Bader Dan Debbie 1991 Kenya

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    Dan, Debbie, Hannah & Greg

    M a r c h 1 9 9 1

    D A N & DEBBIEB A D E RP. O . Box 381

    Lodwar, K e n y aAFRICA

    T u r k a n a T r i b e s m a n

    CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIP Prayer Newsletter

    We know that God causes al l things to work together for good to those wholove Him, to those who are called according to Hi s will. Romans 8:28

    Usually I like to tell a story about one of I was already kind of upset with Peilei forou r Turkana friends, but today is going to other reasons . . . an d I lost my cool. I stoodbe a lit tle different. This is a story about an up with some sand in my hand then threwAmerican trying to adapt to the Turkana it on the ground for emphasis. I told him toculture and failing because he didn t know just go away an d leave me alone i f he didn tsomething any Turkana child would've want to help. After he left, I realized howkn ow n . I d l e t S a t a n u s e m e.

    Debbie ruenThe caladar ty w as planned to ; r~; r;;; : {which I guess is aboutbe in between our ^ronandErgaidroppedhy r t e a ^ ^ ultimate insult in

    . They re tw o of t he m en 1 faced under th e tree. ^ i x t . j -ueas s o t h a t T u r k a n a . I t r i e d toeverybody coiild come; explain that mywe were pleased because i t wa s going to be actions meant nothing like that to me, butlike a traditional wedding. Peilei and a few he didn't buy it. We had more words andothers from around our house were left each other, angry again,complaining because they wanted the partyto be at Kangarisai. Others in the Bruens Even before I got home, God reminded mearea were arguing with them the re because of what He d shown me e ar li er that daythey wanted i t at Nakaale. How frustrating from Corinthians: my body is not my ow ni t was for all of us but God bought i t at a high price, and I m

    I was already kind of upset with Peilei forother reasons . . . and I l os t m y cool. I stoodup with some sand in my h an d t he n threwit on the ground for emphasis. I told him toj u s t go away and leave m e alone i f he didn twant to help. After he left, I realized how

    I d l e t S a t a n u s e m e .

    Immediately I headedover to h is village toapologize. Peilei metm e half-way and gaveme some money heowed. I apologizedthen , bu t he refused toaccept it . He saidthrowing sand liket h a t m e a n t I w a scalling him a do g{which I guess is aboutt h e u l t i m a t e i n s u l t i n

    Tu r k a n a . I t r i ed toexplain t ha t my

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    to us e i t for His glory. Clearly God was saying,'You have to go back and apologize again andtell hi m yo u were fooli sh . So I did , and in frontof a bunch o f other men, too. P e il ei c a lm e d downa little; I begged him to believe that I didn trmderstand before about throwing sand.

    I thought surely i t would end there, but a coupleh o u r s l a t e r h e h a d a s s e m b l e d a b u n c h o f m e n

    imder a t ree {including th e Chief) to charge mewith soiling hi s name. I m s ur e he interpretedmy apology as weakness.

    Defending myself in front of a group oftraditional elders was scary. When all the menheard that I d a lre ad y apologized, admitted tobeing foolish, and explained that throwing thesand didn t have the same meaning to me, theywere all upset with Pei le i for dragging themthere for nothing. Whew Later I found ou t it svery unusual to take someone before the eldersfor something like that anyway. The meetingturned into a good forum to talk with the guys{and the Chief ) about what we were doing here,and what we wanted to accomplish.

    Afterwards, Peilei and I became closer than everbefore. We both agreed that we allowed Satan touse us to destroy the church. Soon after all thishappened, he broke his toe; about the samet ime, I scraped my leg pretty b ad a nd i t becameinfected. We think God was trying to tell ussomething

    That situation turned into a pos iti ve thing, buti t i l lustrates a fact of life fo r us here. A largepart of the Turkana understanding about thegospel naturally comes from observing ou r lives.Yet, with the t en si on s c re at ed b y ou r differentcultures, it s doubly hard to live a life viewed byt hem as good. That s the reason, though, why welive r ight here among them and learn their

    language and culture, so we can discover thosethings and build on them. I t sure can be anemotional drain though. ovu prayers sustainus , through the power of the Holy Spir i t.

