Poverty is Slavery

The title of this blog is actually an African proverb. It is a reminder that both conditions, slavery and poverty, are first and foremost, outlooks on life. As another proverb says – “Abundance does not spread, but famine does.” Far too often in Africa, life is about survival.

Often these are generational attitudes that are passed on to the younger age group and become firmly entrenched if people are not empowered early in life. This is why the Vineyard Financial Empowerment program is geared to those between the ages of 18-30. Those that successfully complete the business training program are given an opportunity to launch a business.

Pastor John Gitau, Dagoretti Vineyard

Margaret Pearson, Trainer

It is instructive sitting with the students attending the business training program which was recently held at the Dagoretti Vineyard. The students were asked to complete a children’s puzzle in an effort to assess their problem solving capacities. Few of them, if any, had ever completed a puzzle before. Martin and Grace (seen in picture) are both seeking to build businesses dealing with clothing. Martin wants to buy equipment to brand t-shirts and Grace is selling old clothes and making new ones.

Opportunities and skills which most people in the West take for granted are glaringly absent here. Words of hope and encouragement go a long way as they are seldom heard.

We choose to sit with the poor so that they might break off the chains of poverty .

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8.9

God Makes the Stew

Doug and Pastor David Mwema

Prostitutes as Parishioners

What do you say to the prostitute who is one of your parishioners and wants to quit her work, but can’t get another job and has two children to feed? Such is one of the many dilemmas facing church planter David Mwema whose church is in Kibera. A cesspool of hopelessness, Kibera is one of the most difficult places to plant a church in Kenya.

Tribal Stew

It has been often reported in the world-wide media that Kibera is the largest slum in the world. It’s not, though it may be one of the biggest in Africa with a population of over 170,000. Perhaps the reason for this exaggeration is due to the wide-spread negative media attention Kibera receives. Whenever rioting breaks out in the county, Kibera is often reported as a hotbed of hostility. Why? It is one of the major “tribal stews” in the country.

Poverty has thrown together peoples who would ordinarily want nothing to do with each other. Africa’s chief version of racism is tribalism. In the 2009 census, of the 38 million plus respondents, only 610,000 chose to refer to themselves as Kenyans. The others insisted on identifying themselves first with their tribe.

God Makes the Stew

The leadership team of the Vineyard in Kibera is composed of several different tribes. A deliberate strategy. An effort to let God make the stew. David, who at the age of 33, who was thrust into the role as church planter, recognized early on that traditional religious approaches to church would not work in this hostile environment. God had prepared him. He moved to the big city, Nairobi, seven years earlier to make money. After working seven days a week for four years, his mother called him and said she was praying that he would lose his job because he had lost sight of God. Jobs are like gold in Nairobi so he was not happy with his mother. He was even less happy when he lost his job and wandered for a year and a half with a wife and two children to support. In the end the prodigal came home to his own faith when he joined a Vineyard home group meeting in the slum.

God Will Get You Drunk!

Now David leads a band of broken people in a broken slum. David says, “It’s funny, I discover that while I had no enemies, I didn’t have any friends either. Now the wounded are my friends. In a sense they need me and I need them. We are doing this together. One morning the scripture reader was drunk. It made for an interesting service. Another Sunday morning I called up an alcoholic at 5:30am because he was suppose to give his memory verse that morning in the service. Many of the illegal brewers open up shop as early as 6am and he might not have the strength to resist. I told him, ‘God will get you drunk’. He came to the worship service. One of my goals is to get people to stop expecting that the kingdom is about getting things. For so many, life is a discouragement and they need hope. Others need to be challenged. I tried my mother’s prayer on one woman whom I had been sharing Christ with and was involved in illicit trade. I told her I was praying that her business would fail. It did. She is now part of the Kibera Vineyard and doing great.” God puts all sorts of odd people together when He cooks His stew, but somehow it comes out smelling great!

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34.8

Among the least of these

The last 40 miles of road to Kitale, a town in northwest Kenya, is murder on your shocks. More potholes and savage crevices than paved road, one is constantly choosing which side of the road will do less damage to your vehicle. Sue and I took along our interns, Mark and Su Davies from the Vineyard in Cardiff Wales, to this Leadership Seminar. After seven plus hours of adventuresome driving we arrived in the slums of Kitale.

Pastor Edward and Nancy Khaoya planted the Vineyard in the middle of the slums in 2003. As we surveyed the neighborhood it became clear that the church was surrounded by illegal brewing dens, drug dealer hovels, and witches’ lairs. Hell may be an improvement on this neighborhood. Yet many of the people that are part of this Vineyard are those who have escaped this devastating environment.


We spent the weekend studying the leadership of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels. Thirty leaders from six or seven Vineyards participated in the seminar. The expected format in much of Africa is that the teacher lectures and the rest sit quietly, no questions permitted. Instead we gathered the leaders in a circle and had conversations.

