Daniel's Mission Experiences

“I think when I get to Cameroon I’m might get sick because all the stress will be gone!” I had said earlier in the day. Now I wondered how accurate that would turn out to be…

The morning had gone smoothly. It was a first time for me to travel by matatu alone. The night before Gary had called me to see if I could come to town for the meeting planned with Pan Africa Network. It was a new TV network that the government licensing organization had referred us to. It was one of two broadcasting companies in the country available to broadcast the new digital TV signal. It was a company based in China with outlets and broadcasting in Asia, Africa, and developing in Europe. They offered a new type of delivery to not only the standard tv sets, but also customized delivery to mobile phones and TVs in buses as well. The system had worked well in other countries and was already in process of development in Kenya.

I had agreed to come to the meeting, as he was planning to leave the next day and it would give me more time to discuss things with him. He said to just meet him at 9am at the Shell station outside the Wilson airport. We met up with another board member of 2CBN, then went into the airport premises so Gary could take care of something with the plane. Then we were off to the meeting at Upper Hill. The meeting went well, and we left thinking more about the possibility of going on satellite and covering all of Africa. We started laying plans and discussing what would need to happen so we could go on satellite at a moments notice. The previous week we had streamed the morning and evening meetings of the Week of Prayer with Kepha Matena online so the whole would could watch. This had made quite an impression at the Division, even the President had introduced 2CBN on Sabbath morning and talked some about what we were doing. I knew that God was preparing 2CBN for something big. But there was one thing…

We had a couple of people that had come and were volunteering with us. True, there had been other people interested in working with us, but for various reasons they weren’t on board with us. We needed more people… people willing to work as volunteers, people with a real vision for fulfilling the Gospel Commission, people with an eye single for the glory of God. But most of all we needed a programming director, someone with the vision who could take the lead, and keep the project growing and on course.

“I wish there was someone that could come that is more qualified than me.” We were eating lunch at the place where Gary was staying. I knew there were many people who were more qualified than me… “This is the way it works in most of our projects…” Gary began. “There are people more qualified than me at getting TV licenses, they know the prices, and how all the stuff works, but they weren’t here, and I was the only one here to do it. There are people more qualified than you for training and managing production here, but you’re the only one here.” Even if I was only here for 2 months, I still felt like the task was too big. Why couldn’t someone else come? Someone who had experience in leading? Someone who had the talents in all the fields that we needed? It seemed that no one wanted to come to Africa… Why? Lots of people would go for some time to South America, even other places, but it seemed that only a few would come to Africa. And only a small fraction of those few had anything to do with media. Gary answered my question: “I think it’s partly because South America is close to North America. They speak Spanish which is already familiar to many people in the US. But Africa is so far away, and people in the West generally don’t know much about it… A lot of people think of the people in the bush wearing almost nothing when they think of people in Africa. I think it’s fear of the unknown that keeps more people from coming to Africa.” Fear is a powerful thing… But what if God called you to a place that you were afraid of?

“What denomination are you from?” The matatu driver was looking at the piece of glow I handed him about prophecy. The radio was playing a local radio station with a heavy rhythm which earlier had had quite blatant words about immorality. Every so often the bus stopped to let out passengers and for more passengers to board. I realized that God had put me in the front seat right next to the driver for a reason. When he told me that he was Adventist also, I was a little surprised… Then I got to thinking, what if there was a radio station in Nairobi that played sacred celestial music? Then it would be something that the bus drivers could choose to play if they chose, and it would bring peace into people’s lives whether they listened to it when they were at home or in the matatu, or even at work, it could be a little breath of fresh air in the midst of the Nairobi busyness.

I was on my way out to the Division with a co worker. We were getting busy with things regarding launching 2CBN. God had started to open doors, and we were moving ahead. He had given us the opportunity to assist the Division by streaming the upcoming week of prayer live on the internet. It would be in english, although with an African accent! We had scrambled the night before getting a website ready and to get things in place to stream around the world. Now I was going to the Division office to work with the media director there and help getting things ready for the event. I needed to test the streams and make sure we had enough bandwidth through the internet to reliably support an internet stream. After testing it, it all seemed to work properly. However I knew that the devil was going to try to do something to mess things up. I had learned that this is just to be expected when working for God. I prayed that God would keep everything working and rebuke the devil, and also that if there was problems that we could fix them without too much issue or delay.

