Greetings from warm and sunny Kenya, where we are wrapping up our summer months and heading into the rainy season! We have enjoyed hearing all your stories from blizzards of biblical proportions and reminding us that during these months we live in polar opposite seasons!

It’s been a crazy couple of months since we’ve last written an update, so we wanted to catch you up with our lives, and thank you for praying for us and thinking of us.

Click to watch the short film: North Africa

North Africa

Andy had the opportunity to lead the OFM team to North Africa last month. He and the team lived inside an ancient medina for 2 weeks and served the local platforms there with media: web, photography, filmaking. Click the photo to the right to watch a short film the team produced for the workers there.

Click here to read more about Andy’s trip there, and the rapidly deteriorating situation for Christian workers there. For the password to the post, please contact us.

Click to see photos from family trip to Olepishet

Olepishet

A tiny village in Masai land has captured our hearts, through Lesa‘s January trip there with our school’s Cultural Field Studies, and last week our whole family went to spend a few days doing life and ministry with our new Masai friends. We are continuing to process how we might be involved in an ongoing way with this community.

From Lesa’s blog post:

I’ve been trying to determine at which point the trip became more than I’d planned on – more than I thought it could be.  I went into it excited about time with the students but nervous about the unknown living conditions.  Particularly.. squatty potties, with which I was not yet an expert, despite my nearly three years of living in Africa.  Andy was glad for me to get out of Nairobi and see some more of up-country Kenya.  I guess I was glad for that too, in a sort of disengaged kind of way.  I certainly didn’t expect my life to be changed by the people of a small community called Olepishet.

Click here to continue reading “More Than I Though It Could Be”.

Breaking stuff

Between Andy and our 2 boys you can count 9 broken bones. Call it clumsiness or a daredevil spirit or a combination, but the Brown boys are known for breaking things. The past 2 months has been no exception.

Robert, on his Cultural Field Studies trip, broke his collarbone playing football (not soccer) just as the sun was setting on the 2nd day of this overnight trip and just as his dad was getting settled into North Africa. After a bumpy 2 hour ride back to Nairobi to the hospital, Rob met Lesa at the hospital here. Fortunately there wasn’t much to be done other than wrapping his shoulders back. By the time he saw Andy almost 2 weeks later he was climbing trees again.

Then, 2 weeks ago, Andy took quite a spill on his motorcycle. Not exactly his fault, but he now has a heightened sense of driving defensively. Fortunately nothing was broken, he or the bike, but he did ruin a favorite pair of pants and lose a bit of skin off his wrist, hip, and ankle. Praise God for his protection and sovereignty!

Coming up

We’ve got 1 big event coming up in the next month, and its name is Seussical: the High School’s spring musical, with a cast and crew even bigger than King and I, and even Andy is getting involved this time playing bass in the pit. The show is April 23-24, and April 29 through May 1, if you’re in town you won’t want to miss this.

We will also be traveling to the US this summer as Lesa’s sister and Andy’s sister are both getting married. Not to each other. Lesa and the kids will be flying out just as soon as school ends to catch Katie’s wedding at the beginning of June. Andy will meet up with them at the end of June so they can attend Emily’s wedding in July, and then the whole family will be traveling back to Kenya in time for school to start again.

Please pray for:

• Seussical: for the students involved and Lesa’s leadership, that the process of pulling together a big production will teach students important life skills and a love for the arts and how they can be used to glorify God.
• Our family‘s sanity during this final month of preparations for the show
• Andy’s safety on his daily commute on the motorcycle
• Andy’s leadership as he continues to lead the On-Field Media team in ministry across the continent, serving over 1000 missionaries and projects in more than 20 countries.
• Our family’s new Masai friends in Olepishet. Pray that we would be changed and affected first, by our relationships with them, and that patiently we would discern how we can be involved in blessing this community and getting involved in resourcing the local church there.
• Safety in Nairobi. The past couple months have been hard ones for many expats (foreigners, like us) here, with a marked increase in robberies and carjackings and violent crimes. We rest well knowing that the safest place to be is in the center of God’s will.

