There was still a war going on. They were still hiding with their children in the cornfields because it was safer than if they were asleep in their home. So they were sleeping out in the fields. This was not changing anytime soon. You had lost your husbands. You had lost your fathers. The laborers who worked the fields, who provided for your community, they were gone. Taken mercilessly and brutally. But you came to minister to us. you sang praise the entire way up.
Well, hello again, and welcome back to the Trim the Wick podcast. I'm, Dan.
And I'm Becky.
And we are with you again this week. And we are wanting to share a story, but we also want to encourage. And, you know, right now, it just seems like with our podcast last week, we kind of focused on that there's a lot going on in the world. There's just a lot of heaviness that we're dealing with. And we wanted to kind of continue that a little bit because we feel like there's just an encouragement that needs to be given to the body.
Yeah.
And we know that there are a lot of people that are going through crazy things, and we wanted to continue that. If you haven't figured out one week a month, the first week of the month, we do a, Kenya episode this month. We wanted to continue this idea of encouragement, of preparing our hearts for the things to come and the things that we're going through.
Right. So the way that that ties into Kenya, you kind of alluded to. So we're. It's going to be a twofold message this week. We're going to be building up and encouraging the church as a whole by giving you the example of our
kenyan brothers and sisters. You know, one of the things that I have absolutely loved, the deeper our, relationship has gotten with so many people that we love and work with in Kenya, is that there's this broad idea that while the western church has money and resources and access to copies of the scripture and access to study materials, and so when we go on mission, we're going to pour in to there. Right,
right. But one of the things that we have found to be so true is that Holy Spirit is the teacher of all of us that are his. And even in the absence of sophisticated study materials and multiple translations of the scriptures, in the absence of that, he gives his followers faith.
Right.
Deep, abiding, lasting faith. And today, what we want to share with you is a story of that kind of faith that left us undone when we left the mountain that day.
Yeah. Cause we do have material things. And we have some things in the west and in the idea, but, you know, the things of God aren't based on our church buildings, our sound systems. The fact that we have all these volumes and concordances and all these things, you know, it's really a basic of what Holy Spirit wants to teach us.
Right.
These things are good. They help us with a deeper knowledge and understanding. But there's also some things that we really lack because we have some of.
These niceties and these comforts, and because we haven't. Even though we face losses in our families, we face scary things in our financials, we face divorces, and we face difficulties with job loss, and we face national uncertainties. But there is a degree of insulation, that the western church, particularly the american church, has had from a lot of the harsh realities that our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world face on the daily.
Right.
And because of that, some of those faith muscles aren't as exercised in us.
Yeah.
And we're not as strong. And so when we begin to see societal and world events happening that we are starting to see and that have many unsettled and afraid, lacking faith, this is the time when we look to our brothers and sisters that have been standing in these kind of environments for years, and standing successfully, and that's where they have something to teach us. We are one body of Christ
worldwide. And so that story today that we want to share with you, to build your faith by understanding the faith that is possible even in the face of very terrifying environments.
Yes.
So we want to hang heavy on the encouragement. So this story that we want to share this week is where we bring home to the church on this side of the atlantic the encouragement and the example of faith that our brothers and sisters hold, not just to cling through the hard parts and kind of barely scrape through, but to really walk in victory, no matter what the circumstance is. So, let's see, where do we start the story? We start this story at the base of the mountain, right?
Yeah. The day we go up to the mountain, we've been. We actually knew this before we went to Kenya, that there was some problems on Mount Elgon in western Kenya, where there was a territorial dispute that was happening between two of the tribes. One of the tribes had basically, what I got the gist of it was, is that they went and got some of the animals out of their territory that was in somebody else's territory.
Right.
And it turned into, well, they got their animals and then they killed their animals, and then it turned into. Well, then they started killing their men.
Right. It became a territorial war, basically, for resources and property and the kenyan soldiers.
Right. The military was there.
The military had been dispatched to the mountain to try and keep the peace. There was, there was a curfew on the mountain.
Yeah.
You know, so we knew, when we first started our trek up the mountain that there was a curfew that we needed to abide by. If we were going up to this village, we needed to be down off of the mountain by sundown. All of the warring was happening in the dark hours, right?
Yeah. And they. And they told us, and there were checkpoints that we had gone through. And even afterwards, when we were getting ready to come down the mountain, we actually came to a camp, a military camp, and talked to some of the soldiers. What we found out when we were there was that they were actually warring with each other.
Right.
to the point where they were killing each other and they were coming in at night. So we found out while we were there in this village, is that the women and children were all sleeping out in the fields.
Right. They were in the cornfields. Now, this is a remote village up near the top of a mountain. It's called Cheptais.
Right.
And it's very remote. It is to the point that, we went there in the rainy season. And when we started our drive up from the base of the mountainous, Pastor Brian pointed up and he goes, we're going there. We're like, okay, that looks really cool. And he was like, I'm going to tell you ahead of time in order to get there, the car's not going to go all the way for a couple of different reasons.
