around the world with Jesus

Everyone has a story…and learning stories about great people is one of my favorite things. Here’s a bit about Nik. He started the band Undying Allegiance 5 years ago, but stepped away for this season to help the poor around the world as a Convoy of Hope intern. His story includes way more than the 1 1/2 minutes you’ll see here, but I wanted you to get a glimpse of this great man who has a great perspective on life.

Here’s the first single from his band’s latest project. It’s ironically called, “The Story of Our Lives.”

What is a time or situation in your life that helped you gain perspective?

Grace has shoes

In the midst of one of the world’s most beautiful landscapes, I watched Grace get shoes.

In Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, we ventured to the heartland of the Masai people. The Masai are a proud tribe of beautiful people with a semi-nomadic culture about which many books have been written. There, our Convoy of Hope interns spent time with some big thinking pastors to partner with them and their churches to show compassion throughout the valley.

It was there we encountered Grace. I’m not sure of her age, but she’s a beautiful follower of Christ who was taking care of her younger siblings. Our team connected well with her, and noticed she didn’t have shoes. While Grace isn’t the only teenage Masai member with no shoes, she was the one with whom Shannon, a 18-year-old intern, was speaking. Shannon had more than one pair, so why should Grace have none?

That day, in a gesture that some might consider small…Grace got shoes.

There’s a lot of places grace needs shoes…amongst the hurting, ashamed, poor and wounded. I want to be like Shannon, ready with any small/medium/large gesture to make sure she has them.

Standing Grace, with her siblings

I’ll soon share at the Momentum 2010 National Youth Worker’s Conference on the idea of “creative compassion.” I’m excited.

Painting walls can be creative compassion...

It’s been fun to see students helping others by serving in soup kitchens, cleaning a neighborhood, painting (legal) murals in downtown areas, using their talents to raise funds for organizations, doing a CONVOY OF HOPE and more…

What are some fun/creative ways you’ve seen students show compassion? List them here or via facebook/twitter (facebook.com/mattwilkie, twitter.com/mattwilkie). I’d love to hear your thoughts…I’ll do a follow-up post with the ideas I’ve encountered.

Many thanks! If you’re at the conference, I hope to see you in Dallas in Austin 4-6 at 11:30 a.m. on Friday.

Thursday of this week, we’re having a gathering at the Convoy of Hope home office where I hope to convey thanks to friends and family for the prayers, encouragement, financial support, friendship and for being nice to us throughout this journey! With the same spirit, a quick thank you to from my recent trip to Haiti.

BTW: We’ll gather at the home office on Thursday, May 13, from 6:30-8 p.m. and you’re invited. e-tell me if you can come!

For centuries the Kamaiya people of Nepal served as slaves to wealthy land owners. Some were treated harshly, others as part of the family. All were given a place to live and food and water. 

A few years ago, after international pressure, slavery—specifically slavery of the Kamaiyas–was outlawed across Nepal. They were freed. Unfortunately, they no longer had their homes or access to the food and water they had for so long. They also had few skills outside of working in fields and helping in homes.

 They needed to learn to live in their new freedom. They need people to walk with them in their new freedom and show them the way to go and live.

Sounds like people who find their freedom in Christ for the first time…always good to have someone to walk with you and show you the way…

There are approximately 200-300,000 ”ex-Kamaiyas” in villages across western Nepal. We visited with some of them from a local church. Special people. 

We played with the kids and laughed with the adults. Tiffany, a registered dietician from our team, learned about their diet. We even drank yak milk tea with them. It was a special evening.

I’m not sure how we’ll help the Kamaiyas in the future. Their situation seems overwhelming and their poverty intense. We’re training people from their area to help with disaster response, and people from their church are helping them, but I know they could use more help than that.

Please pray with our team and others who want to help these ex-Kamaiyas. I know God has a great plan for these beautiful and generous people. If/when we’re able to help them in other ways, I’ll post the stories here.

Tomorrow…some random things we encountered…

A year ago in  Moldova I met Dani and Lena. Here’s Dani.

I blogged about those days here.  Their father abandoned them  years ago, and at the time, their mother was in another country where she went to find work.  There were a couple of older brothers who didn’t know how to help them.  The kids were very cold and hungry when we went by their house.  The hearts of the team were moved and we went by there a couple of times.  Thankfully, the hearts of the people of the local church were moved as well.  The pastor’s son told us, “I didn’t know that poverty like this exists in my village.”  They commited to keeping in touch with them and helping in any way they could.

Since then, I’d heard nothing about the kids, but have prayed often for them.  We even put their photo in a prominent place in the intern area and it’s helped remind us to pray.  We’d hoped that the church was still helping them and that the family was reunited.

When I returned to Moldova, we wondered the latest.  We stopped by and connected with their mother.  The members of the church new them well and shared the latest:

• The mother returned shortly after we left last fall.  She’d been gone for many months, and came back home before winter.
• There are two older sisters we don’t know…nor does the church.  We learnd they’re in a desperate place and need help. 
• The mother has been working hard, but can’t make ends meet.  The day we connected with her, she was in the corn fields working hard…we heard that for about 12 hours work, she’d make about $10.  Dani was with her as she worked in the field. 
• The church had regular contact with the family…sharing food with them, asking if they needed help with things and more.  The mother accepted some help but not other help.