    W H AT S H A P P E N I N G ?

    T he si x m o n t h s s ince o u r l a s t n e ws le tt er h a vebeen excitiag. A lot of good things have begun tohappen; I've been looking forward to telling youa b o u t t h e m

    Typical l a rge men s course (no the me n aren tlarge, the course is). This one was attended by

    o v e r 1 0 0 m e n

    Church, Turkana style

    '. XA

    These two ar e up to something

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    Rick B r ue n a n d 1 h a v e h a d s e v e r a l o f w h a t o u r

    Turkana team calls large men s courses.They re held out a ro un d w he re the men live,usually in dry riverbeds by weUs. We spendthree days and two nights out there teaching,singing, eating, and fellowshiping with them.{Oh, yes, we even play horseshoes ) I m

    continually amazed how overjoyed Turkanamen are to hear God s Word. They c an t s ee mto get enough.

    At Lomenyenenyang we had one ofthose courses; ten men were baptizedAfter teaching about baptism, I askedhow m an y o f them wanted to obey Jesusand be baptized. At ifirst only o ne v eryold man wanted to. {Turkana a re a f ra idof being d ow n into water.) This m an wasamazing. He didn t care what any of the

    others thought about him, he d heardJesus Good News and wanted t o l in e upw i t h H i m . A f t e r t h i s o ld m a n b r o k e t h eic e {did I say ice, in Turkana^) . . .anjnvay after he stepped ou t, g uy s justkept coming imtil ten of them werebaptized along with him.

    W e h a d a n o t h e r c o u r s e a t K a t i r

    w h e r e 5 o r 6 0 m e n w e r e close t o

    committing their lives to Jesus; b ut a s agroup they decided to wait and makesure they knew what they were get ti nginto. A wise decision tha t I agreed with.

    When we baptize someone her e, i t s a majoroperation. We have to di g a hole in a dryriverbed, line i t with a tarp, and fill i t withprecious water. I ve never seen such a graphicillustration of being bu ried with Christ. I tlooks jus t like they re being lowered into agrave The neatest par t is t ha t we get to se ethem raised back up, a new creation.

    We also held a small course j u s t formen who I hope will be leaders someday. This on e was a lot like th e largecourses, but with m ore e mph asis onteaching deeper things. I m excitedabout the f ut ur e, s ee in g h ow interestedt he se m en are to spread the gospel. Wea l so t a l k e d a l o t a b o u t h o w t o m a k e t h ec h u r c h r e l e v a n t t o t h e i r t r a d i t i o n a l

    T u r k a n a c u l t u r e

    From those discussions, w e discovered somethings tha t have subsequen tly been put intopractice. For instance, We ve begun meeting on Sunday evening

    i ns te ad o f in the morning. Evening is theirnatura l t ime fo r meetings ofcelebration-type things. You can t imagine

    the difference jus t tha t little thing hasmade. The level of enjojnment has gone wa yu p an d many more people are coming.

    We ve quit meeting a t one central locationevery week and are breaking up intoregional groups which meet in between afew villages. T he i nt er es tin g t hi ng is thata t jus t one of these, we have as manypeople coming as we had coming to the one.cen t ra l l oc at io n b e fo re (about 60 to 70).This first group is beginning to meetwhether I m th er e or not. A second grouphas ju st started on the i r own, le d by myTurkana brother, Lodeiya, near his home.I n t h e s a m e a r e a t h a t t h e o n e c e n t r a l

    church used to cover, there s room forseveral more village groups.

    We've also done some things to try an dmake our worship more relevant in theirtraditional c ul tu re : We r e i nc lu di ng sometraditional prayers which are in Jesusn am e a nd adding some traditional jumpingto Christian songs and words. {They do thisjumping a t weddings and basically anycelebration gathering.) The jo y these thiugshave brought to the church is considerable.

