Compass Direct News January 31 2008

 

ISTANBUL: Jordan has increased pressure on foreign Christians living in the kingdom, expelling many long-time residents over the past 13 months in what local churches see as an attack on their legitimacy.

Authorities deported or refused residence permits to at least 27 expatriate Christian families and individuals in 2007, a number of them working with local churches or studying at a Christian seminary, Compass has confirmed.

In all but one case, officials refused to provide written explanations for the decisions. But many of those expelled told Compass that they had been questioned by intelligence officers regarding evangelism of Muslims.

“They said that I am a threat to Jordanian security and I am making the society unstable,” said Hannu Lahtinen, a Finnish pastor deported last month. “They have a thousand ways to say you are preaching the gospel.”

Though not illegal, Christian “public proselytism” of Muslims is against government policy, according to the U.S. State Department’s annual report on religious freedom in Jordan.

But a Jordanian spokesperson told Compass that the government only deported foreigners who had broken the law or had been dishonest in their application for residency.

“There have been incidents where individuals have violated the legal terms of their residence in the country or have deeply offended religious and public sensibilities, or both,” said the official, who requested his name be withheld.

According to pastors from Jordan’s five official evangelical churches, recognized by the government as “societies,” authorities have long provided a wide degree of freedom for religious minorities.

Christians, including Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox, make up 3 percent of Jordan’s population but hold almost 10 percent of the seats in parliament. Catholic and Orthodox churches have their own family court system.

Evangelicals, who number approximately 5,000, have fewer rights than the historical churches but are tax exempt and can sponsor residence permits for foreign clergy.

In July 2006, Jordan published the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in its official Gazette, giving the covenant, which protects freedom of religion, force of law.

Against this backdrop of apparent tolerance, local church leaders said that they felt threatened by the escalating crackdown on foreigners. Pastors from denominations affected by the deportations said that it appeared that the government was challenging the local church’s legitimacy.

“We are a legal entity, and many of these foreigners have been granted visas as clergy working in legal Jordanian churches,” Nazarene pastor Afeef Halasa said. “Suddenly kicking them out without giving a reason communicates that our churches are not legitimate.”

Christians from the United States, Europe, South Korea, Egypt, Sudan and Iraq were among those deported or refused visas in 2007.

Intelligence officers handcuffed and blindfolded Finnish pastor Lahtinen after detaining him at an Amman gas station last December 5. Police held the clergyman for two days and then deported him without an official explanation. Lahtinen’s wife and two young sons returned to Finland the following week.

One month later, upon official inquiry from the Finnish Foreign Ministry, Jordanian authorities provided a written explanation of the pastor’s deportation.

Lahtinen was accused of being a threat to the country’s social stability and illegally residing in the kingdom, and he was in personal danger, according to a letter from Jordan’s Foreign Ministry to the Finnish embassy, Finland’s Ambassador Pertti Harvola confirmed.

A Jordanian government spokesperson told Compass that officials had repeatedly warned Lahtinen about his “activity.”

“It was found that he had been residing here illegally, with no work nor residence permit,” said the official.

“They have never warned me,” said Lahtinen, who also said that before deportation police had interrogated him about whether he was holding religious meetings for Muslims in his home.

Ambassador Harvola confirmed Lahtinen’s claims that he been legally working as a pastor at the time of his deportation. Lahtinen’s year-long residence permit to work as a clergyman for the Assemblies of God church had been renewed in September 2007.

Seminary Students Deported

A U.S. citizen handcuffed and kept in police custody for two days before being deported in August said that he had been forced to sign papers without being allowed to read them. He said that only when he grabbed one paper from an officer’s hands and pulled it through the bars of his cell door had he had a few moments to read that he was considered a “threat to national security.”

The Christian requested that his name and further details of his deportation be withheld for security reasons.

At least 10 of those deported in August and September 2007 were non-Jordanian Arab students at the Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary (JETS). In addition, Jordan rejected the visa applications of all foreign JETS students requesting residency for the 2007-2008 academic year.