In Closing

We are privileged to partner with you for the sake of the God’s Kingdom. We are the extension of your hands and feet, all interconnected in this mystery of the body of Christ. We have such a unique role to play here in the kingdom, on the front lines of the kingdom, and we take that very seriously, as we do your support and love. Thank you for partnering with us, and we pray God multiplies your blessings.

In Christ,

Andy, Lesa, Robert, Avery, and Sydney Brown

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North African man

A Rendille man takes a break from his work to pull up his shirt and show me the teeth marks across his chest and back. The teeth, from a lion which nearly killed him as a young boy. His work now, as a bible translator, bringing the words of God to his people who have never had it.

A North African woman, covered from head to toe in traditional wrap, speaks quietly to me for fear of being overheard. Her story, of how Jesus came to her in a dream telling her to follow him. Her fear, of losing her family and possibly her life, if the community around her finds out of her decision to follow Him.

My good friend from Kibera, Wycliffe, smiles as he recounts his story. The panga (machete) scars across his arms serve as a constant reminder of his past: running in a gang, sniffing glue to numb the hunger pangs, sleeping in the street, and finally, coming into friendship with Christians who helped him get his feet on the ground and introduced him to Jesus.

These three stories are a small sample of the stories I get to capture every week. Stories of how God redeems people from all walks of life, all nations, all religions, to free them from their sin and bring them into His family. Stories of how He releases them from shame and provides new life to those who have lost everything in their former lives because of their decision to follow Him. Stories of how nothing: not lions, nor governments, nor armies of those opposed to His work can stand in His way in accomplishing His purposes.

My name is Andy and my family and I came to Africa just a year ago, to find and document these stories, and to make them known to the world. To make God known to the world and proclaim His glory, by declaring the marvelous things He has done and is doing here in Africa.

I love my job.

No, we haven’t, in case you’d wondered. Yes, we know we haven’t sent an email since March 5. No, it’s not because the rainy season knocked out the internet to all of east africa. Yes, it’s because we’re busy and sometimes lazy and forgetful, and often both at once. Consequently, since we skipped a month, we have a TON to tell you about!

During the past two months, we have moved to a transitional home on a AIM missionary compound. Also, Lesa had her wrist surgery which ended up being fairly significant and is taking a while to recover fully. Praise the Lord that it is doing better every day!

Overlooking Rift Valley

Mom & Dad

We began our journey over the past few months with the visit from Andy’s parents over Easter. We had a wonderful time with them, somehow squeezing in trips to Kibera, an overnight ride on the Lunatic Line (go rent “Ghost in the Darkness“), a few days at the beach, a move, visits to the Rift Valley and Kijabe, and a game drive. Read the full story here.

Filming in North Africa

On-Field Media

The OFM has been PDB (pretty darn busy) serving AIM throughout EA – East Africa (we are an organization that loves abbreviating).

Andy’s got a few more stamps in his passport, and some great photos and stories as well.

North African man

In March, Ted and I (Andy) went on a trip. We met some amazing national believers, some amazing Christian workers there, got spat on, rocks thrown at us, and all kinds of frontier-missionary kinds of stories to tell. Get our photos here, and read Ted’s story here.

Earlier this month, we went to northern coastal Mozambique, to work with a family there who are working among an unreached people group there. We flew about 3 hours to Pemba, drove 6 hours (way past the end of the paved roads!), and spent 2.5 days among the Mwani people there. Get photos here.

Mozambique hospital

We are very very excited that Tim Lang will be joining OFM as an intern this coming fall. The Lang family are great friends of ours, and we’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Tim quite well over the past 6 years at DCC. Tim will be spending his gap year with AIM, doing videography and traveling with OFM. Please pray for Tim as he is raising his support over the next few months.

Lesa’ Ministries

My involvement in the Inbound Program, which brings/receives/trains short-term and now also full-term missionaries from around the world to AIM International Services is growing and going well. I’m so grateful to now have a team of 3 others working with me and we are in prayer for the Lord to send us someone with administrative skills/time to lend to the work. It is such a blessing to introduce people to Kenya and to missionary life.