Number one, it was the rainy season at the time, and so a lot of the roadways, which don't think paved superhighways or anything, these are winding clay roads, sometimes one lane wide. But I. Cars don't frequently necessarily go up there. There's a lot of donkey cart traffic. There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of foot traffic.
Yeah. Motorcycles can get up there.
Yes, motorcycles do go up. He was like this. The car we're in isn't going to make it to the top. I just want you to know that. We're going to be doing some walking. And we were like, okay. So we crossed a washed out river.
We.
got stuck, had to push the vehicle. We crossed a very, very, very, very narrow bridge. In fact, there's a picture that is one of my favorite. All of us passengers got out of the car. We walked across the bridge. and then pastor Brian drove the car, and it was so narrow. He parked the car in the middle of the bridge and reached his hand out the driver's side window and held onto the side rail of the bridge. It was that close. so we had been up some really interesting roadways.
Yes.
And we finally reached the place, and again through military checkpoints and all gathering up warnings all the way along the way. You know where you're going. You know what's happening up there. Yes, we do. Yes, we understand. So there's a little bit of trepidation going on with us.
Yeah.
We know that we were called to be here. We know that the man that we're with is connected and comes up here all the time, and we have entrusted ourselves to him. And, so we're going because we're called to go.
And we need to say this is our first trip to Kenya.
Right. This is the first time we had met.
Yeah. This is the first time we had ever been to Kenya. And this was, you know, we'd only known Pastor Brian for about three days at this point.
Right. You know, it's. It's that thing of, when God calls you, you go, and when your spirit bears witness with their spirit, you go, okay, I'm feeling. I'm definitely feeling some butterflies in my belly about this.
Right.
But God's got this. And we didn't know exactly what we were walking into. And we were. Having been given the backstory of what was happening on the mountain, having been told that the village to which we were traveling at this point was largely occupied now by women, children, and only the elderly men, because most of the young and middle aged men had been lost during this warring.
Right.
They had been killed. And we're picturing. We're going to this village to bind up the brokenhearted, to, you know, to minister, to despondent, despairing people. This is the mental picture that we had.
Right. Well, and we did. We had this idea that we were going to go to a village that had just women crying and people who were just down and. Because they were afraid.
Right. And we expected to find rampant fear and distrust, and, pain. And not that the pain wasn't there. The pain was. Right. They're very frank about what has happened to them and what is going on. This is the reality. We're praying all the way up, and we're taking in all the beautiful scenery and enjoying being exposed to greens and blues that are more vibrant than anything I've seen before?
Oh, yeah. beautiful waterfall and gorgeous country.
And we're trying to take it all in. But in the back of our minds, this whole trip up, we're just going, lord, I don't know if I have what it takes to minister to that kind of need. I've never experienced that kind of need. And if I put myself in their shoes, what do I even have to say to that kind of grief, right?
Cause this is the stuff you only read in books.
Right?
You know, or see in movies, you know, where that all of the men in a village have been killed. We don't have a concept of this.
No.
In the west.
Zero context for this at all. You know, we're used to dealing with, wow, we have to give prayer cover and massive encouragement to people who have very temporary losses, who have lost a job or who have lost a home. And those things can be recovered pretty quickly. We're talking women and children that have lost every man who would be a provider in their life. this is the context into which we're walking. And we finally reach that point in the road where the car can go no farther.
Right.
We've now come to the place where not only is the road not wide enough, but it's way steep. We're going to have to walk uphill. And, I don't know, the entire thing was maybe what it was about. What did we walk?
45 minutes.
Okay, so about a 45 minutes walk from where we parked the car. It was an incline.
Yes.
it was a significant incline. And we get out of the car and we park it and leave it in the middle of the road, not by the side of the road. We left it in the middle of the road. And we start walking. And as we start walking, we start hearing music. Yes, well, it wasn't really music that we heard first. It was the drum beat.
Yes. You just hear drums off in the distance again.
First trip to Kenya, little bit daunting. We're way on up this mountain. We know what's been going on on this mountain.
Yeah. Going back to our western ideas and stuff. You know, you're walking through the bush of Africa, out in nowhere. Africa, hours away from civilization.
Right.
And you're walking on a trail. It was a road, but it was. It was a little bit bigger than a trail. And you hear drums in the distance.
And you're not sure. I mean, there's been war going on up here. Are these war drums that we're hearing in the distance? We don't know. We really don't know. Well, we rounded a bend. We just about lost it just at the site.
Yeah.
Because, yes, there were drums and there were children and there were women and there were old men who knew they had heard that we couldn't make it all the way up in the vehicle. And so this entire village, what was left of this village, came, down the mountain until they found us. So that we would not have to walk back up alone. And so that they could lend their strength to ours. So that we could go back up the mountain.
Yeah.
And the entire way, y'all, ah, the whole way, those drums sounded and those voices sang and there were smiles and rejoicing, and we. It transformed us.
