Kenya 2011 Trip Response—Thursday Night Debrief, August 4, 2011, Lake Nakuru, Kenya

Greetings 2011 Kenya Team…

I miss all of you soooo much!!  It was so great to see at least some of you this morning!!

Provided below (and as I promised) is the responsive road map (plus a little extra) that I suggested at the debrief last Thursday night.  Please know that I love all of you deeply, that I treasure each of you greatly, and that I look forward to where God leads us as a community.

Your friend and brother,

Dave ("Wahinya"), Team Father

Team Kenya 2011

THE MAP

Part A:  Scriptures

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

1 Corinthians 10:31

1 Corinthians 12:4-6

Part B:  A Few Ground Rules Suggestions

While strict obedience to what I provide below is not neccessary (or, even, recommend), I do recommend that you consider the following suggestions as you think of, feel, and pray through the many things that have arrisen within you as a result of the 2011 trip to Kenya:

• Take all of these things slowly; please give yourself some time over the next few minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and, it is my hope, years to work through these things.
• Please know that God is a Perfect Gentleman and that He is not at all interested in destroying who you are as a person.  In fact, He is so interested in you as you are right now in this moment that, even though He does wish to bring about change in your life, He will do so in what I like to call an aggressively unaggressive manner.  Through the mighty working of His Spirit in you, He will mold you into the person He intends for you to be without destroying who you are or overriding your will in any manner.  The ability that He alone has to do these things is truly extraordinary.  With all of this in mind, I urge you to adopt a posture of surrenderedness, and I urge you also to pursue Him with all that’s within you...just as He passionately pursues you.
• Don’t make any significant life-changes for at least 30 days, okay?  Again, please just give yourself some time with all of this.  Relax, okay?  Since God is not in a hurry, it's probably not necessary for you to be in a hurry either.  :o)

 Part C:  A Suggested Road Map for Responding to the Kenya 2011 Trip

Step One:  “Telling Your Story”

To aid you in answering the question, “How was your trip?,” I suggest writing out a one-sentence answer, a two- to three-sentence answer, a two-paragraph answer, and a two-page answer.  By having these answers, you will, I have discovered, be able to effectively move from one answer to a more detailed answer depending on the interest of the person asking you the above question.  By having such answers already written out, it will, I believe, help you to be sensitive to and to accommodate (within your own heart and mind) the varied degrees of interest/disinterest in those around you.  And, through preparing such things in advance, it may also help you to adopt a posture of forgiving in advance those who will hurt you even before they do so.  I write all of this because I can guarantee that most of you will experience at least some emotional pain from those who reject you in some way over the next week or two.  Jesus once said, “if the world hated me, it will hate you as well.”  He also urged His followers to rejoice in persecutions (see Matthew 5:11-12).  So….with all of this in mind, tell your story with great joy, and allow God to pour His love through you to everyone you encounter in the coming days...irrespective of their response.

Step Two:  “Recalibrating Part 1:  Stream of Consciousness Exercise”

Allow yourself over the next few days to begin to write out all things on your mind and in your heart concerning changes you’d like to make in your life in response to the trip.  As a model, I have included the list I generated immediately following my most recent trip to Haiti (see Part E).  The purpose of the stream of consciousness posture is to allow everything to come out unfiltered and unedited.

After you’ve allowed yourself to sit with things for a few days, narrow your list to no more than ten desired changes/recalibrations.  The list should include at least one or two items that deal with your desire to become more connected with your community of faith.  The list should include also one or two items that deal with your desire to become more missional in your life.

In a couple of weeks, narrow your list to no more than five recalibrations and then rank them in their order of importance.

Step Three:  “Seeking the Fruit of the Spirit”

Complete a word study on the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and the beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12).  Completing a comprehensive study of the ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) is recommended as well.

Step Four:  “Reacquainting Yourself with Yourself”

Ask yourself (and answer) the following questions:

1. What were your dreams as a child?
2. Who were your heroes as a child?
3. What are your dreams now?
4. Who are your heroes now?

Take a spiritual gift inventory.  I think that newhope church still offers one on the newhope website.  There are, though, several offered on-line that I think will be very beneficial to you.  One such inventory can be found at http://www.kodachrome.org/spiritgift/.