In October, a human rights fact-finding team organized by Christian Solidarity International and the Religious Freedom Coalition brought up the issue of JETS deportations with Jordan’s Interior Minister, Eid al-Fayez. Al-Fayez denied targeting Christian students.

In a separate interview, representatives from Jordan’s General Intelligence Department told the team that no students were deported unless they were illegal residents.

But Jordan has consistently denied visas to JETS foreign students in recent years.

Though recognized by several international accrediting organizations, the seminary has been rebuffed in its attempts to acquire official accreditation under Jordan’s Ministry of Higher Education.

JETS eventually registered under the Ministry of Culture in 1995, five years after its inception, but the government continued to regularly deny a number of its foreign students and professors residency. Many have been forced to enter the country on tourist visas and have overstayed the time limit in order to complete their studies.

Upon exiting the country, those who stay past their visa’s expiration date face a penalty of 1.5 Jordanian Dinar (US$2.1) for each day they have overstayed.

Border police deported another U.S. citizen at the end of October upon his return to Jordan from abroad. The Christian had been working with a local church since 1999 and had only earlier that month had his yearly residence permit application rejected for the first time.

His legal stay in Jordan about to expire, he left the country in order to re-enter on a one-month tourist visa that later could be extended for up to three months.

“The [U.S.] embassy thought it was my fault, that it was imprudent of me to leave the country when my residence permit had been denied,” the Christian said. “My only other option would have been staying in the country illegally, which I didn’t feel comfortable doing.”

The U.S. man’s wife and four young children were eventually forced to leave Jordan in December, after being informed verbally by intelligence police that they had two weeks to exit the country.

The Christian has not yet received an official explanation for his deportation. But friends who inquired with high government officials through personal connections were given a variety of reasons.

“Most often they were told it was for evangelistic reasons, though once I was accused of pastoring a Mormon church and also of carrying money into Iraq,” the Christian said. “You can’t defend yourself against this type of thing because everyone that went got a different response, and nothing was ever made public.”

A Jordanian official contacted regarding the U.S. citizen’s deportation did not respond about the specific incident.

The official said that his government at times refused visas to foreigners because they were carrying out activities other than those stated on their residence permit applications.

“A number of foreign nationals declared residence under different pretexts, such as Arabic language studies, tourism, investment-related or voluntary work,” said the official who requested that his name be withheld. “But once having secured their residence permits, [they] proceeded to engage in activity or work not related to their declared reason for residing in the country.”

Several pastors expelled in the past year had been staying in Jordan on tourist visas after the government refused them residence permits to work with local churches. The government spokesperson did not specify why the visa applications of foreign pastors had been turned down.

Though foreign Christians have suffered the brunt of government restrictions over the past year, Jordanian pastors fear that locals will be targeted next if the pressure on foreigners is not challenged.

“It’s not just the issue of missionaries that I’m worried about, it’s about the erosion of our rights as evangelicals,” said one pastor, who asked that his name be withheld. “If they get away with this, what will they do next?”

Restricting Hotel Meetings

Local pastors reported that, as of 2007, the government had placed new restrictions on Christian gatherings in hotels. They said that believers are now required to obtain a government security clearance before holding meetings in hotels, but that the necessary permission is rarely granted.

“Jordan depends on tourism, it’s 20 percent of the country’s income,” said one pastor, who requested anonymity. “By limiting evangelicals, it’s limiting the tourism that comes here . . . This is not our image in front of the world. We want Jordan to be known for human rights.”

Another Jordanian pastor told Compass that his church now asked visiting foreign preachers to refrain from openly saying that they were coming to Jordan to preach. He said that his applications on behalf of foreign Christians had been flatly rejected by the intelligence police so often that he felt targeted by the government.

Uncertainty about the future of evangelical Christians in Jordan caused almost all local and foreign pastors who spoke with Compass to request anonymity. Several foreign Christians, now outside the kingdom, agreed to be interviewed solely based on the hope that publicity might help halt the crackdown.

