EP 32: Interview with Bernard Kabaru (Kenya) - Part 1

Milk is important because Chai, yeah, Chai.

Tell us a little bit about Chai. Chai is black good Kenyan tea,

black tea boiled together with milk and water and.

Hello friends, this is Scott Mazingo your host.

And we're here talking Chai tea and all things Kenya with

Bernard Kabaru in the studio. This is a special two-part

episode that I think you're really going to appreciate.

So sit back and enjoy. Well welcome back to the Grace

Church Members podcast. We have a very special guest in

the studio today. Well actually 2 but one who has

come almost 8000 miles to be with us.

And Brian, you only came about 8 miles.

So we're gonna, we're gonna defer to my friend Bernard

Kabaru Mowangi. He's here from Kenya.

And also my friend Ryan Burns, one of our members, Grace Church

at the Taylor's campus, are here.

Good afternoon, man. How are we?

Very good. Doing well.

All right, I'm happy to jump into this conversation, Bernard.

Most of our listeners know that our church does missions.

I'm using air quotes there in Kenya, but they're probably

unfamiliar with the extent of our partnership and the role

that you play in central Kenya. So could you just take a few

minutes, give us a little bit of your background, your biography

and how you came to be doing what you've been doing for the

last couple decades there in central Kenya?

Well, thank you. Thank you, Scott.

And it's what a joy it is to be here today and also to have the

opportunity to be able to share. And also I mean want to

appreciate and celebrate God's Providence in bringing us

together. My name is Bernard Cabaro

monkey. I was born in central Kenya

specifically in a place called Kyangundu which is a village in

Neri county. Grew up there humble background.

My father and mother believers. So I'm the third generation

believer within our family because my Matano grandmother,

Patano grandmother was among the first believers in the village,

became a Christian and came to know Christ when I was age 17 as

a young person transitioning to high school, got involved in

establishing and a youth ministry.

So served in youth ministry for for some years.

Wrestled with God about his calling me to pastor ministry

but eventually giving. And one of the struggles

actually that I was struggling with is I was so ambitious to

want to address the poverty that I had grown in the

underdevelopment of my area and what in my thinking I had come

to conclude was faith assured me an eternity.

So no problem about heaven. But faith in Christ did not seem

to address my real issues. And so the backwardness, the

poverty that I grew up in, I thought the only way to address

that is to pursue a career that will secure me with finances,

with wealth, with power, and and and so yeah, that's that's what

I thought about. And and so when God started

calling me into ministry, I told him, God, you're making a big

mistake. You have opened the opportunity

for me to go to high school. One of the best high schools in

in in in Kenya had a passion in my heart to pursue law join

politics. And I'm saying, God, you're

making a big mistake. And because I didn't know of any

pastor at that time who had gotten to where I had gotten

there and had chosen to be a pastor, and some of the pastor

that I knew, they were living in poverty.

And for me, giving in to ministry was like signing a

certificate of poverty. I didn't want that.

And but anyhow, who am I before God?

So God finally got out of me. So I stand today as a servant of

God and with no regret about responding to his call.

I'm married to a woman again. I met God's Providence in my

ministry. Mary, my wife, she's a school

teacher and we are blessed with two children, two daughters.

Shirley who is currently married and working a lot as a lab

scientist and with two kids. CJ who is five and Mary, who is

3. And Shirley is married to

Timothy, one of the young men that we raised the church at

Colonia, one of the orphans and a vulnerable children program

that now is my son-in-law. And then I have, we have Carol,

our second daughter who did business management and was

working with a corporate organization but resigned to

work with me. And so she's an administrative

assistant in our ministry. So, so generally that's that's

who I am. Born in a large family.

So we were ten sons and two two daughters.

So I'm the 5th in that line, yeah?

Big family. Yes, yes.

Are you the only one that's in full time ministry?

Yes, yes, Yes. I'm only one in the in the full

ministry. Yes, Yeah.