Step Five:  “Recalibrating Part 2”

Ask yourself (and answer) the following questions:

1. Where are you now?
2. Where do you want to be a month from now?  And what will you do to migrate toward that place?
3. Where do you want to be in three months?  And what will you do to migrate toward that place?
4. Where do you want to be in twelve months?  And what will you do to migrate toward that place?

Step Six:  “Beginning with the End in Mind”

Ask yourself (and answer) the following questions:

1. Where do you want to be in five years?
2. How do you want to feel in five years?

Allow the revisioning of this part to draw you like a huge magnet toward the fulfillment of what you are envisioning.

Part D:  A Few Things I'd Like to Learn from the Samurai

Provided below is something I wrote a few months ago…

A Few Things I’d Like to Learn from the Samurai

For most of my life, I’ve been fascinated by the warrior classes—especially, the ancient Samurai of feudal Japan.  To say they were a paradoxical people is an understatement.

The Samurai trained in the arts of life and death:  they studied and practiced haiku and swordsmanship…the tea ceremony and field applications of archery...gardening and submission grappling.  They prepared for the future, but didn't wait for it to happen; they lived in and for the moment as though tomorrow didn't exist—because, to them, it didn't.  They had children, and yet raised them to live as though Mom and Dad might not be around an hour hence.

Theirs was a way of life so utterly simple, and yet incomprehensibly complex.  They cultivated an unnatural naturalness and a natural unnaturalness in nearly every aspect of life, and they lived by an ancient, internal code that simply reminded them to be present and devoted completely to their current experience...for there really is nothing else. 

I recall a story I heard once about a martial arts instructor, who posed the following question to his adult students:  “If you discovered that you had only twenty-four hours left to live, what would you do with the time you had left?”  The answers he received were varied, as one might expect.  Some spoke of how they would spend their time with their families; others of how they would visit places they’d always wanted to see but never did; and still others of how they would devote themselves to some form of service to humanity.

After listening intently for a few minutes, the teacher beckoned his students to stillness and then spoke of his disappointment with the answers they’d all given.  “No one answered with what I would consider the best answer possible," he began.  "And that's this:  I wouldn't live any differently than the way I'm living right now, right here.”

Profound, and, most definitely, something to consider, would you not agree?

In the United States alone, more than two million people died last year—many from things unexpected.  Just like some of us will, too, someday.  Perhaps, even, today.

I’d like to ask you the very same question the instructor I mentioned above asked his students so very long ago...

If you had only twenty-four hours left to live, and knew it, how differently would you live that last day than the way you'd lived, say, the previous 365 days?

Take a few minutes, and really give it some thought.  Perhaps, even, write your answers down or, even better, go and live them out—and do it today...right now.  And then do it tomorrow...and the day after that...and the day after that, should you, Lord-willing, be blessed with such a precious gift.

Part E:  My Most Recent Stream of Consciousness Big List (Prepared in April 2011 During My Initial Responses to the Haiti 2011 Trip)