All of these leaders are desperately poor.

It would seen that no one cares what the poor think. Jesus did. There is a profound wisdom birthed out of suffering that we can learn from.

Serving the poor quickly alters one’s view of the world and how ministry is done. A few examples . The children you see eating in the photo are the offspring of the alcoholics and drug addicts. They ate from the scrapings and leftovers of the conference, as though they had not eaten in days. Pastor Edward told us of one woman they had been working with who had been “renting” her nine year old daughter out for three dollars a night to support her drinking binges.

During ministry time on Sunday morning, Sue was praying for another lady when suddenly she became violently ill and had to leave the room to recover. We believe the spiritual warfare was severe. During the worship time a young man, heavily intoxicated, gyrated around the room and had to be restrained from dancing around the pulpit. In all of this brokenness, Jesus showed up and touched people.

We drove back to Nairobi, bouncing down the road exhausted, awakened again to the brutal reality that the majority of Vineyards in Kenya face the scenario we had just experienced. We must stand with them for the King has said `I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Matthew 25.40

The Case of the Missing Spoon

‘I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it – it’s been less than an hour!!’ I was shouting to Doug as I returned from the trash bin. ..

This Sunday had been a very long day. A good day, but I was so very tired. As I was pulling up to the house, I was reflecting on what a good day it had been. God had moved and healed during church this morning and I had just finished having a half day of prayer with my Discipleship class. As is our routine, we had a potluck lunch together and once again I had brought home the plastic dishes to wash. But, today I was so tired and just couldn’t bear the thought of washing these plates one more time. For a moment, I reconsidered if throwing the plates away was being wasteful or if I was being lazy, but decided I just couldn’t wash them once again. And besides, these plates were getting a bit old and tired. Decision made, I put them in the trash bin on our compound which is next to the staff quarters, about 30 yards from our house, and went inside.

Once inside I realized my large serving spoon was in the bag with the plastic plates, so I rushed back to retrieve it from the trash. My bag was gone – in less than an hour the staff had gone to the bin and taken the bag with all the plates and my spoon. My first response was “I want my spoon back, it’s mine!” After stopping to think about it, I was reminded that I had thrown the bag in the rubbish so it was no longer mine. I was reminded that what I had considered trash, the staff had thought valuable enough to take it out of the bin for their own use, or possibly to sell for some extra cash.

These 3 men live on our compound just 30 yards from our house, yet we live in completely different worlds and realities - our dwellings are on the same property, yet we live lives that are profoundly different.

Charles is the shamba man (gardener), Stanley opens the gate during the day and Francis is the escari (night guard) as well as earning a bit of extra money (about 75 cents) washing the car for us once a week. We see one another and speak almost daily yet there is a vast difference between us. . .

So, I finally accepted the fact that my serving spoon belongs to someone else now, and each day as I get in the car or take the trash to the bin, I think of these three men and imagine them using it to cook and eating from the plates I considered rubbish. . . or maybe they were sold for a nice profit.

May God bless these men and may I never forget the life of poverty my neighbors live. May I continue to be a good steward of the abundance God has given me, and may He continue to remind me of those in need around me.

You will read in our next posting how He answered this prayer within two weeks as Doug and I traveled to Kitale for a weekend conference. . .

Holy Saboteurs

Browns and Venters











Sue and Mary


The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. 1 John 3.8

“Despite their overthrow, the powers of darkness have not yet conceded their defeat; they continue to contest every inch of their territory. The kingdom of Satan retreats only as the kingdom of God advances.” John Stott

Undermining the kingdom of darkness is no easy business and is done in a variety of ways.

Setting captives free
This year, the Vineyard National Conference was action focused. Alexander Venter from South Africa, a Vineyard pastor and author of several books all with the word “doing” in the title was the main speaker. His series includes, Doing Church, Doing Reconciliation, Doing Healing, and he is currently writing Doing Spirituality. The teaching was accompanied by action. Proclamation attended by demonstration. People were activated into hands on ministry, much of it focused on healing. It was a pleasure to sabotage the enemies attempts to keep people in bondage.

Good news to the poor
Poverty comes in many forms, but all varieties of scarcity are oppressive. Evil uses poverty to multiply theft, dishonesty, and violence. In an effort to address this oppression we have launched Vineyard Financial Empowerment. Quite simply, this is a four week business training accompanied by loans to those who can put together a business plan. Our financial arm is Faulu (succeed in Swahili), a branch of Food for the Hungry. The initial workshop at the National Conference provided the necessary information for people to move forward.

Preaching Good News
Empowering leaders through practical pastoral training spreads the good news. A workshop at the National Conference promoting Vineyard School of Ministry was well attended. There is a real appetite not just for information, but formation. Plans for our collaboration with Daystar University, the largest evangelical University in East Africa, took an important step forward this past week and we have just one more step to launch the program.