“Its hard to do anything but wait, when there’s no other option!” I added. I was talking with Gary and Wendy at the lunch table. Earlier that Sunday Pastor K had come by so we could discuss some things regarding 2CBN. He was one of the 2CBN board members, but he hadn’t been able to come for our earlier board meetings because of his job at the Union Office. He was able to come on Sunday and so we had arranged for a meeting with all the board members that were able to come, which was going to be most of them. However, Pastor K was the only one that actually came! Here in Africa you can’t expect the same things as we do in the US! We discussed many things regarding 2CBN that we had already covered with the rest of the board members. We spoke of the volunteers that were interested in being a part of 2CBN. We had been made aware that video equipment in Kenya is a hot item and many Kenyans are dishonest, and that we needed to take precautions and keep an eye on the equipment so it didn’t grow legs and disappear! We realized the need for someone who was reliable and trustworthy who could help instill in the volunteers the values that are needed in true dedicated service to the cause of God.

“I think if we can get someone from another country such as the US who has these values and can come and direct the operation and watch the equipment… someone like Daniel who has the knowledge about media, this would be a good thing.” Pastor K also saw the importance for someone to come to oversea and direct the project. Gary responded, “Well if you can find a wife for him then he might come!” Needless to say, I was a bit surprised to hear him say this, although I had to admit to myself that in the past times I had gone overseas, I often found myself lonely and immersed in the culture. Now being immersed in a foreign culture isn’t bad by any means, but after a long time without seeing any fellow Americans that I could relate to, I would begin to wish there were other people from the West that I could relate to. Although if God led me to stay somewhere for a extended period of time, as a single person, and without other Western individuals to relate to, I would be willing to do it. But currently God had me working for MissionTV and I didn’t see Him leading anywhere else, except for short term projects like the one with 2CBN.

Gary went on to say how it would be a good place for a young couple who could live in a house with the volunteers and where the studio could be located as well. We had found such a house, and it had seemed to be a perfect opportunity, but when Gary and I had gone to see it the previous Friday we realized that it was right off the end of the runway of a nearby airport, where planes were always flying in. We realized that this presented some significant challenges of sound proofing, along with the possibility of doing lots of work, sound proofing and blocking up windows, and then still hearing the plane noise! Another factor was the amount of the room available for an actual studio space… It was not unworkable, but quite limiting. So we had started looking at other options. After considering some other options we knew that in the long term having a house where we could have a studio in part of it, and house volunteers in another part would be ideal because this way they wouldn’t have to worry about transport to and from work and having to deal every day with all the hassles of traffic jams! So this still being our long term plan Gary mentioned the possibility of having a couple to watch out for things at the studio keeping the project on track, and offering spiritual leading for the volunteers.

If this was God’s plan for me, then of course I was willing. But something was definitely missing! As many nice girls as I knew I still didn’t know which one God had for me. (still true!) I have seen some people wait until their mid 30s or till 40, but I was unwilling to wait that long… However I knew that I wasn’t qualified to choose for myself, God had to choose for me. And in this I had to be content to await God’s timing. Also God had given me a specific burden for documentary storytelling through video, showing the needs of the mission field, especially the unreached fields. If I were to settle down here in Kenya, then this would remain a dream for me, and it would remain undone here in Africa until someone else felt the burden and picked it up.

I thought of the time when I was talking with Gary about what the needs of Africa were. There were many projects in Africa ready to launch, but I didn’t know exactly what was holding them back. He said that he just needs the right people to come to be pilots, to be nurses, and media people. I realized that the need was huge. And of course coming to work in Africa is not without challenges, but I saw that there was a big need for the right people. People that God impressed to go were needed. Some had come, and had been more of a challenge than a help to the people who they were there to assist. I knew that we didn’t need just anyone who wanted to come for these projects across Africa, we needed the exact people that God wanted to use for the job. And yet I knew that time is short and so I prayed that these people would come soon.

I knew that even though I might get lonely when I went to the mission field, there was still work that had to be done. For me to avoid that work or to become focused in seeking to gratify my desires would be selfish. I knew that it didn’t matter how I felt, God still expected me to answer His calling, which was to seek and save those souls lost in the darkness and to inspire others to do the same. For now I decided I would make this my focus and even though I had wasted His time in the past, I would attempt to make best use of the time that He had given me to work alone.

I prayed that God would provide someone for this 2CBN project to direct the program who had proven himself honest, and who was more mature than I spiritually. Whether this person was to come from a foreign country or to be found here in Kenya, I prayed that God would make it clearly evident that it was His choice.