And so you had an opportunity to come over to the States and do

some training and then when you when you move back, did you

start pastoring immediately? Yes, yes.

Yeah. Which is another again,

Providence. I had never ever dreamt of, even

thought about coming to the US But one of the parts of God's

faithfulness he's he provided an opportunity for me to come to

Arkansas to Baptist College, William Baptist University, now

full scholarship. And yeah, when I got here I got

again tempted to I think about God has given me an opportunity

now to be able to get some money to secure myself because I

thought, I mean I faster minister again go back home.

There's nothing that is going to provide, but praise God.

So I finished in May of 1991, and 17th actually to be

specific, and 21st of May. I was headed back to Kenya,

invited by the college where I was studying back in Kenya to

teach at the Bible College, and then also started invited to

pastor a church that was struggling on the outskirts of

Arabi. Banana Hill Baptist Church.

Yeah. So that was my first pastoral

ministry, yeah. So Fast forward a little bit and

Grace Church comes into relationship with you when you

are pastoring at Koinonia. That's right.

Yeah, there's a second SAS plant of Banana Hill Baptist Church.

Yep. Banana Hill, What a what a

beautiful place and a great name.

So we won't cover all the details of how the partnership

came about. A lot of just God moments and

and all of that. Let's, let's camp out a little

bit on that. When when you hear the word

partnership, when we talk about partnership, let's let's define

that 'cause that is a important characteristic and we hope hope

a distinction for our church and for the work that you're doing

in central Kenya that separates it a little bit more from maybe

traditional quote UN quote missions.

So when we talk about partnership, what, what are you

talking about? Well.

Great. And and I, I, I, I have to say,

even if you define that, that our relationship with Grace is a

unique one, that is drawn from an understanding of what I refer

to as genuine partnership in partnership.

When you think about it, the beginning point you see think

about the imagery that Paul gives when he thinks about the

church, the body. And so when in First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12, he talks about the various parts of the body, there

is none which is senior than the other.

In fact, he makes an argument that even that which is seen to

be minimal in value is actually of greater value, and so

partnership therefore must be considered as the body of Christ

working together as equals, with mutual benefit.

And that's what Paul makes the argument.

And so our relationship, therefore with grace as we

relate, with grace coming alongside a vision that God has

given us, and even as grace pursues the vision that God has

given them. And the point of our

convergence, meeting together as a body of Christ, is the pursuit

of that vision. And so that has been great.

No, that's well said, Well said. So then let's, we'll come back

to a little bit more. I'm going to have you explain

and what that, what that vision is for Central Kenya.

But Ryan, why don't you jump in and let's talk a little bit

about the role that you play, the volunteer title that you

have, and a little bit about your own personal experience in

travels to to Kenya. So what?

What is your official volunteer title here?

I think you guys call me a country lead within the outreach

ministry. That's a that's a pretty cool

title. It's a pretty cool title, yeah.

You get a whole, You get a whole country.

I just get a little department. You get a whole country.

Yeah, there we go. It works.

So I transitioned into this role kind of over the course of 2023.

So a, a great friend, Jerry Fay has been doing that, Great

friend of Burners, great friend of mine has been doing that for

a ten years or more. Yeah.

And I transitioned into that early 2023.

And so I've spent the last year or so just trying to kind of get

my feet underneath me in terms of what have I actually

volunteered to do. Sure.

But it has given me some great privileges to spend a lot of

time with Bernard, more than I had in the past on phone calls

as we planned, as we talked about things, as we pray

together for upcoming trips for each other's families.

So it's been a real blessing in that sense to be able to to

spend time with a brother who is 1000 miles away as you said at

the beginning of this, right? And so the the leading the

efforts for Grace Church as it relates to the individual

countries and we have other country leads for for different

partners that we have. What does that look like as far

as planning a calendar year, trips that that, that kind of

thing? Yeah.

