One Trip to Kenya - Book Tour

4 years ago, I'm not sure if it's this week anyway, I'm not sure the exact day in this week, but 4 years ago this week, I was getting home from a trip to Kenya. And I had never been to Kenya before, and I'd heard a lot of things about Africa. In fact, I remember a song from when I was a kid called "Lord, Please Don't Send Me to Africa." And I loved it. And of course, the thing when I was going over there that I really wanted to see— because I've always wanted to see them since I was a little kid— was all the animals you see at the zoo but in their native environment. And so we did that the last 2 days that we were there. Well, the second-to-last 2 days; on the third day we drove back to the airport. But the 3 weeks before then we spent going to different places, and I was telling stories to children about Jesus. And I'm not good enough for this job! About God's love, and the people that I was with, Carol and Leon, who are just here on the picture, that's Leon there, Leon Platt and Carol Platt. Carol's father was Mr., what's his, Ferris, yeah, Colin Ferris. When I first came to Australia, oh, that's another story, I met Colin, he was in the next office to me, I was a volunteer at Lilydale Academy, and he was, they didn't call it this back then, but he was the chaplain, he was the mentor for the young people. He didn't have a job there, but he had an office, and he just sat and chatted with kids. And he came over to me one day and he knocked on my door and he said, "I haven't met you yet, but one day you really must come into my office for a Milo and a Bicky." And I went and Googled Milo and Bicky. I'm like, no idea. So I asked someone else and they say, "Oh, he's just inviting you over for a hot drink and a cookie." Oh, I'll do that. So Carol has the same heart as her father for education. And when Carol, finished being a teacher, she retired from being a teacher, she decided to start helping children in other countries that couldn't afford education. And so she went to Kenya and she was looking, she had a friend who was in Kenya, so she went over there and she started talking to people about how she could best help. And amazingly, education in Kenya, nearly all kids go to boarding schools because they live by foot a long ways from the schools, and nearly everyone walks everywhere in Kenya. So to go to school you have to board. So boarding school, believe this or not, I went to boarding school and it's thousands and thousands of dollars every term. In Kenya, you can go to a boarding school for between $60 to $90 a month. Wow. So Carol found this out and she decided that she wanted to start telling people. First of all, her and Leon, they met a young man, I'm gonna tell you his story at the very end, and they said, "We'll sponsor him." And he was very young. He was, I think, 9 years old when they first met him. Then they started this ministry called Education Care Projects Kenya. I don't know if you can see it at the bottom there, but that's educationcareprojects.com. And they're completely 100%, any donation that goes to them goes to putting the kids into school. They don't have any overhead costs that they take out of that. It's just the money that's raised all goes to the children. Leon is a builder, so he goes over to build. Carol goes over to educate the girls particularly. And then occasionally they invite people to come with them. And Carol met me at a camp meeting in Brisbane, And she invited me to come with them. And I said, "Well, I have a deal with God." 'Cause I'm a storyteller and I get invited to go places all the time. And my deal with God is He pays the way. Because that slows down the amount of invites that get approved of. And it also lets me know that God really wants me to go there. So I said to her, "So if God wants me to come, He'll find a way. I'll start talking to people." And she said, "I will too." And about 2 years later, she pops up on Facebook and she says, I have somebody who will sponsor your trip to Kenya. I'd almost forgotten about her. And I said, Kenya? Really? And she said, yes, they want to— they'll pay for your ticket and they're going to pay for your time there and we're going to plan it together. And so we started planning what we would do. And the idea of what we came up with is that we would go— there was one little village that there was a man there who rescued children from slavery and from other horrible things that are happening to young girls particularly, and being forced to get married too young and other things were or worse than that. And this man rescues them and then brings them to his house, Joseph's his name, and then he takes them to school when school is on. And then she also wanted me to go to an actual school, an Adventist school that had been started some years later after she met Joseph. And this one by a man named Nestor, who was actually a Rwandan, but lived in Kenya, is a Rwandan living in Kenya. But during the Rwandan genocide, He was an orphan for 1 year because when his parents ran from what was coming, they lost him. And it was such a huge crowd that he went one direction and they went another direction, and it was a year before it was safe enough to come home. And when he came home, his parents were there. And so he had a real heart for orphans. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about his story later as well. But Carol and Leon invited me to come over and just to tell Bible stories to the kids, to tell them about Jesus. And When I got there, I noticed that it wasn't just the kids that were coming to— they were walking long distances to come to the meetings, but it was their parents as well. And so the second day, we shifted it to be more about parents and kids as well, but stories about kids and parents and that kind of thing. And— do I need to turn this on? There you go. And near the very end of the trip, when we went on that safari— oh, before I get to that, I just want to tell you She invited me to come to write a book. I said, "If you get a sponsor, I'll write a book about the trip for free. Books don't get published, but I'll write it anyway." And so I sent it to Signs after I wrote it, didn't get published. Sent it to Pacific Press, and they said, "We can't afford to publish that. We know—" This is a sad statement. "We know how missionary stories sell, and we can't sell enough of them for it to make a profit." And I said, "How many would I have to buy for it to be even on the profit margin?" And they said, "Oh, that's a good question. We'll get back to you." So they gave us a number of books, and it was over 1,000. There was two levels, 1,000 and 1,500, and then we could buy more if we wanted. So I told Carol, and she said, "Okay, we'll buy 1,000." So these are free for a donation, okay? I'm not— the books are not— there's no cost on them. If you buy them from the ABC, there is, but if you buy— if you get them from me, it's just because you've said to me, either you've given me a donation and I'll make it later this afternoon, or you've said to me, "I will make a donation," and you'll use that website right there. And they have a fantastic little "help us" thing there where you can choose the way you want to make a donation. It's the stories I'm telling today plus a lot more stories about the trip. It's a spiritual travel journal about my time in Kenya. So the trip finished with the safari. And as we were on the safari, the safari guide said on the second day, "Today you will see a kill, I can promise you." And it was because we had followed a lion that didn't have its mane yet, but it was a male, it was a young male. And we'd followed him and he had stalked a gazelle and it was about to happen and the gazelle got away. And then we watched the lion kind of just pad off sadly. And then he said that, "I promise you, you'll see a kill." And I said, "How do you know?" And he said, "I can see the dust." And on the horizon there was dust and it was wildebeest. And he said, "They're coming to the river, the lion, he's walking towards the river, he sees the dust as well." I promise you, you will see a kill. So we went and we sat in a secret place, and the lion went and he sat in a secret place, and I zoomed in on— this is a separate photo, but he's actually sitting in the grass, and as we drove past him behind here, all the animals are used to the tourists, they just ignore you. So we drove right past him, he's hiding behind this grass looking down at these water buffalo, and there's nobody here yet, actually, when he first gets there, and I take that photo, and I blew it up so you could see where he was. And as he was sitting there, and as we pulled in and we started watching, the wildebeest started showing up on the other side of the river. And the driver was very excited. Carol was not excited. Carol said, "I don't want to see anything die." And I said, "Carol, you're in Africa. We're on a safari. This is the peak. We saw all the animals. That's the penultimate. We're at the ultimate now. We get to see nature do its thing." She said, "I don't want to see anything die." And Courtney, who was the photographer on the trip, she said the same thing. "No, I don't want to see anything die either." Leon, he's wiser than me, he's just quiet. He doesn't say what he wants. And we watch as this is happening, it's unfolding, and as the wildebeests are getting closer and the lion's getting stiffer behind the bushes and the driver's getting more and more excited and he's telling us, suddenly the driver shifts his whole attitude and he goes, "Oh no, the bullies are here." And Carol says, "What do you mean, the bullies?" He said, "See the water buffalo coming down the middle of the river?" They're gonna come right across, and this is what you're seeing here. They're gonna come right across, they smell him, they smell the lion hiding there. They're gonna come right across and they're gonna walk right up and they're gonna scare him away so that he doesn't get any lunch. And sure enough, that's exactly what they did. The lion, he saw them, he let them get almost to him and then he jumped up and he ran away. And he walked past our 4x4 and kind of just looked at us like, "Bad day at the office." and kept walking. So as we were driving through the rest of the safari, Carol starts spiritualizing. I'm sure you do this too when things happening. It happened and she goes, "Isn't the Holy Spirit just like that water buffalo? God sees the bad things that are gonna happen. The Holy Spirit comes in and he drives the devil away. And you know, the Bible says the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, but