Mentoring the Next Generation
Sue has been setting up financial systems and accountability for the AVC Kenya, working closing with the national leadership team as well as mentoring Mary Gitau. Mary, a university student, is currently leading the Youth Task Force for the AVC. The word “youth” in Kenya can be used to refer to anyone from the age of twelve to thirty. All the initiatives for this age group are spearheaded by Mary who has resonated with Sue’s informal mentoring.

Finally, one evening session at the National Conference Doug spoke and then invited all those under thirty to come to the front for prayer. Over eighty percent of the room came forward! While we knew there were a lot of younger people attending the conference we had no idea of the percentages. Several of the Area Pastoral Coordinators, those leaders who oversee the Vineyard work in different regions, remarked at how shocked they were at the response. A significant ministry time occurred. Perhaps God enlisted more holy saboteurs to invade enemy-occupied territory that evening.

C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity said, “Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why is He not landing in force, invading it? … Well, Christians think he is going to land in force; we do not know when. But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely.”

We rejoice in being part of God’s invading force and appreciate all your prayers. No ministry is done alone and we are grateful for your linking arms with us as we move forward.
Love,
Doug and Sue

Visitors of Various Varieties

As I (Sue) was cleaning up the two banana peels left by the monkey who continues to steal bananas from our kitchen, it reminded me of the various visitors we have hosted over the past two years. Though at times having visitors in our home is a stretch for us introverts, we have come to see how much our lives have been enriched by the interesting and diversified guests we have had the privilege of hosting and ministering with. We have had friends and family from Claremont to Washington State, Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Louisiana, Washington DC, the UK and Wales. We have learned much from each other and value the richness of new friendships.

It has been too long since we have posted, but it seems like we just hit the ground running upon our return from the states.

We left for Thika for the AVC Pastor’s Conference the first of June. It was a gathering of pastors and their wives from the Vineyards in East Africa. Doug and I continue to experience “firsts” as we did a workshop for the conference “Pastors and their Wives and their Congregations”. It was the first time we had actually done a teaching/workshop together as a couple. . . we continue to be challenged to new things!

VFE Update - We have been asking for prayer and support for VFE (Vineyard Financial Empowerment), and we have a PRAISE REPORT. The AVC Kenya leadership has come to an agreement with Faulu (meaning ‘Succeed’ in Swahili) to partner together. Faulu, associated with Food for the Hungry, will be our funding resource for micro credit, savings programs and group loan programs. VFE will provide the business training and will interview and select participants for the program.

The goal is to make a presentation at the upcoming National Conference in August to give people the opportunity to learn about the program and begin the process of gathering people from their congregations who may benefit from VFE.

We are off to Israel in a few days. Doug and his dad are leading a tour of the Holy Land. There will be some from Kenya and some from the US, including our son Matt and his wife Bekah, Doug’s sister Julie and her family and various other extended family members. We are excited to have our two worlds meet in this way!

Thank you for your continued prayer and support. Your love and commitment means so much, and we are privileged to have you as partners in this Kingdom work.

Doug and Sue

Riding the Wave

Riding the Wave

Sunday two weeks ago Doug’s talk was entitled “Monuments or Momentum?” Momentum is the power residing in a moving object and Jesus was clearly that momentum as he came into Jerusalem. In contrast, monuments, while they do serve to remind us of important events in the past, are places we visit not places we choose to live. The temple in Jerusalem became a monument preserved by the religious establishment. Jesus brought a momentum into the temple that challenged the status quo.

We are excited to be part of something here in Kenya that is bursting with momentum! Last year the Vineyard movement planted 10 new churches! We now have 68 Vineyards in Kenya. Momentum is also defined as the power of the moving object to overcome resistance. Last week Doug met considerable resistance as he traveled about Western Kenya – police harassment at two different roadblocks, three flat tires, mechanical breakdown, and a torrential downpour with flooding and almost impassable road conditions. Great fun!

Spiritual momentum provides us with the muscle to sustain growth. This year, we already have three additional plants starting and are projecting other start-ups later in the year.

While we are thrilled with the growth we are cautioned by Einstein’s words, "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." We do not simply want more churches, but mature leaders. We are privileged to be part of the process of deepening the faith of men and women leaders. Maturity is built through deliberate and sometimes painful steps forward as we follow Christ, hopefully building momentum along the way.

The photos are from Doug’s two recent trips to Western Kenya (Kisii, Kisumu, Eldoret) over the last three weeks as he met with pastors and led a seminar.

It is hard to believe that we will be in the States in less than a month! We are excited to be with friends and family. Grandma is especially looking forward to seeing our granddaughter!

Upcoming events to pray for:
Doug conducts a leaders retreat in Mombasa, April 13-16
Sue will speak at the Women’s Conference on April 21-24
Doug and Sue will facilitate a workshop at the Pastor’s Conference in June
Doug will speak at the National Conference in August