So for me and and for Bernard and kind of our partnership

together in that it is you know we're looking 12 to 18 months

sometimes even high level talking about two years out.

And we're we're thinking about the trips, we're thinking about

where can financial support be provided, where are we going to

need Grace members or Grace staff on the trips, What type of

of team do we need to put together for a given trip, what

is the trip going to be doing, which helps also obviously

inform who's going to go on that trip, right.

So we have some some kind of rhythms that we do, right.

So we have two medical trips we send a year, so we've got a

April and October. Those are doing medical clinics

where we're sending doctors, nurses, dentists and then many

people that are not those professions who are just there

to help, right. And we're we're running a a

three day medical clinic at one of the local churches where we

are providing medicines, we're providing direct medical care.

We are providing a lot of tooth extraction and and in the recent

trips we've begun to add in some some vision assistance with

glasses and and optical tests and things like.

That how large are these trips? Typically people.

Number of persons. 20 ish, right.

We go over that sometimes and then then a few times and

probably early on in our partnership they were smaller,

but 20 is kind of the target and then we've got some variances

there. According to how many vans that

a burner can get for us, that's. Right, That's right.

Yeah, we definitely have some Max's, right.

We realized that as you get over 24 people, it's actually adding

another two people. When you think about all the

luggage us Westerners bring requires more than than you

realize. Yeah, we're still working on

packing tendencies for Westerners.

That's right. Tell us a little, a little bit

personally about why can you? For you.

That's an interesting one. So, you know, I think when I

think about my own faith journey, I I came to know the

Lord similar to when Burner did late in high school.

And actually for me it's somewhat different.

Early on I wanted to go into ministry and as I mature to my

faith, I felt like God saying, no, that's not what we have for

you. And so there was a season where

I thought I was going to be that God was kind of going to be

putting me in the in the position to be a sender and to

help send other people into missions.

And then the more time my family spent at Grace, the more I found

opportunities to go places. So I have been very blessed to

go on a lot of trips at Grace to many different locations, which

is not what I expected from my life.

So one of the early trips to Kenya was in 2008, and I got to

go on that. Actually, all three of us were

there for that trip, right? And that was a teaching trip,

which I felt way out of my league because I was a in my

late 20s, not as a pastor or or ministry person anywhere, and

was supposed to be teaching a bunch of pastors in a country

I'd never been to. So, so that was definitely

challenging for me, right? To kind of feel like, what do I

have the maturity for this? Is my faith strong enough for

that? Hey, and just to just to pause

there for a second, I I love that story because I was

thinking about it as it illustrates the partnership, you

know, this is 2008, so 2008 communication's a little

different. You know, we're not jumping on

Zoom calls. We might have had Skype, but it

was, it was not not real easy, not real convenient.

There was no WhatsApp. I mean, we might be emailing,

but it just the world was a different place in 2008 and so

and we had not done these types of trips before.

And so again, thinking about partnership, what we said is

we'll get over there and then we're going to listen and ask a

bunch of questions and Bernard is going to tell us what he

needs. And so we had some stuff, you

had some stuff that we felt, quote UN quote, more comfortable

teaching. But it really didn't matter what

we wanted to do. And I remember we we, it was a

little bit different trip. We had a day on the front end

where we just sat, we got to know each other and we talked.

Bernard explained this is the church situation.

This is what the pastors are struggling with.

This is what the leaders are struggling with and we began to

just pray and we thought OK we can do that.

We can we'll put something together.

We got a got a few hours tonight we'll go back and refine some of

our notes and and to me one the type of relationship again,

partnership, trusting in God and really wanting to do what was

needed, that was so refreshing to me and it I just remember

where we were sitting because I'm on the front end.

I'm like you. I'm like what are we getting

into. I'm not really sure where we're

going and what we're going to do and and I never sensed anything

but faith and love and support and Bernard was so gracious to

just have new friends and we had we had a good time we got we we

still tell stories from. We still tell stories about

that. Yeah.

So sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but that is just

a poignant picture in my mind of this principle that we're trying

to describe. That goes way back to some of

our first trips. Yeah, absolutely.

So, so coming out of that trip actually I didn't go back for

nine years. So my wife Molly went on a

couple trips in that time frame and when Burner would come over

to the States to visit and spend time with us, he would look at

me and ask and and ask me when I'm coming back.

And I don't know right now, God's taking Molly and we're

good with that. So I've been on several trips

since then. I've I've, you know we we kind

of started talking about the medical trips and veered off of

that a little bit. But for me at this point now I

think I've been on every kind of trip to Kenya that we take.

So we do medical trips in the summertime.

We do some student trips where we'll take a group of students

and their parents and and really kind of watch God, what God can

do with that relationship while they're in another country.

And then we obviously do some, some teaching trips, right?

And and I've been lucky enough to get to go on all of those in

in different locations, in different places.

So that's been really special for me and something I

definitely never thought was going to happen and that God was

going to do. And so as we I think as some of

that rounded out and I started to get in a place of of being on

the different kinds of trips, Donald Spann actually started

joking with me that it was my time to lead a trip.

And I told him I don't know if that's really where my gifting

is. I'm better as a number two kind

of behind the scenes help facilitate.

And so little did I know that then Donald and Jerry Faye were

going to get together and say, oh, is that what he wants to do?

Well, let's just have him lead the whole thing.

So. So that's kind of where I got

into this a little bit also, which is is helpful.

I think 'cause I I am, I am behind the scenes.

I am getting to kind of do some administration.

Think about the resources that need to be put in place and map

out some of that stuff. Well, and use.

I mean use your strengths. You work in a couple of

different fields, but logistics is something that you do in your

in your daytime job. And so just being able to take

the best part of you and apply it into the church as a

volunteer is pretty exciting for me.

So Bernard, as you talk a little bit about the transition from

being a local church pastor and then taking on some additional

responsibilities of training and caring for other pastors and

just kind of walk us through how God has directed your, you were

calling over the last 15 years? Well, thank you again.

And just before I address that the one of the joys of of of our

partnership is when I sit and listen to a testimony like what

the two of you have said. Because again true partnership

must have a mutual blessing and so if there was no life change

for grace then that partnership is invalid is is is not genuine.

But celebrate hearing the testimonies of of that.

Going back to the question. Yeah, after doing a combined

role of whether teaching at the theological college and

pastoring or being a counter director of an NGO in Pastoring

then I felt that those and and looking at the realities that I

had observed, particularly amongst churches in central

Kenya and those that I had involved in training.

I felt that as I got older the best way for me to be able to

multiply myself was to be able to release myself from the local

church pastoring a job which was kind of secondary to my primary

calling. And so therefore, I resigned

from Alam with the NGO that I was heading to become full time

at Coronia so that I can consider and help stabilize it

with an A perception that I'm going to leave exit to Coronia

so that I can concentrate to be more available to mentor the

Pastor Soul as a platform to do that.

When that time was right, we set up Life Empowerment for

Transformation International, which is a nonprofit

organization. And that's called.

That's lefty for. Sure, that's right.

LEFTI say that again. Lefty Life Empowerment for

Transformation International. OK, awesome.

Which has the idea again of a community salvation, holistic

salvation, a community full of Shalom and that Shalom that is

centered around God, that wholeness that is centered

around the Gospel. And so I felt I needed to be

able to be more available and accessible to help the church

leadership to be transformational in their

thinking so that they can be. They can be able to effectively

lead their congregations to be able to address life change,

empowerment issues within their society, amongst themselves,

equipped for empowerment, but also a church that is bringing

change. Again the whole imagery that

Jesus uses about light and salt, so every believer being assault

or light those are life transforming agents.

So so therefore every local church needs to have a life

changing impact within their community.