not when the Holy Spirit's there, not when he's on our side." And he comes in and he swoops in and he, and he scares away the evil so that no one has to die. And I was sitting in the back, I always play the devil's advocate, Facebook has ruined me about being nice. You always look for the opposite. And so I said, "Well, what about when that doesn't happen, Carol?" And she said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, why are we in Africa? We're in Africa because that doesn't always happen. Who does God love the most?" And she said, "Children." And I said, "And we're here because children aren't being protected." Children are being caught and taken into— they're being taken and stolen from their parents into slavery. Children are being sold into marriage at a tiny, at a very young age. Children are being abused, and we're here to try to help them. And she said, "Yeah, that's true." And she said, "So what's the answer?" And I said, "Well, I agree with you. I think the Holy Spirit does sometimes. Angels do sometimes do miracles, but there's more to the story." And so we talked about it, and as we were talking about it for the rest of the trip back to Kenya, We reflected on the trip. This is Joseph, and Joseph rescued this little boy, Angelo. And Angelo is the best story that I have from Kenya because it's the one I can tell to an audience of any age, because most of the stories about the kids that have been rescued are horrible stories. Where those kids were taken from are very, very sad and destructive places. But Angelo His was horrible too, but it wasn't violent. Angelo was sold. As a 2-year-old, he was sold to be a slave. And so he worked for— worked for this rich man who had 4 sons of his own, but he wanted them to go to school. To go to school, they had to go to boarding school. If they're at boarding school, they can't look after his cattle. And all the cattle are looked after by young boys in Kenya that haven't gone to school yet. So he buys Angelo when he's just 2 and a half years old. He starts looking after this man's cattle. Walking around with his stick. And amazingly, the cattle in Kenya, and I think in all of Africa, they obey the stick. So anybody can be holding the stick. If the stick comes towards them, the cattle will obey. So little Angelo is looking after this rich man's sheep, and Joseph gets a phone call saying, "I've found— we've found another little boy who's in slavery." And Joseph said, "What's his name?" Angelo. "Where is he?" They gave him directions. He said, "I'll make some phone calls," and he always verifies that it's true. And he made some phone calls, and he found out that Angelo was now 5 years old, Angelo had been in slavery for the last 2.5 years of his life. And so Joseph said, "I will go." So Joseph, and he's telling me this story, Joseph could speak English and he translated for me for everyone else that was in his village. But he told me, "So I said, 'I will go,' and I started walking. But when I got close to the man's house, I stopped using the road because this man lived a very long ways down a dirt track with other houses on the side. And if I walked past any of those, they would call him." So I walked through the jungle, and I've just told you a little bit about the jungle, but there's all kinds of scary animals out there. And he said, "And I walked through the jungle at night so that nobody would see me." And I said, "Whoa, what do you mean you walked through the jungle at night? What about the lions and the water buffalo and the rhinoceros?" Which is evidently the most dangerous to walk past at night because they smell you and they just charge. And he said, "Oh no, no, it's okay. I just use a giraffe and I go through." And I said, "You rode a giraffe?" And he goes, "No, where do you get this idea? You cannot ride a giraffe, Dave Edgren." And I said, "I said, that's what I thought, but you just said you use a giraffe. How do you use a giraffe?" And he said, "The giraffe respects the stick the same way the cow respects the stick. And so if I walk towards the giraffe with my stick, he walk away. And so I push him in the way I want to go. But if he smells," and he has very big nose, he smells very good, "if he smells anything that he doesn't like," He pushes back against me, he goes around, and I let him do that, and he goes around. So I use a giraffe. I said, wow. And I said, so how far was it? He said, it was about 35 kilometers that I had to walk in and about 35 kilometers to walk out. I said, you walked 35 kilometers in one night? He said, oh, and back. And I said, 70 kilometers in one night. And I Googled it later, and you know the fast speed walkers, they've got legs shorter than Joseph's too, but they walk at about 14 kilometers an hour. Kilometers an hour. So he must have been able to do it. But he said— and I said, "So you walked 70 kilometers in one night?" And he does this to me, "Is this a long ways for you, David?" I say, "Yes, that's a long ways for me, Joseph." I do not walk 70— I don't even like driving 70 kilometers, takes some planning. And so he walks in, he uses a draft, he gets there, he sits down next to little Angelo, and he wakes him up because he's asleep under a bush. And he said it was hard to find him the first time, but he saw the cattle and they're in a pen at night, but