“One concern we have is that this happening to us would make the church even more fearful,” said one former missionary. “We would hate to see that happen.”

He said that while in Jordan he had avoided overt evangelism, never inviting a non-Christian to his church.

“Whether you are playing it safe on one end or are being radical on the other, the government is going to do what it wants,” the Christian said.

The more children I met in India and the more stories I heard, the more I know that God brought me to this place, at this particular time, for a specific purpose. With all my heart, I felt He wanted me to do something significant to help these suffering children. But there are many children in India, so many horrific stories, and so much to be done…It’s overwhelming. Where do you start? With a single child.

That realization was never more real to me than the night I visited a children shelter where several hundred children were sleeping on the floor. Some were in tents, some on the floor of a bus park, and some just out in the open with no food, no house, no clothes, and some without any parents. Most of these children were very sick and had no money to visit a doctor or to buy medication. My husband David and I were able to take 35 children and set up a fund for their doctor’s visits and for medicine, but that was such a small number which needed help, love, and God’s word.

I stood next to our ministry partner Derrick watching about 10 to 11 thousand people gather together to worship God and they do this every half hour. So many people hungry for God and they don’t care if their family disown then. Some of them had to hide just to talk about Jesus and to read the Bible (which sometimes is just a partial copy of the Bible). They cannot walk, talk, or pray freely. They don’t have a building to worship in, but they are grateful for what God has done and continues to do. Nothing will stop them to love God and to believe in Him and His word. They have nothing, but yet they have it all because they have Jesus. God is doing a wonderful work in their lives. They cry out to God with all of their heart. They are not ashamed of Jesus if even they know they could lose their lives.

I just love these people. They are close to God’s heart. I watched over 300 children as they sang, praised God, and said their prayers. It hit me all over again that this is their daily experience ….one which has been indelibly printed on my mind and heart. When I glanced over at Derrick, he was weeping. He said, “These atrocities must stop!”

It was difficult for either of us to speak. The enormity of the problem weighed heavily on my mind. I asked permission to stay and spend more time with the children. My heart broke as I was able to tuck those boys and girls in and pray with them. As I looked into the face of each child, I began to understand that our heavenly Father knows each one.

He formed and created them individually, with unique talents, gifts, and desires. When God looks at the problem in India, He doesn’t see a mass of bodies or a sea of faces. He sees grace. He cries for Moses. Every single boy and girl is precious in His eyes…and to save even one is worth any price.

As long as I live, I’ll never forget that night when the children became real to me. Later on in that trip, I met with Derrick and other pastors to discuss a way to meet the needs of these very real children. When we all sat down and I looked into their faces, I knew there was no way I could send them home empty-handed. It was so obvious that they all had a strong compassion. They were sacrificing their time out of love.

I visited the National Association of the Blind, for children who were born blind and abandoned by their families. With the blessing of God, David and I were able to sponsor fifty children. We don’t have much, but as God supplies our needs we turn around and bless them. They have little beds to sleep in and the word of God and His light to brighten up their way.

One pastor told me, “It’s not that we don’t care about these children. We desperately want to help them, but our people are so poor …we just don’t have the money.” I prayed and asked God for a strategy that would be culturally sensitive and would allow that pastor to meet this great need. I wasn’t interested in making my presence known or getting credit for anything I would do. All I truly wanted was to provide the resources this pastor needed to take care of the children.

Millions of people around the world suffer hardship, hunger, and disease. But those who suffer the most are children. They endure unimaginable living conditions on a daily basis without any hope of a better life.

David and I also support Home for the Ages, a senior citizen home, for people who have been put out from their homes for one reason or another. We have at the moment 140 women and 110 men. There is work to be done, very little time, and no money or people to do it. God is coming soon and He will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail. As believers, we are commanded by God to love others and to share the hope of Jesus Christ. God loves and cares about suffering people. And if we share God’s heart, we must see the world through His eyes.
The word of God says “go and make disciples of all nations.” It was the last command Jesus gave His disciples. Jesus did not command us to do the impossible, nor did He command us to go to the ends of the earth with His Gospel if He did not expect us to obey. However, today there are still entire groups of people who have never heard of Jesus Christ.

