved road, a bookstore or a library. Imagine that donkeys had to carry large solar batteries out to your location in order to get the one solar powered VCR and television set in the area up and running so that you could watch classes taught in your 3rd language, English. Imagine that the motivation to learn, to keep up with the reading and to take the tests, was to know that you were better prepared to serve others in your remote church community.

Completing 19 trimester-long classes to earn their certificates, these men deserve to be very proud of their accomplishment. Throughout this season they have studied a wide variety of topics from surveys of the Old and New Testaments to the integrity of a leader. Drawing together to encourage each other took on a whole new level of meaning in this small group. When one classmate did not pass the final exam of the final course, the guys agreed to all repeat the course together to help ensure that this colleague finishes successfully. Now that’s school spirit!

At Wild Hope, we believe in the development of local leaders and that takes many forms. Our thanks to Christian Assembly in Eagle Rock, California, for the financial gift that secured this college level course as well as the DVD player and television set. Thanks, also, to Jeff James for accompanying Peter Russell on a wild motorcycle trip out to Torosei to get the solar power up and running again.

As the fruit of this course is felt throughout the network of churches in that region and 10 new students sign up to take the course, we are blessed to be able to facilitate training and maturation among indigenous leaders.

Photo: Peter and Tammy Russell with the graduates on location at Torosei where the Russells lived for many years during the 90’s.

"The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain" OR English Lessons in Sokon

One of the beautiful things about Tanzania is that they have honored their own heritage and valued the local language, Swahili. This has been a blessing in many ways.

Simultaneously, one of the greatest needs in Tanzania is for children to learn English as well. With most of the wide world of the web being in English, this generation cannot afford to miss out on all the vast learning resources that the web provides.

One of the things that the Diamond Canyon team did while they were here with us was to engage the kids in Sokon in morning sessions of what we called "English Club." Those mornings were so appreciated! Kids have a wonderful capability to learn language and we were delighted that they responded so positively to the invitation to learn. Many of the kids stayed on into the afternoon to hear more from the team about their lives and faith and a great time was had by all :-)

Serah's Story (A Chance to Respond to Kenya)

"Pray for us," the text message on my phone read. "My parents and my husband's parents have lost everything and we are hosting many family members who have become refugees overnight."

I sat staring at the tiny screen on my phone trying to comprehend what was going on in Kenya. The message had come in just days after December's disputed election results were announced and the news we had been reading on the internet was not good. Breaking down along tribal/political lines, the country had pockets of shocking violence springing up which would eventually take at least 850 lives in the ensuing weeks.

My mind raced back over the years. Byron and I arrived in Kenya in 1984. (Yes, we were very young.) We spent most of that initial 2 year commitment to Kenya in the lovely little town of Nakuru where we worked with a group of high school students who were hungry to grow closer to God. One of the students that I was closest to was Serah Njeri.

When the students were on leave from the boarding school in town, Byron and I would pack up our blue Landrover and travel out to different areas of the country so that we could visit some of them in their rural homes. We stayed in their villages and experienced the hospitality of many different cultures within the culture of Kenya. What I remember so clearly about Serah's home village was the happy relationship she had with the neighbors who all shared a forested highland area of fertile land.

Ten years later, in 1994, the tension at election time took a serious toll on Serah's community. We got the shocking news that her family home had been burnt down and Serah's relatives were left with nothing.

Oddly, this loss came shortly after our own home had burnt to the ground. Generous friends in the U.S. helped us rebuild quite quickly. We also had a small (in U.S. terms) insurance payment that we received from the company through which our organization had insured our far away home. My memory is that it was a couple of thousand dollars, meant to help replace personal items, not to cover the cost of a new building.

We saw the insurance as a gift that we could share. Because of the quick generosity of donors in the U.S. we already had what we needed to build again in Loita. Blessed with the insurance money that came after we were already in the re-building process, we saw Serah's family as a perfect place to pay it forward. Our Kenyan insurance went to their re-build and all of us were blessed.

