What a Few Soccer Balls Can Do

This story begins 2 years ago on our Buckner vision trip to Kenya when Naomi took a few small balls to give to the children we would see. They were the type that if you bounced them, they would bounce high. We're talking small balls, about 1 inch in diameter. But instead of bouncing them after we gave them to the children, they placed them on the ground and started kicking them like soccer balls (or football as they and the rest of the world calls it). Fast forward a few months. Todd Pridemore, Minister of Recreation and Outreach for Memorial Baptist Church, asked Naomi what they do as a mission project for the 2008 Upward Basketball program. Naomi, remembering what had happened with the small balls, suggested giving soccer balls. She was thinking a few balls, but by the end of the season every team had collected at least one ball and had the children sign them. In total, they collected 46 balls! Also, Christian Chapel Academy had donated about 50 small Upward Soccer balls. In order to transport that many to Kenya, they had to be deflated. We took them to the Seed of Hope orphanage where Terry Dykes, one of our team members, used a few of them in recreational games during our VBS with the children. Phil Brinkmeyer, a Dallas Buckner employee, and Dickson Masindano, a Kenya Buckner employee, were leaving so that Dickson could show Phil around, this being Phil's first trip to Kenya. Since they were using Dickson's truck to get around, Naomi suggested to Phil that he take about half of the balls to give to other children. Phil thought this was a good idea and was more than happy to be able to distribute them to the various places they were going. Phil later joined us on our Masai Mara safari. Phil told the story about the balls and we were spellbound. Later, as we discussed the story, we said that we had to tell others. But if we told it, it would be second hand. Naomi suggested that we video Phil telling the story. We approached him and at first he wasn't sure. After much thought, he agree to be videoed. The following is his story.
I videod Phil while at the lodge and Phil later provided the photos and the short embedded video clips. My son, Michael, a film editing major in college, put it all together.

Art in the Park

You just never know who you will meet. While browsing around at the annual "Art in the Park", we happened into one photography booth. While looking around, I spotted a sign saying that proceeds would go towards a trip to Ethiopia in one month (but the month was striken, and above it was "week"). We made inquiries and learned that the couple (John's, I think that is his name, is in the picture on the flight to Kisumu) were going with a group from their church, First Baptist Church North Kansas City. They had an interesting story. They had a Kenyan women in their small group and so they planned a short term medical mission trip to Kenya. They contacted the denominational mission board and were told that their trip didn't fit what they did. Undaunted, they planned the trip any way on their own. This year they are going to Ethiopia, again planning the whole trip. We shared that we were going to Kenya and were partnering with Buckner. They seemed impressed and would look up the Buckner website that we gave them. We came away thankful for the Buckner organization and the opportunity to share what Buckner is doing in helping out in short term missions.

Seed of Hope

Buckner sent out it's e-newsletter today and it had an article about the "Seed of Hope" orphanage in Kitale where we will be staying and working with the children. Buckner took over administration of the orphanage this last January. Here's the website for "Seed of Hope": click here . It tells quite a bit. There's a page that tells of the history and a video page which has 2 videos. You'll notice there's quite a bit of German on the page. That's because the couple who founded the "Seed of Hope" orphanage is from Germany. It's good to learn the history and to see where we will be going.

What Now?

It took me a while, but I finally got our "What Now" video posted. Thanks to Dave Irovic at our chuch for putting it together. Most of these are Naomi & my pictures that we took on our Vision trip to Kenya in May 2006 with Buckner to see the work they were doing. We knew before we left that we had to do something with this song of Stephen Curtis Chapman. It spoke to what we would be doing.

More video of the misison conference in Dallas

Here are 2 more videos that I recorded. The first is of Dickson Masindano talking about recent events in Kenya. The second is panel discussion of various of Buckner mission directors around the world. Dickson responds to questions posed by Randy Daniels, Buckner Vice President of Global Initiatives.