    The most thrilling thing abou t a ll this is thatnow i t truly seems possible to take thismodel of chiuch anywhere there aren om ad ic h om es . This worship model canmove with them wherever they move to ,and it s becoming more and more familiar

    to them because they use traditionalformats they feel comfortab le with. Thatmeans they'U want to take th is tjqie oworship with th em an d won t be afraid toi n t r o d u c e o t h e r s t o i t

    I don t want to l eave you with the impressionthat the gospel is spreading al l over this valleylike wild fire. It s jus t beginning. People a llover are very interested, but there s still sucha long way to go before t he se d re am s c an be

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    realized. L ead ers hav e to be found and t rained or no one s going to take the churchanywhere. We ve got to teach people to r ea d th e Bible in Turkana so all teaching doesn t haveto originate with us. And of course somewhere along the l ine we re going to have to confrontt h e pa r ti a ll y h idden wor ld of diviners a nd curs ing that we know almost nothing about.

    There s a lot to do yet but we just keep plugging away. We could sure use more people to help.Would yo u pray about that? Please pray with us about all these things.

    Debbie and I want to thank all of you wh o are supporting us financially and prayerfiiUy.As we approach our third-year anniversary here we ar e amazed how many of you havebeen so fai thfi il for so long. We really appreciate al l you ve done for us .

    Love

    i2 f a n a n d e b b i e a d e r

    3/97

    CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIPP.O. BOX 26306 5674 CAITO DRIVE

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    m i s s i o n s e r v i c e se d i t o r i a l d e p tP 0 BOX 2 4 2 7KNOXVILLE TN 37901

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    Dan, Debbie Hannah, & Greg

    DAN & DEBBIE

    B D E R

    P.O. BOX 381LODWAR KENYA

    EAST AFRICA

    Turkam Tribesman

    CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY FElLOmUlP Prayer Newsletter

    O c to b er 1 9 91

    F r o m R i ch e s to Rags a n dB a c k A g a in

    A couple years ago I wrote inthis newsletter about a youngboy named Loangaleia whoworked for us so we c a ll ed himour so n according to Turkanat r ad i t ion . W h e n w e m ov ed too u r p e rm a n en t ministrylocation here a t KangarisayLoangaleia stayed on there andw o r k e d for C M F co-worke r sR i c k a n d Debb ie B r u e n w h om o v e d i n a f t e r us.

    We gained a new son herenamed Ekapi ton . Loangale iaan d Ekapiton s two characterswere l ike night and day;Ekapiton is a breath of fresha i r i n t h i s wor ld . L e t m e t e l lyo u abou t h im .

    About twenty years agoEkapiton was born into a richTurkana family. Rich meansthey had four or five hundred

    Debbie enjoys tea with herfriend, Esin.

    goats maybe fifty camels andsome donkeys. I t wasn t

    necessarily rich by ou rstandards; bu t to them livingi n t h e i so la t ed d e s e r t o fnorthwest Kenya it was afo r tune .

    Life hadn t a l wa y s b e en l ik ethat. Ekapiton sfather Lotoodo ft ' \grew up very * ' 'poor For some } ' 1;r e a s o n h e c am e to

    a point as a ' p

    young man ' ' ^where hehad j Tabsolutelyno 'ra n i m a l s a n d l i t t lehope for finding a \wife since that \ mrequired animals. V

    Lotoodo qu i t t r ad ing andreturned to shepherding his

    a n i m a l s T h e r a i n s w e r eplentiful for many years in arow; he was a wise shepherd sothat he found himself becomingwealthy. He took a wife and ashi s herd continued to grow hetook another then another and

    Ekapiton and friend, Lojorey listento a tapeofPhilippians withatapeplayer cranked byhand.

    It was thenthat ^ &he decided to try ^ ftihis hand a t Ekapiton and fr\t rading with theo u t s i d e wor ld .

    T h e o u t s i d e w o r l dwas the rest of Kenya that wa srun by t he Br it ish at that time.He would ge t some animalsdrive them out of Turkana andtrade fo r blankets cookingpots and maize meal to bringb a ck o n donkeys a n d t ra d e fo rmore animals . In this way hebu il t up a small starter herd forh i m s e l f .

    another unti l there w e re f ou rw i v e s i n al l . T h i s w a s awealthy man.

    I t w a s t o t h is l a s t w i f e t h a tEkapi ton was born makingh im t h e s e c o n d s o n o f t h e

    fourth wife with perhaps asm an y a s twenty children beforeh i m S o m e w h e r e i n L o t o o d o se a r h e r t r a v e l s h e h a d m e t a

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    captain of s om e a rm y, s o hed e c i d e d t h i s s o n w o u l d b e

    Ekapiton.