We didn't see much of Serah over the years and we eventually left East Africa. In the fall of 2007, still quite newly back to Africa, I got an email asking if this was the correct email address for Byron and Lisa who used to live in Nakuru. Serah had found us and we were so happy to re-connect.

Serah and I passed sporadic email or text notes. I was concerned when things began to fall apart after Kenya's elections because I knew that her family came from one of the main ethnic groups that was targeted by angry demonstrators.

Soon we heard about her parents and husband's parents losing their homes (again to fire) and being chased out of their long-time communities. I tried to imagine how Serah, a teacher of teachers, and her pastor husband were managing to care for the extended family that was in so much need. But I never expected to hear the news we got next.

A couple of weeks ago I heard my phone go off at 6am. Squinting with my blurry morning eyes at the message, I tried to wrap my mind around what Serah was saying. "My husband Moses has gone to be with Jesus." This was all it said.

Moses contracted a fast moving, hard pneumonia that took his life and left Serah a young widow with 3 children and a large, extended family that still needs her.

This post has been quite long but the point of it is to give you an opportunity to respond to a needy family that is deeply affected by the turbulence in Kenya. At Wild Hope, we are not equipped to do mass refugee relief, but we can follow this relational line and make a difference for an extended family with shattered lives.

If you would like to give, please hit the donate button on the right of this blog and designate your gift for Serah Mburu. 100% of your donation will be passed along to Serah.

Thanks for joining us in this.

Lisa, for the Team at Wild Hope

Wonderful Water!

The Sinon School in the Sokon area of our city, Arusha, is a school that Wild Hope has built a lasting relationship with. Because we strongly believe in education as one of the most effective tools in the war against poverty and HIV/AIDS, we are blessed when we are able to bless them!

Just recently, the Sinon School was able to turn on the water faucet and celebrate with us the working well on the school campus. Imagine the joy of that simple luxury, running water :-)

Big thanks to our friends at Diamond Canyon Christian Church who have partnered with us in our efforts to provide a better school for the kids of Sokon. The photo above shows some of the team from California enjoying the water with some of the kids.

The kids at the school are thankful that they no longer have to haul buckets. We are thankful that we could come alongside to provide wonderful water!

Mark's Double Duty Trip to Tanzania

If you've ever sent a gift to Wild Hope then you'll have received a receipt prepared and posted by our own Mark Harris in his office in Pasadena. Mark faithfully keeps our books straight and makes sure that donations are allocated properly and receipted in good time. We would NOT like to face this task without him!

But Mark is far more than an accountant! With cross-cultural mission experience of his own (in Russia) and an advanced degree in the subject, Mark brings to our team a depth and knowledge that we truly appreciate.

Not too long ago, Mark had an article published in a missions magazine. His topic was Cross-Cultural Leadership Training. Though he was citing experiences from Russia, his article caught the eye of a local pastor here in Tanzania. Sergi tracked Mark down and invited him to come out to Tanzania and lead a seminar in Moshi, a city not too far from our Wild Hope team.

"Hmmmm," we thought. "This could be a nice double blessing for Wild Hope and the indigenous pastors and leaders who are gathering." With books to keep straight in the United States and East Africa, and with several different systems already underway and trying to converge into one, we knew that we could really use Mark's expertise on this side of the ocean. Peter and Byron and Mark just needed time in one place together to set up a good, workable system that would allow for flex and growth and multiple currencies! Meanwhile, local church friends in Moshi were looking with expectation for input from his other areas of expertise. How could we pass up such a great opportunity to launch a double blessing?

Peter teamed up with Mark to teach and they greatly enjoyed their days with the men in Moshi. Their time and input was deeply appreciated and they were happy to be able to help bring further training to these dedicated leaders. During the rest of his trip, Mark, Byron and Peter huddled around computers with ledgers and receipts and multiple cups of coffee and tea. A nicely workable system emerged and we are thankful!

What a great blessing all around. Thanks, Mark, for your help on so many different levels.