Yeah.
Because we were like we were coming here begging God for what in the world could we say to you in the circumstances that you have found yourself in? And what happened is you schooled us on what it is to know that the joy of the Lord is your strength. To know that we do not mourn as those who have no hope. Because God is our God. You taught us that he gives us a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. These were people that were going to see zero change in their circumstances in
the foreseeable future. There was still a war going on. They were still hiding with their children in the cornfields because it was safer they could run away. They had better forewarning of an encroaching danger than if they were asleep in their homes. So they were sleeping out in the fields because it was safer. This was not changing anytime soon. You had lost your husband's, you had lost your father's. You had lost the laborers who worked the fields, who provided
for your community. They were gone, taken mercilessly and brutally. But you came to minister to us. You sang praise the entire way up. You had no shoes on your feet, and you walked in strength and uprightness and in joyous and in praise. We didn't teach them anything that day, y'all. We were the ones who were taught.
The songs that were singing, and they sang all the way.
Uh-huh.
And we went all the way to the village and seeing and praising. And as we got closer, we saw more of the women that started then joining in in the song. And it all turned into this beautiful praise fest that we had in the middle, of the village. And we just, for moments there, just took it all in and sang and cried and just had a wonderful time in the Lord where God was ministering to us. But God was ministering to them also.
Right?
Because through their praise and through just having the visitors coming and encouraging them. And I just, I can just remember us, standing there and just in that crowd and the children all around us and we have a couple pictures and photographs of when that happened and just
the. Just, that moment of just being completely surrounded by these children and it's just, it was such a beautiful moment to just be able to focus on God and say thank you and say thank you so much for loving us and loving them and loving your children. That even in the mist, even in the worst of the situations that you are there, God, you are right there. I remember we went from there, we went inside and it was something I've
told people. it was biblical because, people, we were in this one little room building, everyone was sitting everywhere, people sitting on top of people and stuff. They were sitting in the windows, they were sitting out in the doors and then outside the window, they were crowded around the window so that they could hear. And God put messages on our heart that we just gave them to encourage them and stuff.
The whole thing. You just saw how God was just pouring out his spirit on his people and how we didn't have a sound system, we didn't have all these things. We just had God, we just had the Holy Spirit working among us and we were able to focus and lift up his name in the whole thing. And it was incredible. It changed us forever.
It did. And so I guess what we want to bring to you guys, and we want you to hear from the testimony of our kenyan brothers and sisters, is that what we're facing here, what we're beginning to see? There's lots of question about our national sovereignty right now. How is this election gonna go? There's so much uncertainty, there's so much unrest, there's so much division between, you name it, between religious beliefs, between political beliefs, between educated and
uneducated. There's money, every division.
Are the banks gonna collapse tomorrow?
Right? Every division line that can be played upon the enemy seems to be playing upon every uncertainty, every fear, every cause for anxiety is getting really, really loud. And what I want to submit to us here in the west is to look to the examples of our kenyan brothers and sisters, to look to the examples of those who have been enduring so much deeper and who their testimony, the testimony that they shared with us is that even here m even in
this. Jehovah God is faithful yes, Jehovah God provides when we have lost every man to work the fields Jehovah God protects when danger is every night everywhere Jehovah God gives joyous and peace in the middle of, deep, profound suffering.
Yes.
Be encouraged, y'all.
Yep.
This world is a mess. And Jehovah God is still on his throne.
That's what we really want, is we want to encourage you with that. What we've done is we have the video when we came up on everyone, and they were singing and the children were singing. And we're just going to put that raw video on our YouTube channel. And if you want to go to our YouTube channel, we'll put a link in the show notes, and you can check that out to just see the excitement and joy that we had as they surrounded us and basically carried us and sang us
into the village. And just that joy that we had while doing it.
Yep. And know that no matter how steep the road is that you're walking, no matter how muddy it is underfoot, whether you have shoes on your feet or not, whether you feel like you have lost everything and are standing exposed and vulnerable, the joy of the Lord can be your strength, too.
Amen. M. Well, guys, we want to share with you guys a big announcement. Becky and I are going to be heading back to Kenya in December.
Yes.
And we are. Hopefully, we'll be able to, do some more interviews and do some things there. And we'll be podcasting and putting all that information out on our Instagram channel and different places so that you can follow along. But you can also join with us in that trip and help support us. You can go to our website, and there will be a link on the fan, the Flames page, that you can go and help support us as we go back to Kenya this December. Thank you so much for listening,
and we're so glad that you were with us this week. We pray our heart in this is that you are encouraged and that, you listen to this story and you listen to this, and it just lifts you up, knowing that God is always there. He never leaves you, never forsakes you. He will carry you in the times when you don't have any strength to go on.
Right.
Well, we know this is a short one, but we'll be back with you again next week as we start a series on the holy spirit. And that's going to be exciting. And, looking forward to that. So, again, love you guys, and we'll see you again next week.
Love you. Bye.