the countdown is on …

In less than three days, I’ll be boarding a plane for Nairobi, Kenya.  My friend/colleague, Bill Gorman, is joining me for the big adventure!  Together, we’ll be exploring the prospect of more long-term partnership (what it might look like for folks from my community here in KC to engage in collaborative-relationship with our Kenyan brothers & sisters).

One of the most exciting things about my travel is a reunion of sorts with one of my grad-school classmates & his family: Luke & Lillian Jaoko.  We became close friends during my years in Chicago.

Here’s Luke with his youngest, Sheenah (born during our last year of seminary).  My roommate & I broke with all cultural-sensitivity and threw the Jaoko’s one big-phat-baby-shower.  (Complete with the competitive relay: “cell-phone-on-your-ear, baby-on-your hip, laundry-basket-in-your-hand … hanging-clothes-on-the-line.”  My team kicked-butt.)  But I digress …

Luke & Lillian: two of the most heroic people I will ever meet.  I’m incredibly honored to know them; ecstatic about our reunion.

Sobered by the many other heroes I will be meeting in the coming weeks.  (I’m dousing myself in Ephesians 4 these days; praying some of it will somehow get down deep inside me.)  Your prayers for God’s gracious work in and through me are coveted …