    For the first twelve years ofEkapiton s existence, life was

    as perfect as he could imagineit . His aging fa ther began to

    r e so rt t o ea ting palm nuts andberries along th e river. B utduring those early golden yearsof Ekapiton s life that wa srare; anyhow, everyone elseha d to do it , too.

    Suddenly, just like Job in t heBible every badthing that couldhappen to thatfamily happened.F ir st , a nespecially longdrought wiped

    HjHn out more thanh a l f o f t h e i r

    h e r d s . Before t h a td i s a s t e r c ou ld b eabsorbed, banditsc a m e f rom t h es o u t h a n d

    t e r ro r i zed t h ewhole valley,

    their w camel stealing most ofwhat the droughtle f t .

    Ekapiton s brotherand sister draw blood from their new camel.

    appreciate hi s quick mind,great passion for life andobvious aptitude for handlinganimals. Ekapiton ha s suchfond m e m o r i e s o f th i s t im e w i th

    hi s father tha t , even now, it salmost too painful to talka b o u t

    There was usually plenty offood too Al l those animalsprovided plenty of milk dur ingth e rainy seasons. Though themilk d ri ed u p in the dr yseasons, the animals st i l lprovided blood to ea t so thefamily could surv ive . Whenneeded, the blood was drawn, a

    little a t a t ime, from a vein inthe neck then p at ch ed u p w it hm u d so t h e a n i m a l c o u l d l ive t o

    provide more aga in anotherday.

    Of course i f t he a re a go t reallydry, even the blood wasn tenough since an animal canonly give so much blood when i tha s nothing to eat itself Atthose t imes the family had to

    Suddenly, t hi s g rea t family wasreduced to poverty; ye t th ew o r s t w a s s ti ll t o come : Lotoododied. Each of th e wives grabbed

    what they could of theremaining animals, butEkapiton s mother somehowonly ended u p w it h t hr ee goats.Then she died, too

    Ekapiton, at thirteen years ofage, wa s left with an olderbrother, wh o was obviously notequipped to handle thesi tuation, and a younger sister.They were l iving in a harshdesert, completely on their ow n

    with only three goats. Theyt r i e d to a t t a c h themse lves too n e o f t h e o t h e r w iv es w hoended up wi th about thirtygoats, but sh e wouldn t havet h e m

    Thirteen-year-old Ekapitonbecame the head of the familyand somehow k e pt t he m alive.W i t h t h e wisdom o f a n o lde rm an , h e kept thei r small herd

    alive and ac tua l ly increased i talthough those years werefilled with frequent droughts.He brought the small familyinto relationships wi th o the rf ami l i e s i n t h e t ra d i ti on a lTurkana ways tha t gave theminsurance against th e hardtimes. He rout inely deprivedhimself to keep h i s b ro the r andsister going. I t was quite achange from hi s earlymemories of plenty, but withhis character is t ic passion hes u r v i v e d

    A few years Ralph andCher i B r u n e fo rmer C M Fmissionaries) c a m e to live a t

    Kangarisay. Peoplerecommended Ekapiton as anindustrious young m an toguard their house an d do oddjobs H e w as accepted an d dida good job. At t he s am e time,he l is t ened closely as Ralphbegan to teach about Jesus,quietly contemplating thosethings in his heart .

    Ye a r s l a t e r t he r un e s h a d t o

    l eave T u r k a n a b e c a u s e o fm e d ic a l r e as o n s. T h e h o u s e s a t

    empty for a year until we wereready to move in Ekapitoncontinued to guard the housethat year, and w it h t he moneyhe received he bought goats.He handled h i s m o ne y soeffectively that even with thats m all a m ou nt h e w as a bl e t omult iply his pitifully smallh e r d s e v e r a l t i m e s

    I t was exci t ing to s ee h is herd

    beginning to grow, b u t w h at herea lly longed fo r w as to hearmore a bo ut t he gospel. Whenwe f inal ly moved in, he gobbledup ever5rthing I could give him:dai ly d iscussions and prayer,tapes of the Ne w Testament t ha t h e l is t en e d to with ahandc rank tape player), and afew teaching tapes. I couldn tkeep up with him. I t didn ttake long and he was

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    beginning to pray regularly;a nd t he best part of that washi s prayers were from thehear t based on things out oft h e Bib le t h a t h e l i s t e n e d to . Ihadn't taught h im t o do that,he jus t did it . When Iencouraged him and someo ther s to go out teaching in th evillages, nobody could keep upw i t h h im . N ow h e's o u t i n adifferent village almost everynight , t i re less ly te ll ing othersth e gospel.