A new development for me (Lesa) was just finalized yesterday. I’m going to be volunteering as the high school drama director at a school similar to the Robbie and Avery’s school (yet larger and older). It has an international student population made up of Americans, Kenyans, British, Koreans, etc. Their current director is returning to the States and leaving behind a well-established program. We are excited about this as a family – to be involved heavily again in the lives of teens, have an outlet for our creativity, and to be involved in teaching/promoting the arts in this community where exposure to the arts can be limited.

Rehearsals will be 2 – 3 days a week after school and we’ll produce a play in the fall and a musical in the spring!! I’m seeing this as a move back to my original vision in college of teaching the fine arts on the mission field. Isn’t God incredible?

Avery & Sydney

The Kids

Robbie and Avery have one week left of school. They have both had an amazing year at West Nairobi School. We have been so impressed with the quality of teaching and how much the boys truly like school! Robbie will be going to summer camp for a week this summer, and all three kids will be attending VBS at their school for a week. Sydney has been doing some home-school preschool with Mommy at home. She loves learning and calls Lesa, “Teacher.” It’s so cute! All three kids have loved living on the compound, as there are many other children here and they run and play all day long.

How We Are Doing… Really

The past two months haven’t been the easiest, but things have been getting better. When we lost our last “permanent” home in April, the adjustment to living in yet another house, along with Lesa’s surgery, and some other random incidents, our spirits dipped pretty low. But, He has also remained faithful through it all. We’ve been learning more and more of His great love for us – even when we doubt and especially when we struggle. He has provided for us what we see as the just the right home to settle into (of course, permanence takes on a whole new meaning here). It is located near our old neighborhood, and is the home of some of our new friends who unfortunately are leaving the field. They have done some amazing improvements to it during their time here! We will be moving there in early June.

Robbie piloting the DC3

Support

It takes a miracle each and every month to keep us here. It’s really amazing and encouraging to us to see how God provides the $5500 each month that is required to live here. Thank you to all who have continued to give sacrifically.

Truthfully, we are slightly undersupported, as the support rate was raised this year in accordance with cost-of-living inflation… including the boys’ school tuition. We trust God to continue to provide. In addition, if we raise any extra monthly support, we would like to put Sydney in a Kenyan preschool here in the fall – we think she would greatly benefit from the social interaction – especially getting to know Kenyans. Some of you supported us abundantly last spring with a one-time check when we were leaving for the field. Would you prayerfully consider renewing your gift this year to help us continue our ministries here?

Also, thank you to all who have given to our vehicle project. We have almost paid for the 1973 Land Rover we agreed to purchase from the Delorenzos. You’ve provided $4500 of the $6500 we need to finish paying it off and making some necessary repairs (radiator, fuel tank, rear shock). If you’d like to give to this project, click here and type in our name, select “project” and enter “Vehicle” as the project name. Thank you!

Prayer requests

* AIM AIR incident: This past month, our AIM IS community had a shock when one of our planes crashed on take-off in Sudan. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt. We do ask for prayers for the pilot’s family, friends of ours, who are continuing to process the incident, and also for the several passengers who were on board. Full story here.

* Kenyan people: Following the election crisis, life here has certainly returned to some level of normalcy. However, food and gas prices have sky-rocketed and the poorest people have been affected the most. Please pray for the inflation to cease and for prices to lower.

* Our upcoming move – our 4th house here. (Enough said).

* Our support needs

in closing

We close this, our 11th newsletter in 12 months, with the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 5:

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

Amen!

Andy, Lesa, Robbie, Avery, Sydney

The amazing thing is that you will find this story across Africa, particularly countries where it may get you killed to follow Jesus. The more extreme the persecution – obviously the less likely the people will get to hear of Jesus – the more likely Jesus will speak to them personally through their dreams. In other words, God will redeem his people in spite of what any government or religion might try to do to stop it.