Geoff Moore video

Naomi & I saw this video at the Buckner Founder's Day last Friday night. We also got to hear Geoff Moore sing. Geoff is a contemporary Christian singer that made a Buckner mission trip to Guatemala this last year and is now a supporter of Buckner efforts.

Dallas

Naomi and I spent the weekend in Dallas. We had heard about the Go.Be.Do. Buckner missions converence (http://www.buckner.org/gobedoconference/), but had decided not to go. But we heard that Dickson Masindano was going to be there to present. We knew that it would be good if we met with him concerning the trip. So, we contacted Julie Schiefer, our Buckner trip representative, and she set up a lunch date with Dickson, Scott Collins, herself, and ourselves. It was time well spent. We were able to go over a number of details that would have been hard to for us to go over had we not met face to face. Additionally, we were able to renew our acquaintence with him and to see what a joy it will be to work with him. Also, it was great to meet Julie. We will be working closely with Julie as the trip date nears and on the trip itself. And, of course, it's always good to see Scott again. This is also probably the busiest week of the year for Scott, but he took time to be with us. You see, not only was the mission's conference on Saturday, but the annual Founder's Day banquet and a quarterly trustees meeting on Friday. We got to see Dickson present at the mission's conference and see him singled out for his work in Kitale at the Founder's Day banquet. I hope to be able to show video on that later.

Congratulations to Dickson

We found out the Dickson Masindano is receiving an award. This is the Hardin-Simmons University 2008 Young Alumni. Dickson is the director of Buckner Kenya and was with Naomi and myself on our trip to Kenya in May 2006. We enjoyed every moment with him. He was a great help to us. Hardin-Simmons is a Baptist university in Abilene, Texas, where Dickson went to school. Here is the URL to the university's website that talks about the award: http://www.hsutx.edu/news/FAF/story/970.html.

Here's another link, this time on Buckner's website: http://www.buckner.org/enews-kenyadirhonored.shtml

Congratulations.

More good news

We just heard from Julie, our Buckner representative, that Buckner has decided to go ahead and have mission trips to Kenya this summer, unless, of course, something else comes up. But that could have happened at any point in time. Julie will be going on the trip with us. This is exciting news. Now we can focus on the mission at hand.

UPDATE: Ken Hall's blog for the 29th confirms this: http://bucknerprez.typepad.com/ken_hall/2008/02/may-god-bless-k.html

Seed of Hope Children's Home in Kitale

Buckner announced that on January 1st this year that they are taking over administration of the Seed of Hope Children's Home in Kitale, Kenya. This link is an article written by Scott Collins concerning this: http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=7276

Most likely our teams will be working with these children in addition to the foster children in Kitale.

Prayers for Kenya

My heart is sad as I continue to hear of the problems in the country of Kenya. Please pray for peace. We will continue to plan our trip until we see that it is not possible to go. A lot can happen in seven months. We know Buckner will make the best decision for our safety. Here are few links where you can get more information. This one is to a blog that contains news from Sam Harroll, a CBF missionary in Kenya. http://africaexchange.org/KenyaNews%20.htm This is a site he recommended.
http://allafrica.com/kenya/

Buckner has been in contact with their Kenyan employees and at this point they are all safe. You can read Dr. Ken Hall's blog entries at http://bucknerprez.typepad.com/ken_hall/2008/01/hope-in-kenya.html
and
http://bucknerprez.typepad.com/ken_hall/2008/01/indigenous-insi.html
This link is to the Buckner newsletter.
http://www.buckner.org/enews-bucknerkenya.shtml

Naomi

More information from Ken Hall, President of Buckner

Check Dr. Hall's blog for his last 2 entries. The link to his blog is on the list of links on this page.

More News of Kenya from Buckner

http://www.buckner.org/enews-bucknerkenya.shtml

news from Kenya

I'm sure you've all heard the news about the unrest in Kenya since there elections. We are not sure what it will all mean to us, but be assured that Buckner is monitoring the situation very closely. Here's a link to the blog of Ken Hall, President of Buckner.
http://bucknerprez.typepad.com/ken_hall/