A world in need—hunger, war, famine, disease, and natural disaster create a worldwide climate of the suffering that most of us cannot begin to comprehend. A sponsor for a missionary can provide a child with the basic necessities such as food, clothing, medical attention, and education opportunities. Most importantly, these children can receive the message that God loves them and has a special plan for their lives…

As you read this, let God add a special blessing to your life, so that you also someday may give to needed children. My strategic thinking and emphasis on partnership have breathed new life into the mission world and provide innovative ways to partner together and accomplish more for the Kingdom of God. Please give to missions and pray for our missionaries.

Elaine, Missionary, Christiandesign.blogspot.com

By Ed Langlois

Archbishop Vlazny with inmate, Jeff Tiner.

From a windowless cell at Oregon State Penitentiary, a Catholic death row inmate evangelizes across the world.

A former white supremacist, Jeff Tiner is now inspired by a humble African saint. He resists publicity for himself, saying he wants only to spread the story of St. Josephine Bakhita far and wide. He uses most of this time and resources to support the Canossian Sisters, the religious community St. Bakhita joined more than a century ago.

At one time, Tiner had other priorities. In 1993 in Springfield, he allegedly shot a man in consort with a woman who wanted the victim out of the house and away from her children. Tiner, court records say, disposed of the body in a remote area of the Cascade Range. He had been in trouble with the law before and bore tattoos of a swastika and the words “White Pride.”

Years after being convicted, inmate Tiner was sitting despondent in his cell. A letter appeared under his door. The writer, calling herself his “Swiss Mum,” informed him that Jesus, Mary and Josephine Bakhita loved him.
Huh?

Tiner tried to throw what he considered a zany screed into the waste bag, but it fell short. He bent over to grab it for another try and it felt as if the letter jumped into his hand. He placed it on his desk and returned to other projects. But the letter nagged him and he felt a small stir of the soul.

Tiner wrote back to the stranger, telling her that he did not know he was Swiss and inquiring about this Bakhita woman.

As time went by, he received more letters and pamphlets from his Swiss friend, a lay member of the Canossian order who had read about death row inmates on the Internet. She taught him about the Sudanese saint.

Born to an important family in the Darfur region in 1869, Bakhita was kidnapped at age 6 by Arab slave traders. Treated brutally, she was sold and resold five times, falling at one point into the hands of an Ottoman army officer who marked her as his with scars and tattoos.

Sold to an Italian diplomat when she was still a teen, she went to Venice and met the Canossian Sisters, an Italian order that had been founded in 1808. Bakhita sought baptism in 1890. A court later found that Italian law did not recognize slavery and so she was freed.

She chose to stay with the sisters. By 1896, she professed vows. She served for years in northern Italy, becoming known for a gentle spirit and holiness. Children called her “Our Brown Mother.” She died in 1947 and was canonized in 2000.

“My own story is unimportant,” Tiner says, preferring instead to talk about the saint who changed his life. “Her story pierced my soul.”
After reading about St. Bakhita, the condemned man felt hope.

“I came to understand that I, too, could come back to life, spiritually,” he wrote in a 2006 article for the Canossian Sisters’ magazine. “I could be rescued from slavery to sin and find redemption and joy in the arms of Jesus and Mary.” He felt Bakhita leading him down a path toward Jesus, he says.

“I am no longer waiting to die,” Tiner declared. “I am alive in Christ Jesus.”

Tiner was baptized in 2005. Because prison officials refused to allow him into the main chapel, the chaplain asked two guards to fill a large laundry tub with water and wheel it to death row.