So I felt I needed to be available to do that and so

therefore do leadership development, which is formal,

running a Bible school, non formal training, having an

institute, selective men that have proven themselves in their

pastoral leadership. They are developing themselves

their potential for greater growth and so therefore bringing

them together with their wives for an institute or coming

alongside a local church that is involved in addressing often

than vulnerable children realities within the community.

And if they've already started doing it, just come and help and

help them develop a philosophy. So rather than just catering for

for example, a kid has been sent home for fees or they they don't

have enough food, just rather than just addressing the food,

give them a philosophy of that. So let's use that as an example.

We'll go back to when you talk about holistic salvation and

wholeness. Those might be some new terms

for folks. So let's let's just talk about

the areas of life where we're seeking transformation in order

to obtain wholeness. So you mentioned, you mentioned

food, you mentioned schooling. What else are we thinking about

when we're when we're addressing the entire needs of a child and

that of a family? Yeah, well, so that wholeness

comes at the center. Part of it is is pretty sure

them to be able to know God and identify themselves in court

because that identity will be able to address any reality of

vulnerability and then as Luke 252 talks about, Jesus grew

instead. So there is a physical,

emotional, social, economic, environmental, all those factors

that relate to real life and so being stewards of that growth

and to make sure that that is that good.

So within the OBC often invulnerable children program,

therefore at the call of it we want and and probably just

before getting that, often referring to a child who has

lost. Appearance.

Vulnerability because of either poverty, which again with the

reality of 40% of Kenya is now below poverty line, or abuse or

neglect or single parent that are poor, or a father who has

died and left the child with the mother.

So an abuse, neglect due to alcohol abuse, drug abuse, those

are realities that makes it 'cause that vulnerability.

So at the core of it, the central part of it is we want

that child to come to know Christ and so identify

themselves with Christ rather than their environmental

environments vulnerability. So then the second part of that

is their emotional health to be able to address the trauma, the

the wounds that they've have experienced in their

vulnerability. And then of course within that

there is also a question of community.

So socio formations, we wanted them to be part of a community,

to provide a community that they can be able to find love and

just a connection. And then there is a physical,

physical addressing the issue of their health, their housing,

medical issues. And of course there is the

academic looking at their school life, you know, to be able to

propel them to become what God would have them to be.

In addition to that progress, if they do that, we want to find

that they have their gifting and so we want them to exercise

their gifting. So there's a service for mission

where we want them to at home, at church, in school they are

serving. And the other area of our

mission is leadership for mission, where we are saying

each one of them is significant, is gifted, has influence and so

we want them to be able to be instruments of change.

Again, church home and school and of course as we are prepared

to the last phase which is the launch phase and the exiting.

So we want to prepare them for the marketplace and so that they

can go out in the marketplace to be real changing of change and

hope that's right. So that's that's that's the

components that we have. So when we talk about Wholeness,

Holistic salvation, identity, that then addresses all these

areas of vulnerability, this is this is decades long work that

is going to change prayerfully the the generational component

of these families. Absolutely.

We we factor these as transgenerational life change

that is going to be. And I can look at that in

myself. You know, today as I look at

myself, where I am and where my parents are, and I look at my

children, there's a faith connection that also deals with

and improved conditions of living.

Well, and this is a chance to just say thank you to the

families that are advocates for children in the OVC program that

are Grace Church families. This is not just Grace Church

families that are participating with this.

There's you have partners from Australian churches, partners

from Romanian churches. But when you enter into this

partnership to be an advocate, this is the goal.

And so I just it's worth pausing because everything that Bernard

said, you could take out a nice piece of white paper and chart

it and it would be a beautiful position paper.

You could turn it in in any Bible college seminary classroom

and they'd give you an A. But it is not, it is not

theoretical. This is this is personal.

This is practical. You know there are names and

faces behind every one of these families and and I wish we had

more time to tell some of these stories.