So, Ted and I had an amazing time in this last country, hearing these stories, and he did a great job writing about this, so I’m going to plagiarize him for the rest of this post:

The sense of being behind enemy lines began when we got off the plane. Immigration was immediately suspicious of us and it took a favor from the US Embassy to be released from the airport. A friend and I came to this North African nation to meet some very interesting people. They call themselves workers. They have jobs, genuine and profitable businesses and services, but in their minds and hearts they are all about another work. What kind of people are these workers and what gives them the courage to live in a place like this?

A ladies’ Bible study has been meeting at the house of our hosts. At some point in its growth, the question was raised as to whether or not a secret church should sing out loud. Worshiping together in this manner, they decided, was well worth the risk of being caught. But the decision to sing was costly. Before we had arrived, a hostile neighbor, suspicious of the workers’ true intentions, lifted a cell phone over the wall and recorded some of the singing. As we pulled out of the driveway on our way to visit another worker, we received word that a radio broadcast across the city had exposed the meeting and several ladies had already been kicked out of their homes and beaten. One lady’s five-year-old son was missing. We heard that the police were coming and would arrest any woman attending the study, and in light of this news the next meeting was canceled. We continued on, riding in the back of a pickup truck, wondering what was behind the eyes of the masked women and robed men we passed along the street.

Persecution for your faith is not a light burden, but there is one far heavier for these foreign workers. They believe in the Gospel of Truth so strongly that not only are they willing to risk their own lives for it, but, grasping tightly to the knowledge of eternity with a loving God, they are willing to risk the lives of the people with whom they share their faith. “The war for souls is very real here,” I thought. I felt it as tangibly as the blazing sun on our backs. “This whole country is caught in one of Satan’s greatest deceptions. And here, I am the enemy.” Just then, as if to confirm my thought, a wad of spit landed with a smack in my friend’s face.

We’ll be talking about that one for a while, my friend and I. Knowing him, though, there will come greater injuries in the war for souls than merely being spat on. Later that day, as we sat and talked to another worker, a sizable rock came sailing over the wall and landed inches from her feet. She didn’t even flinch, but smiling knowingly looked up at us and brushed it off saying, “we get these “gifts” all the time.”

The next day, relieved to hear that the believer’s five-year-old boy had been found, we visited a local woman who was a friend of our hosts. In studying the culture they have found that a mark of an honorable rich person is the giving away of food to the poor. So, they went out this day to give, and we went with them. It was a quick visit, and we had been invited to bring our cameras. Shortly after we left, the neighbors, suspicious of us and angry over the cameras, came and harassed the woman, dumping out a large gunnysack of flour she uses to earn a living.

We talked to a group of men about Islam and their country. They claimed religious freedom, but it was easy to see that only the foreigners have that freedom. Anyone from this country naturally has to be a Muslim. I asked if they knew any local Christians. “No,” was the simple answer. How would it be for a person of their culture to become a Christian? “It would be very bad,” I was told, “I’m sure you would feel the same way if a Christian became a Muslim. If a person is a Muslim they should stay a Muslim.” But what if a person of their culture, I asked, had come from somewhere else and had always been a Christian? Would he be accepted? An icy pause was the response followed by a resolute, “They would never come here.”

So who does come here? Who are these “workers” who so willingly leave the safety of their homeland and embrace great risks for their faith– risks that missionaries have not regularly faced since the early days of Missions when death from malaria was so common? Who are these that find in their heart an ability to love the people as God loves, who grieve the sight of so many lost souls, who value faithfulness to God’s truths more than anything?

They are surprisingly ordinary. They have no more ability than an average person. They have no more courage than what God gives them for any given day. They are very simply those who have responded wholeheartedly to their Father’s instruction for them to Go. They are Christians.

We met with “K”, one of the directors of AIM, and had an incredible time with him talking about the work they are starting in North Africa, and TIMO (Training in Missions Outreach)- an intensive, medium-term, immersive introduction to missions. After our meeting with K, we visited the Masai Market, a big flea-market-like weekly market, and we grabbed several souvenirs here.