“There, in shackles and handcuffs, I was baptized in the water that flowed from the side of Christ, made new in the Holy Spirit,” Tiner recalls in a letter written to Auxiliary Bishop Ken Steiner.

The summer after his baptism, Archbishop John Vlazny came to the prison and confirmed Tiner and four other prisoners.

For the past six months, Tiner has written regularly to Bishop Steiner, signing his letters, “Mama Mary loves you!” Bishop Steiner admits that he has caught the Bakhita fever. He even wrote his Christmas column in The Sentinel about her.

“I am very impressed with the conversion of this man, especially his missionary spirit,” Bishop Steiner says.

Another member of the hierarchy holds St. Bakhita in high regard. When Pope Benedict issued an encyclical on hope this year, he prominently cited her as a role model of the virtue. Tiner sent the pope a letter of thanks.

With Deacon Allen Vandecoevering and St. Edward Parish in Keizer helping, Tiner started the grassroots Bakhita Project to help the Canossian Sisters. The women, who wear simple gray habits, have worked in Sudan since 1996, teaching children who are refugees from the long warfare there. They also provide food and health care for families. Through benefactors of the Bakhita Project, Tiner and his associates have so far helped build classrooms at St. Francis School in Khartoum. They have paid for a brick school and women’s center in a desert refugee camp and provided food and supplies for several thousand children attending school in tents. The project is also seeking to raise $45,000 to pay for a new bus to transport students in the desert where temperatures can reach 130 degrees.

Sister Severina Motta, who serves in Sudan, wrote to Tiner a year ago to tell him what gifts can mean there.

“I would have never thought that children can be overhappy with just a few sweets, biscuits, drinks, soap and a little ball,” she wrote just after Christmas. “You must have seen their exploding happiness. They ran along the street carrying the little bag on their shoulders, then they danced and sang under the hot sun.”

The lay Canossian and several Canossian Sisters who work in Rome have been sacramental sponsors for Tiner on his faith trek.

“I consider myself very fortunate in being one of Jeffrey’s pen friends because of his most edifying spiritual life,” writes Canossian Sister Velia De Giusto. “He shows an unquenched thirst for becoming more Christ-like.”

One nun in Singapore, moved by Tiner’s writings, refers to him as a “lay Canossian brother.”

“Has anyone ever done so much and from behind prison bars?” Sister Mary Siluvainathan wrote in her order’s magazine.

“These Sisters remind me so of Mother Teresa of Calcutta,” Tiner writes in a letter to The Sentinel. “They all refuse to get side-tracked by governmental blather. They crawl right down into the mud to save the poorest of the poor and the little ones.”

Tiner’s influence has spread on death row. He was confirmation sponsor for Conan Hale, convicted of a 1996 triple murder. It was Hale’s sacramental confession to Father Tim Mockaitis that in 1996 was recorded by Lane County jailers, setting off an international argument on religious freedom.

When he met Hale, Tiner could tell the new inmate was distressed, “infested” with demons. Tiner prayed for him, even holding a crucifix up in front of Hale’s cell and seeking the help of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. This would be a big job.

The next day, Tiner saw Hale crying tears of contrition. The death row veteran asked permission to teach the faith to the new man. Over time, Hale seemed like a new person. Hale’s confirmation was arranged and the presider was to be none other than Father Mockaitis, an arrangement Tiner calls “beautiful symmetry.”

Hale, whom Tiner calls “a refurbished soul,” now creates and sells art to help support the Canossian Sisters and other religious communities. Three other inmates have gotten involved in the Bakhita Project. Tiner is teaching the rosary to another troubled prisoner.

His fond hope is that the Bakhita Project continues to spread beyond the penitentiary fences. The Holy Names Sisters Foundation printed up a brochure on the project. The flyer is making its way out to Catholic parishes in the area.

Tiner’s deep faith, Deacon Vandecoevering says, has granted him a kind of freedom. “This conversion has been an incredible thing for me to witness,” says the deacon. “It has been sustained. Once Jeff converted and was baptized, he shed all these layers of sin and became the child of God he was meant to be.”

