sitting, waiting, wishing.

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hey all! today is the day that i fly out to kenya and endure 21 hours of fly-time to live in kenya for four months. and while i'm not there yet and am anxiously sitting in the comfort of puyallup i wanted to post the letter i sent out to many of you. it includes why i'm doing what i'm doing and what it is i hope to find there. here ya go...


To my friends and family,

I pray that this letter finds of all you renewed and encouraged these hot summer months and that the rest of this season brings peace and relationship to your lives. It’s with great love that I write to you because it is you who have so deliberately chosen to love me. You’ve laughed with me and prayed with me and welcomed me into your home and it’s because of this renewing love that I share with you, my family, my absolute excitement for what’s coming this fall. This fall, from August 31st to December 27th, I’ll be living in Nairobi, Kenya. I’ll be spending these four months with a group called Fadhili Helpers living with a host family, working in a Nairobi based HIV/AIDS clinic, delivering anti-retroviral therapy medications to the HIV infected around East Africa and teaching HIV/AIDS preventative education in classrooms.
Now, because this is a stock program description for the work I’ll be doing, I want to share with you the reason why I’m going to Kenya and what it is I hope to do in that part of the world. I’ll be spending four months in East Africa this fall prayerfully looking for God, searching for the Lord of healing and of hope in a place of brokenness and of need. In 2004, the World Health Organization reported an estimated 12 million AIDS orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa and projected that number to reach 20 million by 2010. It is to this absolute catastrophic loss of life and basic human rights that I believe, along with Bono, that our generation will be judged not by the war in the Middle East or by what we listened to on our iPods but by how we dealt with the AIDS crisis in Africa. I also believe that while we have yet to solve this problem, it is our God who has made Himself overwhelmingly known throughout this crisis, meeting need with provision and hunger with satisfaction in Him. That is why I travel to Kenya. I go to find a God of adoption and of blessing and of life because too often I have failed to recognize my own need for a Redeemer and a Savior and a Lord.
I’m going to Kenya also because I believe that Christ’s Church extends beyond the buildings and boundaries of the United States. I believe that the blood of Christ transcends class, race, nationality, and other allegiances to unite the people of God in One Body and in One Love. I journey to Kenya because of and for that very holy truth: that Christ’s Body was and is intended to move as one. My prayer is that where there is need in Kenya God may rise up His Church and meet that need with our ability here in the States. In my limited experience I’ve seen the religious institution of the church walk divided and with a pretty bad limp, concerned more with believing the right thing than sharing Jesus to those who need Him. It is my hope however that the Lord will somehow use me and all of you as the remedy for His church; that through you and I a limping and bruised church with a little “c” will transform into the strength and ability of the Church with a big “C”. That is why I’m going to Kenya.
Finally, I’m going to Kenya because, in Mark’s gospel account, Jesus touched the leper (Mark 1:40-45). Most of us remember the story as the time when Jesus healed the leper, but I think that what matters most about this story isn’t that Jesus healed the leper but rather that Jesus touched a leper, because no one wanted to touch a leper. This is why I’ll be living in Africa. I’m going to Kenya prayerfully, as Christ’s hands and His feet, to touch the HIV/AIDS untouchables because Christ first touched a leper like me.
I share with you this grace-led hope for my journey because it is your love and your prayers that have brought me to this place of eager anticipation. Those very prayers and your amazing ability to love me have directed my life thus far toward a Creator of healing, of discipleship, and of freedom and it’s because of your hand in my life that I prayerfully seek your counsel and wisdom. I’ve included with this letter a list of specific prayers for before, during, and after my time in Kenya. I ask that you and your family, whoever that may be, purpose to pray over Kenya, God’s children there, and my relationship to them at least once a week. As I believe in not the inability of the created but rather the ability of the Creator, let’s you and I start praying expectantly that God heal Kenya and that somehow, in His infinite grace, He use someone like me to be and learn from and teach with His love there.
Thank you for your continuous love and support. While I’m in Kenya I’ll be keeping an online travel journal that I fully intend and look forward to you reading. The website address for that is http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/krogers/. Also, feel free to shoot me an email at [e-mail] but know that it might be a while before I get back to you. As I journey to Kenya, may we both be reminded that as God takes care of the lilies and the sparrows, so too will He take care of both you and I. Praise Him for this!

Peace and Grace to you
Kyle Rogers

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