Later that afternoon, we hooked up with our friends, John and Joy Haspels. John lived next door to me at Sterling College, and Lesa and him had many missions classes together. It was great to catch up with him, and hear about the building project he is working on in Loki, northern Kenya.

That evening, Katie and I attended a worship concert at a big pentecostal church in Karen, near my aunt and uncle’s. It started out pretty slow and boring, a bunch of drawn-out, old American worship choruses. Katie and I tried to leave, but the monstrous downpour of rain must have prevented the cell phone signal from working. We were glad we didn’t, because as soon as the worship leader shouted something in swahili, the place erupted. Everyone jumped to their feet and started dancing, and it was the best 30 minutes of worship I’ve ever experienced in a language I don’t understand. It’s amazing that once they started singing in their heart language, the difference it made in the participation and engagement of the congregation.

I should mention something about the rain here. When it rains, it pours, and when it pours, the power goes out. I think the electricity must have gone out 4 or 5 times a day, and it seemed to be every time we were having dinner. Roger and Shirley were always prepared, with candles and UPS’s and battery powered lighting. I took the picture to the left during a lightning flash (it was dark outside at this hour), the greenish light in the kitchen is from a flourescent light that is powered by a battery that is charged by solar power during the day.

I also need to mention the Tumaini Counseling Center, where Uncle Roger and Aunt Shirley work, and live. It’s amazing, and I remembered as a boy helping pack the big sea container full of building supplies they were collecting when they were getting ready to build it. I’d grown up seeing pictures of the place, but wasn’t prepared for really how awesome it is, and what a professional facility it is. There are offices for the counseling staff, a large library, several conference rooms, and an incredible lobby (where Aunt Shirley is standing, in the photo on the right).

Outside is an awesome garden/nature walk. The photo on the left is the front of Tumaini, with Sydney being trailed by one of the dogs (everyone has German Shepherds here, it seems, as an added security measure!)

It certainly was different experience this time… especially travelling with our 1 year old. Fortunately, Sydney did a pretty good job on the whole trip. She slept when we slept, and we brought a lot of baby food with us so she ate pretty well, too.

Lesa’s sister Katie came with us as well, and was a huge help with Sydney and our 8 suitcases and giant guitar flight case. We were quite a sight at Heathrow trying to ride the tube between terminals carrying all of our stuff and Sydney.

We arrived in XXXXX, Friday evening, and got checked into our hotel room around midnight. The next morning our group toured the medina, and went and visited with some other American workers there who run an college program.

Sunday we taxi’d somewhere in XXXXXX, and met with the youth group for an incredible time of bi-lingual worship. We played songs that were known in both english and arabic, and they sang a lot of songs in arabic, and I played along on the guitar. Afterwards we had lunch and spent the afternoon playing games and hearing their stories. Really amazing stories, every one of them. I remember one girl said she had been following Christ for 3 months, but she wished with all her heart it had been 3 years. She was the only Christian in her city.

The next day I was sick. I spent most of the day in bed or on the toilet, while Lesa went to a hospital ward for abandoned infants. Then she spent the afternoon hanging out with XXXXXX university students, in a relational evangelism setting. We called our XXXXXX friends later that evening, and met them at Carfourre, and they took us up to XXXXXX, then bought us brik (Fried egg pastry), and we hung out at their house until about midnight. This was the most important part of our time in XXXXX, where we could sit and ask questions about how we might get involved, what kinds of work need to be done to soften the ground there, and basically feeling them out for encouragement about coming.

The next day said goodbye to our group (who were staying almost another week), and taxid to the airport to fly back to London. At the airport, Sydney threw up twice, and on the plane to London, maybe 5 times. We knew we were going to land, run to our next flight, and make another overnight flight, so we were praying hard Sydney’s stomach issues would stop quickly! And they did… by the time we landed in London she was fine, praise God!

We got a good chuckle from the flight attendants as they announced the final descent into London, and the arrival on the ground in Arabic. I don’t know much arabic, but a couple phrases: enshallah (God willing), and humdullah (praise God). I could only guess the rest of the flight attendent’s dialog: “Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seat belts for our final descent to London Heathrow. We will be landing shortly, God willing!”. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have landed, praise God!”.