We're going to tell a few of them here in a second, but this

is part of the your family's interaction.

Ryan, tell us a little bit about Peter.

Is that right? That's right.

Tell us a little bit about about Peter and your relationship with

Peter. So we, I'm not sure at this

point, I don't remember when exactly we started as an

advocate for Peter. I mean it would have been very

early on. You know typically the way with

this our our OBC partnership and and advocacy works as a child

comes into the program to the local churches there in Kenya

and Grace Church commits to taking that on and then Grace

Church works to find an advocate, a sponsor here in the

States. And so Peter was probably five

when he came into the program. He comes from a family.

His his parents are, are his mom had passed away.

He lives with his grandmother, their other siblings, his, his

sister is also has an advocate here in the States.

And so we've been sponsoring him for since he was 5 and I think

he's 10 now, so maybe five years, right.

You know a little fun tidbit that I think God threw in there

for us is that Peter and I share the same birthday.

So that is always kind of fun for us.

It's easy for us to remember that.

So we've had the opportunity because of some of our trips to

be able to meet Peter to to go see at this point both I I got

to go into his home and meet his grandmother his Shushu and and

along with his sister-in-law and his his cousin or or niece I

think she is and then I've met his his sister as well And so we

get to meet them and get to be a part of that.

And then this past summer, when Molly and our our oldest

daughter went together on the student trip, they both got to

go in and I think you actually got to accompany them as well.

It was one of the highlights of the trip.

And so it's really great to be able to be a part of that, to to

see how how much they love the Lord, how they're involved, how

they're faithful, how they're leading the community.

To hear the the stories from Peter's grandmother or about

Peter's grandmother of how she cares for her family at an

advanced age. Right.

And how she's caring for these grandchildren.

It's just, it's just incredible. And there's a piece of that that

you know is, is is one of the last trips or the last time I

was over in Africa, I was actually in Rwanda.

But we kind of highlighted some at that point that there's a

difference in socioeconomics between the families and the

churches that we're working with in Africa versus what we have

here in the States. And to be able to witness that

and to have your child come home and realize I need to stop

complaining when I don't have the things I want and that's a

huge back to your point of partnership of we're both

getting things right. So.

So our advocacy is a it's a small monthly at the stage of

Peter's schooling. I think it's $35 a month that we

that we pay that that I don't notice right.

And so then it goes to pay for clothes, it goes to pay for

school fees. It goes to you know we've as

I've gotten to talk to some of the the ABC program managers

there in the in Kenya. It they are able to kind of

track the account and know how much is there be able to give

birthday presents when it comes up right.

Be able to work through what do you want do you want this or

this And here's your budget and they'll talk through it and.

And you're able to correspond some as well.

Yes, we sent, we're able a couple times a year.

We each send letters back and forth.

And so it's been fun for us with Peter to see his ability to

communicate kind of increase right from early just I'm going

to fill in the blank to now he's able to.

He's communicating more in sentences and there's still

certainly a a shyness there. There's still certainly some, I

would assume some insecurities there because you're a 10 year

old trying to send a letter to an American family 8000 miles

away and you just don't know what to expect there, right.

So but it's been great because we've been able to have our

children write letters to him. Our son has he constantly

complaints he doesn't have a brother and so he longs for the

day to get to meet Peter and and and sure he you know he's an

eighth grader he's 13. He understands that that's not a

that's a brother in Christ. It's not a true brother in the

same way that he wants a buddy to go play basketball with sure.

But that is something that he is looking forward to and and as we

he's even now talking about when do I get to go when it's my turn

to get to go. So that's a really cool piece

for our family. Thanks again for joining us for

this episode. Be on the lookout for part two

of our interview along with an update from our most recent

medical trip. For more information on Kenya

and all our outreach partners, visit Grace dot SC or click on

the link in the show notes and we will see you next time on the

Grace Church Members Podcast.