Month: February 2023

LOOKING FOR A RIDEWe are always trying to find our way home…all of us. I spotted the young lion walking away from the fight with his elder and toward our LandCruiser. He looked tired. When I found his counterpart, I understood why. He was leaving a bloody tussle with an older lion. I watched the older lion limping, blood streaming from an open wound on his back. I thought to myself, “I know just how you feel old boy.”

WHIPLASH – The orchestra is warming to play the finale on this safari of the soul. Leaving the Kenyan mission field and reentering our lives as wealthy Americans is truly a whiplash effect on the mind, body, and soul.

SABOTI – Only Jesus bring out “the good stuff” at the end of a party! The Mississippi team taught/preached/trained in the Kitale main church today. Pastor Richard and I made our way to a new church plant in the “bush” in a village called Saboti. God has a habit of leading Richard to unreached/unchurched villages. Richard has a habit of doing personal evangelism in that village to see if the Gospel will be accepted. When the Gospel is received, Richard raises up a pastor and plants a church...

ENCOURAGED – New clothes and fresh smiles. There is some deep, if not eloquent, philosophy that comes from hillbilly’s. I am a descendant of hillbilly’s. One quip that has stuck with me and is heard often around the Curry house is, “even an old dog needs a pat on the head every now and then.” Often, some of you send me with one pocketful of money to just “blow” on a shopping spree with our pastors and their wives. Yesterday was that day. The ladies all bought new dresses and shoes...

GATHERED TO BE SCATTERED – It’s graduation day at Mount Elgon Training Center! Elijah is the dean of the training center. He is the Nick Sabin of disciple training in Kenya. Only his eyes betrayed him today. Elijah is so unlike most Kenyans. Not loud. Not a worship dancer. He has never waved his hanky at me while I preached. But, he is not stoic or unmoved either. His eyes betrayed him today. I saw it. The glimmer of fatherly pride and gratefulness for what God has done once again. The...

MOUNT ELGON – Training leaders. The heartbeat of our ministry in Kenya. The past two ministry days in the Kitale region have been a blur of activity. The team has visited the Seeds Feeding Station and Academy (Kitale), the Seeds High School, the orphanage in Kitale, and today the training center at Mount Elgon. I believe the word I am looking for is overload. The primary purpose of this trip for our visiting Mississippi team is to see snippets of the ministry God has entrusted...

WATER TO THE DESERTGotta carry some water to the desert. Gotta’ ll up the dry and barren places. It’s the sick who need the doctor, gotta’ stop this hauling water to the sea.-Cynthia Clawson, 1980’s worship. I have shared the lyrics above with you before. As a young youth pastor, Christian singer, Cynthia Clawson helped me with worship in an event. She sang a song from her recent worship album. The lyrics were burned into my heart. Little did I know, they would still burn over 40 years la...

THE FINAL SAY – The favor of God on display in the slum schools. Mike Curry–Kenya Journal, February 2023–Edition 6 As the Mississippi team and I walk through the narrow footpath leading to the school in Mathare, the sound of children’s voices singing greet us. “Jehovah has the final say…”, they sang. Indeed HE does! Mike Curry–Kenya Journal, February 2023–Edition 6 When pastor Kennedy and I laid the cornerstone for the 4 story Mathare school building...

NOT ALONEChurch planting in the Kenyan slums is lonely. I used to naively think that it was the new Biblical insights or the “fire” from my sermons that the young church planters in Kenya wanted from me. Or perhaps, just the recognition of grabbing a Sunday for the great white-haired missionary from the U.S. to come preach in their Kenyan church. Those thoughts were from the days when I had a higher opinion of Mike Curry than was ever merited. Now I know, what these young pastors and church...

NOW IT’S FUN!Doing what I was born-again to do. Saturday, February 4, 2023—Nairobi, Kenya Airport.I am an average administrator. I have disciplined myself to become a decent mission team leader. But, preaching…that is pure joy for me. The team and I spent the afternoon with a group of leaders from Pastor Harrison’s (Tasia slum) and Pastor Kennedy’s (Mathare slum) churches. If you can’t preach to a room full of Kenyan leaders, then you just can’t preach! The hunger for the Word of God and...