Angelo's not in the house, he's under a bush. And Joseph realized the stories are true. He sits down and he wakes up Angelo. Angelo absolutely panics because he thinks this is a grown-up, they only hurt me, this guy's here to hurt me. And he says, "Don't hurt me, I didn't do anything." And he said, "No, no, I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to help you, I'm here to rescue you." And he said, "What is rescue?" And he said, "I'm going to take you," to a school where you'll get an education and where they will feed you 3 meals every day and you'll have a place to live with a roof over your head and there'll be other children. And he said, no, I don't want to go to this place. And he said, why? And he said, other children, they do not like me and they throw rocks at me and sticks at me and they call me horrible names. And 5 years old and he's already, he's scared of other kids because he's been bullied. And so Joseph says, that's okay, Angelo, there's actually grown-ups there who are, and the kids won't treat you like that because they've been taught by the grown-ups who are there to be nice and the grown-ups will protect you. Protect you, and if anything like that does happen, it will stop once a grown-up knows because they will take care of you. And he said, grown-ups don't like me either. Said, they throw things at me too, and they yell at me, and they hit me if I get close enough. And Joseph remembered how he reacted when he sat down next to him, and he said, well, let me tell you some stories about school. So Joseph told him stories for an hour or so, and then he could see the sun was starting to rise, and he thought— or the light was coming— he thought, I better get out of here. So he said, "Well, you gonna come with me?" And he said, "No, I'm staying here." And Joseph said, "Well, I didn't come to kidnap you, I came to rescue you. I'll be back." And Joseph got up and he walked back through and he went out to the nearest local village and he started talking to people about little Angelo. And they said, "Oh yeah, the little thief, we know him. He comes into town and he steals whatever he can get his hands on. So yes, we throw things at him. Yes, we hit him. Yes, we yell at him. He's a thief." And he said, "What about the children?" He says the children are mean to him too. "Well, yes, he's very strange. He yells and screams at people when they get too close to him, and he acts very violent towards people. And so the kids, they throw things to keep him away." And Joseph, "Ah." So the next night— so he stayed in the town one day, and then the next night he walked back in, used a giraffe, got there, sat down next to him, and woke him up. And asked him again, "Would you like to go where there will be some friends, some kids who will be nice to you, not like kids at the waterhole, and the adults will be nice to you?" And he told him more stories about when he went to school and how much fun it was and what it's like to learn and what it's like to eat cooked food. And at the end of the night, he said, "Will you come with me?" And he said, "No, I stay here." And Joseph walked back out. He did that 5 times. The 5th night, so 2 weeks now have gone by that he's been coming in and visiting this little boy, he says to Angelo at the end, "So will you come with me?" And Angelo says, "When you say that they will be my friends, do you mean they will be like you?" And he said, "Yes." And Joseph had realized it earlier on, but he was glad to see Angelo actually understood now what a friend was, because he'd never had one. And when I tell this to kids at schools, I challenge them right then, and this part of the story is where I stop and I say, "So go and be a friend." We think friends, yeah, sure. Some people don't think that. Some people don't have a real friend and they don't know what it's like to be a friend because they've never had a friend. So little Angelo said, "I will come with you on one condition, if you will bring me back here if I don't like it." And Joseph smiled and said, "Okay, I'll bring you back if you don't like it." So they went back out, they snuck through the jungle, and Joseph got him to a school. And he'd had him at school for about 3 days when the principal called. Do you think the principal called to say, "This Angelo boy, he's an amazing student. He's just so good with—" No. He called to say, "This kid cannot be taught. This kid can't sit still. He can't obey instructions. He just takes whatever he wants from other kids. He takes food from all over when it's not even time to eat." And Joseph, he said, "And you have to come and get him. Take him away." And Joseph said, "Can I try something else?" And he said, "I'll come." So first he said, "I'll come." And he got there and then he said to the principal, "Can I try something else? Can I sit next to him?" and teach him how to be a student. And he said, "Pfft, if you want to, but if he does one thing bad while you're here or after you leave—" Joseph said, "It's okay." So Joseph sat with him for 3 weeks. Joseph the grown-up went to school with Angelo, the 6-year-old by then, and Angelo learned how to be a little boy. He learned how to go to school and he learned how to do well. And when I was there in Kenya, he was in grade 6 and he was about 12, I think, 13, and he was the