The team wanted to help.  We didn’t want to do anything that would cause the family to expect the church to do everything for them, but we wanted to share the love of Jesus.  We spent a day in their home cleaning, painting, cleaning, scrubbing, and more.  The church members pitched in as much as we did…maybe more.  The mother worked harder than anyone…and Lena pitched in too.

The family loved it.  You could tell it meant a lot.  We also had fun playing with the kids, getting to know the mother better and more…

The next day we returned to take a family photo.

They loved it.  We also shared a few things with the family and had some great prayer with them.  Since then, they’ve been to the church, connected more with people from the church and see a glimpse of hope in their lives.  The team is still in Moldova and keeping in touch with them.  I look forward to what’s ahead.

Poverty looks different in so many places…and it’s too widespread.  While we’re always trying to help “the masses” I love connecting with kids like Dani and Lena and their mother (w/local churches) and learning more about individual stories.  And helping.

My prayer is that in this hard time, their mother (and the family) will see hope, hear His voice, and turn to Him.  Hosea 2:14, “I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.”

Natalie and Deserai were spring ‘09 interns.  They were asked to share their story.  They did.  It’s here.

On our Plan B trip to El Salvador, our first place of ministry was a small village about 30 minutes from San Salvador.  There, we worked with a local pastor who was preparing to start a church at our place of ministry.  The church started Easter Sunday.

They’ve been working in the area, but without our Plan B, they wouldn’t have been there that day.

While there, we shared food, shoes with those who needed them, and toys for the kids.  Jorel and Bethany also shared about hope and life and a future with Jesus.  After we shared with the people, a woman came to Bethany with the news that when she arrived, she had planned to kill herself in the very near future.  She decided not to that day.  Bethany prayed with her. Hope.

I don’t know the woman’s struggles…I know there’s extreme poverty, violence, drug use, gangs, and more where she lives.  I know that many men have abandoned their families and woman are left with little or nothing.  I don’t know her struggles, but I know they must have been big. Now? Hope.

We made sure she met people from the soon to start church.  She said she’d go…and it’s in her village.  I’ll be back soon and will check to see if she made it. The woman in the photo isn’t the one of whom I write…it didn’t seem right to take her photo.  However, this woman’s life changed that day too.

Here’s Bethany sharing the story from her perspective…

I can’t believe they killed her father.

Last summer, April and I had the immense privilege of spending time with a young lady my grandmother sponsors through Latin America Child Care.  Her name is Sylvia.  She attends a school in Santa Ana, El Salvador which is helped by Convoy of Hope.  We met her, her brother Walter, and their parents, spending time in their home and sharing a meal with them.  I blogged about it all, including my grandmother’s connection to her, last summer. http://bit.ly/iBSHr.

While there, among other things, we enjoyed taking Manual, her father and family to Pizza Hut for his 40th birthday.  It was a special day at the restaurant they’d always wanted to try.  Everything changed just one month later when violent gang members uselessly shot and killed her father…the man pictured here.  It happened about a month after I took this photo.  I can’t believe they killed him. 

We reconnected with Sylvia and her family while in El Salvador with our spring interns a few weeks ago.  We shared hugs and tears and prayers and we talked.  We returned to Pizza Hut.  We smiled.

“Walter is the man of the house now,” Sylvia told us.  “(Walter) wakes up and asks why people have to be mean,” her mother explains.  They’re grieving but growing through their grief.

The day after we reconnected, the family joined us for an outreach in a village about 30 minutes from their home.  There, Sylvia shared her testimony, starting by quoting Psalm 23.  She sang with our team in ministry for the people of the village and she and her family handed out groceries to those who had gathered.  The woman here is quite happy with what Sylvia shared.

Afterwards, her mother (pictured in yellow in the group photo above) said, “This has been the best thing for helping us heal…serving others.”

I’ll see her and her family again this summer and look forward to keeping in touch with the family for years to come. 

One final note…last summer we asked 9-year-old Walter about his school.  He didn’t attend “we don’t have enough money,” his parents said.  God touched a team member’s heart who decided to work with Latin America Child Care in sponsoring Walter.  He’d never been to school.  He couldn’t read.  It took time for Walter and extra money for his sponsor, but last fall, even as the family went through this tragedy, Walter had a personal tutor.  This January, he was able to start school with his class.  At Pizza Hut, he read me the menu…didn’t struggle with a single word.  God’s got a plan for the young man…who’s now the head of his home.

Today, the Springfield News-Leader covered the story of one of our summer ‘08 interns.  Sara Perez worked hard in both El Salvador and Nicaragua.  Her father had dreams of playing basketball in El Salvador but was forced to make the decision to move to the USA during El Salvador’s civil war. 

On a missions trip with Convoy of Hope, Kenton Moody and Rick Ryan, from our staff, saw her skills and encouraged her to come to Evangel to play ball.  It worked out and she’s here with a scholarship.  She returned to do the summer internship and hopes to serve in El Salvador after college.   We were thrilled at the interpreting skills (and laughter and energy and love of coffee and more) she brought to the team.  Kudos to Rick Ryan and Kenton Moody for the impact they’ve  made in her life…

Check out the story here.

This photo of Sara hangs on our intern wall here at Convoy of Hope.