    Ekapiton m ay n ot haveacquired h i s f a the r' s r iches ...y e t. .. b ut he has discoveredth e source o f indescr ibab le

    r i ches - a n e w l ifei n

    J e s u s .After a year and a-half we'reundeniably proud to call hi mo u r son ; n o t because h e worksfor us anymore, but becausewe've developed a spiritualbond that will continue longa f t e r o ur w o rk h e r e i s done.And you can be glad, too , toh a v e h i m o n o u r s ide a s afellow worker in th e gospel.

    P R A Y E R

    Th e r a in s d i dn 't come t hi s y ea ra t all, not even a sprinkle.Normally, they would havec o m e s o m e t i m e b e t w e e n M a r c h

    a n d J u ne , bringing enoughr a i n (5-8 inches) to sus t a in th epeople for another y ea r. O n t opof that, t h e r ai ns th e yearbefore were so slight tha t theTurkana had a l ready beenliving i n d ro u gh t conditions fo rsi x m on th s w h en this year'sr a in s d idn ' t come. I t 's ge t ti ngso serious some peop le arebeginning to ta lk of losingwhole herds in th e next couplem o n t h s .

    You just read about Ekapiton'sfamily eat ing berries and palmnuts along the r ive r dur ingdroughts. Well, th e berriesgave out long ago, a nd t heTurkana h av e b ee n eating only

    Hannah and Gregwaitfor school tostart home school that is.

    th e palm nuts for a year now.It 's hard to imagine, isn ' t i t? Wehelp all we can, but it reallyi sn' t much compared to whatthey really need: rain.

    I've been amazed and pleased

    h o wt he n e w C h ri s t ia n s a r e

    resolutely holding onto thei rf a i t h i n t h e f ace o f s u ch

    sufiering. Traditionally God'spresence with them is veryclosely tied to rain. Whenclouds star t forming, they evensay, God is coming. When i t 'sdr y l ike now they say, Evil isamong us and God has left.Yo u can s ee w hy i t' s hard fort h e m n o t to t h i n k t h a t G od h a sleft them even though they've

    obediently turned to Hi s Son,J es us , a nd started praying inH i s n a m e .

    They haven't given up though;it 's exciting to se e peoplegathering every da y to pray, inJ e s u s n a m e . Wouldyou please join useach day to pray forr a in?

    th e h o u s e a n d a t N a k a a l e . O u r T u r k a n a t e a m a s w e

    grow this fall to five familiesfo r t h e f ir s t t im e ever

    Keith and Kathy H am as theyfinish up their supportraising and join us soon.

    We ll be brid ng themw h i c h m e a n s i t ' s o u r

    responsibil i ty to see t h a t theyget s et u p okay and throughth e first year. We're reallyexcited about their coming,especially s ince they ' removing into th e house onlys e ve n m i l es f rom u s w h e r e we, and more recent ly Rickand Debbie Bruen, di d

    language learning. Pleasepray fo r thei r final supportraising time, and us, too, aswe prepare for their coming.

    Thanks to all of yo u who holdus up in your prayers da y afterda y a nd m on th a ft er month. Weknow it 's hard to pray for theseth ings happening to people in aplace so fa r away an d unknownto you. Your efforts are greatlyappreciated; and we have no

    doubt tha t it is t hose ve ryprayers that have and aresustaining us . Thanks

    D a n a n d D e b b i e B a d e r

    Some other thingsI' d apprecia te yourprayers for are:

    A small groupo f a b o u t

    f o u r t e e n m e n

    tha t I 've begunworking withvery closely.

    Our dailyprayer andBible study near

    This helicopter brought videographers toour home and all thepeople were amazed. The camels weren tfazed at all