Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
My pastor’s wife, Pam Klein, met me in Africa with a list of recommendations of places to visit given to her by a friend who is a missionary in Kenya but for these months is home in the States.
“Karen Bradley says we have to go to Dignity Designs,” a maker of hand-crafted African jewelry that supports a vital mission project. So we did. A phone call was made informing the director, Tracey Hagman, that we were stopping past, if that was okay with her. Little did we know what we would experience. In Gando, a small slum close to Africa International University, this American woman, whose husband is working in Africa, has started a community-based organization that rescues disabled children and works to rehabilitate them.
It was the end of the school day, and the children with their teachers, were cleaning up the school rooms, the play porch and the therapy rooms before leaving to go home.
In some ways, Kenya is a curse-based society. Kenyans often believe that disabilities are the result of a curse on the mother, and so these disabled children are abandoned, often left to die, kept out of sight and abused.
Tracey has established Heshima, which in Swahili means “dignity,” to find and rehabilitate these little ones. Occupational therapists, speech therapists and physical therapists lovingly and patiently give dignity to these children and their families.
To create work for the mothers of these children, Tracey launched Dignity Designs, a jewelry-making enterprise that provides income and margins. Heshima is in the midst of building a new center with enough money for the first phase of construction, which they anticipate relocating to in the next months. If you are interested, click here to check out their website.
Because I am on the board of Medical Ambassadors International, I was eager to visit the East Africa office, where we spent the next morning with Tirus and Winnie Githaka. The Githakas have a child with disabilities, and were in the middle of plans to enroll him in another school—way across Nairobi. Winnie began to talk about the “forgotten” children of Kenya, little ones with disabilities. “I have it in my heart to start a center for these children. It needs to be a safe place where there is occupational and physical therapy.”
We told her about Heshima, which we had just visited the day before—mentioned to Pam Klein, my traveling companion, by a missionary to Kenya who was home in the States.
Talk about unusual linkage and timing! Those crazy combinations of events and people God seems to delight in putting together. Those times we all too frequently tag as “circumstance” when it is really God working all things together for good on our behalf.
Tracey sent an e-mail to me today. It had landed by error in my electronic Junk Mail folder, but I found it, and forwarded it to Tirus and Winnie so they could connect.
I spy God!
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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.
Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.
Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.
For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.
Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