To learn more about the Bakhita Project, go to www.sainteds.com and look at the feature pages. Aid can be mailed to The Bakhita Project/St. Edward Church, 5303 River Road North, Keizer, OR 97303.

Take a few minutes to read this beautiful news story… -John Roney

Local ministry born in African slum

By Steve Arney
sarney@pantagraph.com

Nairobi, KENYA, April 2006 — In a slum called Mitumba, on the city’s outskirts, Chad Parker of Bloomington started getting used to the stench — a blend of rotting garbage and raw sewage. | Photo gallery

As he and friends toured the slum, adorable children kept repeating, “How are you?” Their chirpy voices reminded him of birds, and life didn’t seem quite so desperate.

Then it rained.

Parker saw a child of Mitumba scoop water from a puddle for a drink. Nearby, a naked toddler defecated. Children were walking around the filth — and in it — with no shoes. Broken glass and rusted garbage were a part of the unpaved paths through the slum, a squatters zone with homes of scrap-metal construction.

The longer Parker stayed, the more he loved Mitumba’s people and the more he understood their privation.

The children of Mitumba don’t see giraffes. They see their mothers and friends dying of AIDS. They die of poverty, in poverty.

Parker’s group spent a couple hours with a woman from the neighborhood. Parker connected with her son; he guesses his age at 9. They horsed around for a time, and the boy fell asleep in Parker’s arms.

As the boy slept, the mother told the group that she was HIV-positive, her son had AIDS and advanced tuberculosis and the boy had six months to live.

Parker recounted recently: “I walked out of there and bawled my eyes out, just crying like a little girl.”

By the time the group’s plane landed in London for a stopover on the way home, Parker had outlines for a group that would become Goya Ministries. It would be a Christian-driven, non-governmental organization based in Bloomington working with a Kenyan group to radically improve lives in Mitumba.

At that moment, he had two certainties:

• One: The Kenyan group, Rural Evangelistic Ministries, would at minimum see its budget double. It ran a community center — a combined school for 60 kids and a church — on $60 a month. Parker intended to instantly double that with his own money.

• Two: His friends would be skeptical of his ideas for the organization.

Emily Okall, one of the people on the trip, recalls telling Parker: “Great, Chad. I’m behind you.”

But she admits she thought: “Not going to happen.”

BLOOMINGTON, November 2007 — At Goya Ministries’ monthly meeting, at Parker’s house, nine people provided various updates. The latest on missions trips; report on donation of supplies; report on speaking engagements to draw interest; talk of Web updates and the need for updates; report on the sale of Kenyan jewelry and crafts to help the Mitumba people provide for themselves.

There are short-term goals, mostly involving food, water and clothing to get Mitumba through another day. There are long-term goals of getting this community moving under its own power.

For Goya, there are unmet goals on both accounts. But the group, in less than two years, has started a transformation in partnership with the Kenyan ministry group, its non-denominational minister, Shadrack Ogembo, and Shadrack’s wife, Violet, who runs the school.

The school’s attendance has quadrupled since the April 2006 visit. Water comes into the community in limited quantity. Mitumba has its first public, flushing toilet. Goya will be involved in sending three or four missionary teams in 2008.

This year’s $50,000 Goya budget mostly reflected the channeling of tax-deductible support money to missions volunteers from their supporters, but there are signs of bigger developments.

Jacob’s Well Community Church intends to participate in a water project. HighPointe Community Church will sponsor a Mitumba teacher and has its youth group involved in providing supplies. Eastview Christian Church’s missions department is participating in a trip next summer.

And Goya has adopted a style patterned after Parker’s brain-blitzing method: Propose ideas, no matter how improbable, without preconceived thought of limitation. Then, develop these thoughts into viable projects and tangible results.

Back in April 2006, Parker had talks with Shadrack on what could be done in Mitumba if there were no limits.

“I don’t think there are limits,” Parker says now.

