Recently Korean missionaries were targeted in a country north of here, and several were killed. All of them were known by our students whose parents work in that country. None of our students’ parents were killed, but the game you can play with yourself that it is all ok and you aren’t in danger being here, came unglued. The next day you could tell every kid that was from that country; the fear was all over them. Their parents were in danger, and that was the reality of the choices they had made to share the gospel.

I was at one of the schools I work with in the valley, and I was trying to film the students about using computers, and it wasn’t coming together. After three tries with three students where I could get nothing but a yes or no out of them, I asked the computer teacher why they were acting like that. She told me that there was no food in most of their homes, and school was ending soon, and that the lunch at school was the only food they got in a day.

Then she asked me, very gently, if I had ever been hungry.

I told her no, I had never been hungry.

She told me that if you had ever been hungry, and you knew you would be again, it was the worst feeling you could imagine. The fear would grab a hold of you and not let go.

The reason the children were not helping was because they were wrapped up in the fear of being hungry.

I thought about this all weekend. On Sunday, my daughter had asked if we could go into town and watch the Hannah Montana movie. (Ben threw up in his mouth when I asked him if he wanted to go.) As we sat in that awful movie, with her sitting eagerly at the edge of her seat, I thought about the unusual path that it took for us to have a daughter.

Having a daughter has helped me face all the awful things I’ve seen in Kenya. Love is the only thing that can help you face fear. And love is the only thing that makes you want to fight for those who don’t have a voice or a chance.

I’m so grateful that love is greater than fear.

Your pal,

Steve

PS: After sitting in my tenth assembly to honor the fourth place volleyball team, I decided that what we needed was an award that recognized the best efforts in college admissions. You can see the story here:

The Prestigious Scheenstra Award (video)
The Prestigious Scheenstra Award Part 2 (video)
The Prestigious Scheenstra Award Part 3 (video)