third in his class. So he— amazing. It's amazing what a little bit of love and friendship can do to bring someone to a safe place. So Angelo didn't like— he didn't like me. It wasn't that he didn't like me, he just didn't understand me because he had two things against me. One, I was white, and he didn't see many white people around there that were just Carol, Leon, Courtney and me that he'd ever seen that were white, and we just showed up. And so I was a mzungu. Mzungu means white person. And the second thing was I was really big. And in their culture, when you're really big, it means— well, it might mean a couple things, but it means one thing: you have a lot of power, and you have all the money, and you have all the food, and you don't share it with anyone. And so he knew that I was dangerous because I was big and I had power, and all the other people around must be afraid of me too because they're just braver than him, but because I'm a big Mazungu. And so he would get about maybe as close as I am to Travis here, and he would go, "Big Mazungu," and then he would run away. And then he would test his bravery again, "Big Mazungu." And this picture, I don't have it on this slide, I have one picture of him getting Pretty close, maybe almost a little closer than Travis, and he's leaning forward and his mouth's open like this. And I know what he's saying, he's saying, "Big mzungu." And for him, I got a photo with all the kids that Joseph has rescued and his own kids, but— and I'm in the middle. And there's one kid not in the photo. And when I do this story with kids, I say, "So who's missing from the photo?" And they say, "Angelo." And I say, "Why is Angelo missing from the photo?" And the kids all yell, "Big Mazungu!" You know, 'cause I've been playing it up for a bit by the time I get there. But when— I learned a lot of things when I went into their culture. I learned that every single one of the people, just like here we all have a story, there they have a story, but it's very different, most likely, than our story. This is Lakini, and when we were in the 4th day of doing storytelling at Joseph's house and in his village, Lakini and his grandfather showed up, and Joseph saw them, and he invited them to come up to the house afterwards. They had built a special mud hut just for us to live in while we were there. So we were in the mud hut and Joseph said to Carol, this is the boy I was telling you about, Lekini was the only one of his 3 brothers still alive because something had happened between Lekini's parents and these men and they had killed his parents and then they had found where the boys were and they'd come in at night and they'd killed them with machetes. They thought they'd killed them all. But with Lakini, they'd hit him on the head and he had a big cut on his head and on the arm, he had a big slash still, a big scar. And they attacked him and Joseph heard, he got the message that it happened and he got a van, it was a taxi van, and they rushed there and they picked up this little boy and Joseph said, "I had to hold his hair on the top of his head because his scalp was so wounded. And so I was holding him together and we drove to one hospital, they said, 'Too much, we can't do anything.'" So he drove to another hospital and they said, "Yes, we have the blood we need for him here." And he said, "And somehow God did a miracle in his life and Lekini lived." And he said, "So Lekini," his grandfather is saying, "Oh, Lekini didn't speak for 3 years after that." So this, by the time we met him, was 4 or 5 years after it had happened, and Lekini was starting to speak to his grandfather, and he was able to speak to Joseph and his— sorry, it was his uncle. And his uncle said, "Lekini, I believe Lekini is ready for school." because he can communicate now, but I don't think that— well, I know that I can't afford to send him to school. And so Carol, just right then, she just said, "I know, we don't have any money yet." And she always says, "We have to have a sponsor first, and then we take a new child." But when she— she's like, "This is the boy. We have to take him. We have to find a place for him." And so she got out the paperwork, and she starts filling it out, and she said, "What is his English name?" And Joseph says to— and translates it, And he comes back, he doesn't have one. And she said, "Well, for the schools, they all require an English name as well. Just tell him to choose one." And so Lakini looks over at me, looks at his grandfather after it's been translated for him, and he talks, and his grandfather says, "He would like to have the same name as David so that one day he can teach people about Jesus too." And I was, sorry, it's just really weird, you know, you hear, you get to name your own children, but they don't get to choose your name. And knowing that there's a little boy in Kenya right now going to school and who's had such a different story than me growing up, but is now able to be educated and able to be fed and able to be loved and learn about Jesus, and he's got my name. And that's, that's very rewarding. So that's Joseph's story. Well, one of the many of Joseph's stories. So as Carol and I are bouncing along with Courtney and, and, and Leon, and we're talking about this idea of why do babies Why do bad things still happen if