The unpaid founder and executive director of Goya, Parker is a 26-year-old college dropout who runs Cybernautic Design, a Web design company based in downtown Bloomington.

After making Cs with half-effort through high school, he tried to enroll at Illinois State University. ISU wouldn’t take him. He enrolled in Heartland Community College and, in 2000, left college to open his own business.

Parker withholds gory details, but he says that during his Heartland days he strayed markedly from the Christian ways taught in the home of Peggy and Doug Parker. Wounded, he returned to the faith.

The experience, he said, keeps him from the impediments of conventional thinking.

“I saw what God could do in my life when I was a wreck. I saw limitless possibilities. I went to Mitumba and saw limitless possibilities.”

Goya mainly is composed of people in their 20s who go to Eastview Christian Church and Evangelical Free Church of Bloomington-Normal, but Goya is more about action than doctrine. Teresa Szczepaniak fits right in; she attends Moses Montefiore Temple and is converting from Christianity to Judaism.

The signs of the emerging generation are obvious beyond the youthful looks of the Goya team.

Three people at the November meeting used laptops for notes and wireless Internet hookups. “The brain” is Parker’s iPhone, which doubled as telephone and reminder notepad, and the small talk of the night included weighing Safari vs. Firefox Internet browsers.

At his first Goya meeting was Brian Bielby, 22, who intends to make a documentary on the Mitumba slum.

Dan Okall, the only Kenyan in the group, came in for kidding for being so old — at 31.

Goya has oversight of a board, composed of older people with Christian missions experience but willingness to let the young people dream, plan and act.

Goya works with a sense of call.

Said Kera Storrs of April 2006, “I was put in the slum on that day for a reason.”

They hadn’t planned on going there.

Beginnings

Parker, Storrs and three others went to Kenya for three weeks to volunteer at an orphanage. Another friend from town, Emily Fogleman, who subsequently married Dan and became Emily Okall, worked there as a volunteer. The team became discouraged because, according to Parker, it was obvious that Western aid was going to the operators and not the children.

Dan Okall, who knew the Americans from time at Illinois State University, met up with them halfway into their trip.

Dan also knew Shadrack and Violet Ogembo from having worked at an aid organization. He took the Bloomington group to Mitumba. Most of the group spent parts of a couple days there, but Parker diverted his time away from the orphanage and toward Mitumba for the remainder of the trip.

Back home, the skeptical group started meeting. When Lincoln Christian College showed interest in sending students to Mitumba in cooperation with Goya just a couple months into the project, Goya started to look like much more than a group of friends talking at Chad’s house, recalled Monica Wilcox, another who made the first journey to Mitumba.

“We were sending a team. We were setting dates.”

They had created a group that truly does something. Indeed, Goya’s name comes from the phrase “get off your” — well, you get the idea. It’s a raw phrase not commonly heard from a faith-based group, but Mitumba’s circumstances are cuss-inducing desperate.

The unplanned 15,000-person squatter settlement is next to an airport runway. The government’s insistence that this settlement is temporary makes getting services complicated.

Because the residents don’t pay taxes, they don’t get public schools. Parker said he learned in 2006 that the Mitumba children as old as third grade didn’t fully grasp the difference between the airplanes and the moon until the ministry school arranged a field trip to the nearby airport.

The slum had no running water, no reliable food source, no land to till, few jobs, no toilets. “Feeding” the children, even with American help, means vitamin-fortified porridge for one meal and rice and beans for the other six days a week.

Children have been raped and are taught a buddy system. Orphans crave for touch, and they sleep on the floor of the school. People drink a “home brew” that causes intoxication sometimes and death at other times. Huffing glue is popular, even among some of the children, as it is a cheap high and it takes their minds off of hunger.

But Mitumba also has a spirit, resilient children, determined adults and, through Goya Ministries, Western hearts and resources.

“The children were lit up like firecrackers,” said Parker. “The joy of the children overpowered the stench of the place.”