1. When taking a shower, turn off the hot water while lathering up your body or washing your hair.
2. Go out of your way to be the first to greet another—be it a friend or a total stranger.  Be the first to smile and say "hello."
3. Greet people properly.  Smile, look them in the eye, and speak clearly and genuinely.
4. Spend some time every day working on your business contacts—Ummm...not your website, Dave; your contacts.  :o)
5. Redo your budget during the first part of May, put together a revised financial plan, and then live by it.
6. Step up your purchasing from Goodwill of the things you need, and donate back at least as much as you buy.
7. Pursue up-to-date news about Haiti and Kenya.  KNOW what’s going on in both of those countries.
8. Open yourself up to those around you—almost to a point that’s pretty much unheard of in our culture.  But do so in a manner that's sensitive to others.  Be open, but in a kindly manner.
9. Speak the truth (or what you know or believe to be the truth) in kindness with everyone (even yourself), all the time, in every situation, and without hesitation.
10. Reinvigorate your inventiveness.  (It’s been a while, Dave.  It’s time to create stuff again, dude.)
11. Develop an exercise routine that can be practiced effectively overseas.
12. Devote considerable time to the personal (meaning, in-person) cultivation of missional partnerships.
13. Write with all your heart and mind, and let what’s inside you come out.  Share who you are with as many people as possible.
14. Complete your tax returns on-time, Dave.  THEY OWE you money.  What are you waiting for?  Go get it, dude.
15. Be faithful in your Sunday morning and Monday night Missional Houses of Prayer.
16. Pay all your bills on-time.
17. Ask for prayer.  Plead with those you know to pray for you.
18. Tell those you love how much you love them and what they’ve meant to you in your life.
19. Be super-expressively grateful.
20. Cease all complaints, all blame, all criticism, all gossip.  All of it, Dave.
21. Confront misbehavior lovingly, but firmly—in yourself and in others.
22. Reduce your wine consumption.  I know you love it, Dave, but it can easily begin to hate you.  Enjoy it in moderation.  Remember this:  A second glass never tastes as good as the first.
23. Fast, on occasion, the watching of movies by yourself.  Do so for a day, a week, or, even, a month at a time.
24. Build deep and abiding friendships with your work colleagues.
25. Create missional culture by living it and inviting those you love to practice such things with you.
26. Pursue Acts 2 community living within the newhope community.
27. Pray for people on the spot.
28. Go to bed earlier.
29. Get up earlier.
30. Keep your kitchen sink clean and your dishwasher empty.
31. Wash only full loads of laundry and dishes.
32. Forgive quicker.  Decide beforehand that everyone around you is automatically forgiven—long before they irritate or hurt you.
33. Stop thinking about what you’re going to say while someone else is talking.  Take the time to really listen and absorb what another is saying to you.  Then, after that person feels that he or she has been heard, think about what you might like to say.
34. Let go of your attachment to specific outcomes in your life.  Do you really HAVE to have x y z to be happy?  Ummm...the correct answer would be NO, Dave.
35. Submit—completely—to those in authority over you.  Submit also—and do so completely—to your brothers and sisters around you.
36. Stop caring so much about what others think of you.
37. Take the time to really prepare at least one meal a day, and then give yourself permission to actually taste it, okay?  Dine, Dave, dine…and have fun eating, because having fun is at least half the point!  These are all novel concepts, I know!
38. Dine on your conversations with others, too.  Sip—don’t gulp-their soul’s wine.  It will change your life, dude.  And theirs, too!
39. Take care of your paper work.
40. Always respond to others with an almost overwhelming kindness, respect, dignity, and compassion.
41. Smile before you answer the phone or before someone even says “hello” to you.
42. Go out of your way to acknowledge the person waiting on you in a restaurant or in the check-out line at the grocery store.  Learn—and remember—his or her name.
43. When someone comes in to your office, stop what you’re doing—immediately (unless you’re on the phone)—and give that person your full time and attention.
44. Live in the moment, Dave.  Yesterday no longer is, and tomorrow doesn't exist.  All you have is right now.
45. Invite God to be an integral part of every though, feeling, word, and action.
46. Be happy...all the time...even when you’re feeling sad or broken.
47. Enjoy your friends.
48. Be prompt in returning phone calls.
49. Engage in language training (especially Haitian Creole and Kiswahili) weekly. 

Part F:  Some Final Thoughts

The purpose of the above exercise conglomerate is to provide you with a road map for responding to the Kenya trip in a way that is generative, life-affirming, and life-giving.  I believe with all my heart that if you really do work at it…prayerfully…you and the kingdom of God will benefit greatly.  I speak of this from my own personal experience.

Part G:  One Last Thing

As I wrote above, aside from making a decision to pursue Jesus with all your heart, don’t make any significant life-changes for at least 30 days (specifically, before September 6, 2011).  But…if there are significant life-changes that you think you’d like to make, add them to your list of recalibrations, and let them marinate with all the others.  :o)

Peace out, y’all, and have fun with all of this (for having fun is, I believe, half the point!).

Also...please, please, please let me know if I can be of any help or service to any of you in any of the above (or anything else, for that mater).  Again, I love you all so much that it hurts inside.

CU,

Daver