God— Jesus died on the cross, that was supposed to end suffering, wasn't it? Wasn't his victory over death, his victory over sin, wasn't that supposed to, you know, sin was defeated at the cross, death was defeated at the grave when he walked out, and Jesus is alive. And so shouldn't we be without fear, without abuse, without slavery? Shouldn't we be living in a place of God's power all the time. And I said to Carol, you know, before Jesus came to the earth, there were people waiting for him to come. And she knew this, but I said, there were these prophecies about the Messiah who would come, and there were lots of stories about the Messiah because Jesus actually comes to earth twice. The first time he came, it was to die for us and to be resurrected so that we know we have conquered— we don't have to fight sin. Sin's been beaten for us at the cross. We don't have to be afraid of death because death's been conquered at the grave when Jesus came out. That's why he He came the first time. The second time He comes is this reigning King who sets up a kingdom on the earth and everything starts over and everything is made fresh and there's no more death and no more dying and no more suffering. And what happened to these people who were looking for Jesus and, and were reading all these prophecies about the Messiah coming, they combined both stories. And so they were looking for a king with power that was gonna conquer. And when Jesus showed up, He was nothing like that. And so a lot of, well, certainly all the rich people and all the spiritual leaders completely discounted Jesus, but the disciples were following along with him and they're not too sure about Jesus either because he's so different. And they ask him questions about that every once in a while. Even John the Baptist said, "Can you go and ask him if he's really the one? 'Cause I'm in prison and I thought when I came, you know, when he came that things were gonna be different, but did I get it wrong or did I get it right?" And Jesus said, "Go and tell him what you see. People are being healed, people are being, raised from the dead. People blind can see, deaf can hear, lame people can walk again. Go and tell him the things you see. And John was not the only person with questions. Lots of people had questions because they were all looking for a God of power to send a Messiah, uh, and a reigning king of power. And so when Jesus— Jesus was like, he was like an elephant walking through the streets of Jerusalem. And nobody saw him because they weren't looking for that kind of elephant. They weren't looking for an elephant at all. They were looking for a lion, you know, that could defeat the king of the Lion of Judah. They were looking for, you know, something powerful. But Jesus is walking through as the Messiah coming the first time, ready to conquer sin and death for everyone, and they don't notice him. We do the same thing with our children now. Somehow we have let, and I was saying this to Carol, we have let the story of what God did for us in Jesus become, and so now we should see God's power everywhere. And people preach this and they teach it to their kids that God is all-powerful, that God will destroy evil if it rises in your life, that God will protect you. And while it's true that at times the Holy Spirit does miracles and the angels come and do miracles, it's not the norm on this earth yet because This Messiah hasn't come the second time. When Jesus came, it was Satan who acted like a lion. He grabbed Jesus and like a lion that prowls and roars, and he drove his nails into Jesus' hands and feet and fixed him to the cross. Like a crocodile, Satan came up from underneath and grabbed Jesus and he took him into a death roll. Because you know, Jesus didn't come the first time. As a king. He didn't come as an elephant stomping his way through the earth. He didn't come as a crocodile wading and defeating evil. He didn't come as a lion attacking and destroying evil. He came— believe it or not, in this scenario, Jesus came as one of us. Jesus came as a wildebeest, and he entered the waterhole with us, and he walked through with us, and he was the first one that faced the second death, and he was grabbed and by the crocodile, the devil. He was pulled under, he was spun, he was drowned, he was defeated, he was nailed up to the cross, and he died for us as one of us. And then it was revealed that he really was who he said he was. The Father and I are one. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I give you a new command, Jesus said. Love one another just as I have loved you, you must also love 'By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.' The defining attribute of God is not power, but love. His power is powerful, but it lives within the confines of his love. And right now, he's allowing the freedom of choice in a sinful world to show what it's really like, 'cause that's what Satan said. Let me receive the worship. Let people receive worship on themselves, and then when people realize how glorious they actually are and how glorious I actually am, they won't need you anymore, God. And it's not working, is it? It's not working out very well for that theory. The wages of sin is death, but the gift— because he offers it— the gift of God is eternal life. These are some of the kids that we