My wife has always been interested in missions… I’ve always been reluctant because I always thought of a missionary as someone living in a grass hut in a dirty dusty village trying to teach people without clothes how to grow corn. I know that didn’t really cover everything that happens in foreign missions, but I seriously thought that was a large part of it. I didn’t have much of a desire to live somewhere where I didn’t have internet, where I couldn’t speak English, and where people didn’t know all the words to The Joshua Tree by heart.

My wife majored in missions at Sterling College, I majored in Computer Science and Music. She went on to study it in seminary while I raked in the cash as a web developer. At some point, God got our (mine, particularly) attention and called us unmistakably into full time ministry. We left our home in Kansas City and moved to South Riding, Virginia to work for a church, where Lesa and I serve as Creative and Technical Arts Directors (respectively).

We love our church… really can’t stand the thought of doing something else. But God has a funny way of changing your heart and placing burdens in it that weren’t there before. Ha ha. We’re still figuring out the details, but here begins the story of my first overseas missions trip and how God spoke to me one night in XXXXX (cue the Dizzy Gillespie soundtrack here).

By the way, since this is a blog, you need to read the posts from the bottom up to read them in chronological order… so…. scroll all the way down and start reading!

Click to see the photo album

Drove about 6 hours back to XXXXX, then 1.5 to XXXXX. We were all exhausted by now (8pm) but had an evening of activities planned, including finishing packing B’s apartment and getting to the airport by 5am. We also went to B’s friend Muhammed Ali’s house and had cous cous with his family around midnight. He lives in a very poor neighborhood (called “popular city”, which I guess means “populated” not popular in the fashion sense) and is pretty poor himself. In XXXXX, most people retire early, not because they have the money but because their kids are old enough to work and I guess people just get old quickly. Muhammed was probably my age, was in college or had recently graduated, and was struggling to get a good job. With the money he did earn, he had to support his mom, dad, younger brother, and handicapped sister who all lived in the same house as him. He also had a girlfriend he wanted to marry but could not because I guess it’s really expensive to get married and he was worried she would find someone else to marry that could pay it. Anyhow, he was a really great guy and spoke enough english to have a good conversation with him. The whole family was very generous and kind, and the poor mom obviously spent a lot of time preparing the fancy cous cous meal for the American guests.

After Muhammed’s (about 1 am), we took a taxi to meet “N” again. She had a fundraising project for the youth that we were buying and taking back to our church. Taxi’d back to B’s, and packed/cleaned till 4:30am. Took 3 taxis to get our 12 suitcases and carryons to the airport. Somehow we knew they weren’t going to let 4 people check 12 suitcases and about 8 carryons, but I think B was hoping he could charm them into letting him do that. They didn’t submit to his charm, and offered to let him check the extra suitcases for $150/suitcase. This was after waiting in line for at least 30 minutes to talk to the special problems person. This wasted too much time, and by the time we discovered the $150/suitcase fee, the plane had begun boarding and we had maybe 15 minutes before the flight left. So, there we stand in the middle of the terminal, opening the suitcases and throwing underwear, socks, toiletries, whatever into a big pile, trying to figure out what is worth $150. We ended up leaving a suitcase and whole bunch of stuff, paying for one extra bag, and sneaking 2 oversized carryons past the ticket counter.

We are now running to customs, which was very slow. Ran through security and I got to the gate just before departure. Cam was on board first, but we sat there on the plane for 10 minutes thinking B and Ryan didn’t make it. Ends up B had a pair of Creative Memories scissors in the carryon, and had it so jammed tight the zipper wouldn’t open when security wanted to remove the scissors. It took some pliers and some policework to extricate the lethal weapon, fortunately no-one noticed the extra Arabic bibles surrounding the scissors.

Anyhow, crazy trip, and after pulling an all nighter packing after spending an unrestful night in the Sahara desert, after spending an unrestful night in a cave in Tatooine, we all zonked out for the long plane ride back to DC. Very tired… happy to be going home… and a changed man from the experience.