rescued while I was there. I want to finish by telling you a story about Amos. Amos was the very first— I'd like to invite the singers and the musicians to come forward as I tell this story. Amos was the very first— this is, this is Nestor. I'm gonna skip over his story this morning, but you can read it in the book. Amos was the very first child that Carol and Leon adopted that they started putting through school in Kenya. And when Amos was just a boy, 7 or 8 years old, he started school sponsored by Carol and Leon, and then he wanted to go to university. And so he went to university. He was a very bright student, and so he studied mathematics and statistics at university in Kenya. And then he graduated and he says to Carol and Leon, "I can't find a job anywhere." Well, I'm not sure what you're supposed to do with degrees in mathematics and statistics in Kenya. But yeah, there he was thinking, "I think I'll just go on and do further education because then I can work in hospitals or I can be a— work in offices in the city." 'Um, but I, I need to get a master's or a PhD first. Um, but to do that, I need somebody who will make me their apprentice.' And they, they have a different word for it— their, um, attachment— that I, I need an attachment. And, um, and, and they said, 'So what is that?' And he said, 'Someone that will train me, someone that will take me under their arm and be my guide.' And I, I go to university which Carol and Leon said they would pay for, but I also have to have this person that teaches me as well, as a mentor. And they said, "Where in the world are we gonna find someone like that?" So this is a picture from the boarding house there where we stayed in Eldoret, and they make beautiful food every morning and evening for lunch and— for breakfast and dinner, and Amos came to see them because he knew they would be there. The next day after I took this photo of them, I came in for breakfast and I was alone. Carol and Leon hadn't come in yet, but there was a man sitting on his laptop, and he was a Kenyan man, and he was by himself. There's lots of other places to sit, but I was there to get stories. So I came over to him and said, "Do you mind if I sit with you?" And he said, "No, please sit." So I sat down and I said, "What's your name?" He said, "Hezbon." And I said, "I'm Dave." And we talked for a little bit, and I said, "So what do you do, Hezbon?" And he said, "Oh, I work at the hospital." And I said, "Oh, you're a doctor?" He said, "No, no, no." And he said, "Nurse?" I'm trying to get a story, you know? And he's like, "No, I'm not a nurse." I said— I didn't want to say janitor. I'm like, "What do you do?" Because he's working away, he says he's doing work for his work in the hospital. I said, "So what do you do at the hospital? Do you work at the hospital here in Eldoret?" "No, I work in the hospitals in all of Kenya. I travel from one hospital to the next hospital." And I said, "What do you do?" And you could see he'd been asked this, and he's like, "How do you explain this to a person who doesn't do it?" He said, "Okay, look." I go and I ask them how much medicine they've used. They tell me how much in the last year. I write that down and I look at how much they said last year that they would need, and then I tell them how much I think they need for next year based on how much they've used, and they tell me how much they need, and then the government decides how much they need. And I said, so you— what did you study to do that? He said, I did a double major. You know it, don't you? In mathematics and statistics. And I said, you have got to be kidding. There's only been 2 Kenyans in this room in the last 2 days, and it's Amos and Hesbon. And I then— just Carol and Leon came in then, and I said, um, I told him just before they come in, I said, there was a boy in here yesterday— well, a young man in here who's just finished university, done very well in mathematics and statistics, just like you, and he's looking for an attachment, but he, he doesn't know where to find one. And he hit the table He's like, "I am looking for an attachment!" He was having as much trouble as Amos. And so I said, "Well, you've got to meet Carol and Leon." And they walked in, and I said, "Carol, Leon, you need to talk to Hezbon. He's looking for a statistical attachment." And they both just like, eyes lit up, and they sat down. And as Leon was organizing things with Hezbon, who called Amos later that day and offered him a full attachment, Carol looks across and she meets my eyes and she says, "This happens all the time." And what I want to challenge you guys with today is not to leave here and say, "I want to go sponsor children in Africa." That's wonderful if God's put that on your heart. I want you to do what Carol did and say, "I want to go to the place where God does that all the time." And He's made you in a special way. He's created you with special gifts and special abilities, and you know the thing that really fires you up. And you know sometimes there's no money in it, but God knows if he's shaped you that way, if he's given you those gifts, he's just waiting for you to say, "Here am I, Lord, use me." And I would challenge you to do that. Step forward in faith with God and allow yourself to have that moment where you say, "God does this all the time."