Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)
1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
On this last trip to Kenya I found myself in the church of a dear friend near where we are based in Kenya. It is a church that was planted to minister to the “tea pluckers” that work the tea plantations around the city of Limuru. Tea is a major commodity produced all over Kenya and especially in this high-altitude region. There are thousands of acres covered in beautiful green tea fields. If you ask the Kenyans, they will tell you it is the best tea in the world.
Tea leaves are very tender and fragile. It is important that when the tea is picked, the leaves not be broken. If they are, the tea will begin to ferment and the flavor will be compromised. Although there are machines that can pick the tea, they tend to break too many leaves and therefore machine picked tea is of a lower quality than handpicked. The tea around Limuru is exclusively picked by hand.
You can imagine the amount of labor this involves. As you drive by the tea fields you see people walking through the acres of tea with baskets on their backs picking tea leaves and throwing them into the basket. A plucker is paid about 10 cents per kilo. It is possible for an individual to pluck 35 to 40 kilos per day. That means these people make about $4.00 per day. I have spent much time in Kenya, and although the cost of living is lower than the United States, it is not so low that 20 to 25 dollars a week is not poverty.
The tea companies do provide housing and health care as well as education for the children. This helps, but tea pluckers are looked down on as one of the lower classes of Kenyan society. Although their children get education it is usually not enough to ensure that they will not spend their lives doing the same thing their parents did. It is a job that tends to trap its workers in a cycle of poverty and hard labor from which most never escape.
The people who come to my friend’s church are primarily tea pluckers. Most of the time when I travel I am speaking to pastors and leaders. Some of the people in this meeting were visiting pastors but most of them were members of the church. As I stood to minister to them, I felt that the basic teachings I had been doing were not appropriate for this group.
We had been concentrating on various aspects of pastoral and leadership training. As I looked at this group, I felt they needed something else. I began to think about the life and ministry my wife and I had enjoyed for the past 38 years.
I went into the ministry in April of 1978. We never thought about working and being in the ministry. I do not think it is wrong to do so, but it just never occurred to us that it was possible. I went to work with a friend of mine who was a little older than I and had been in the ministry 5 or 6 years at that time. He said he would pay me what I was making in the factory. He neglected to mention we had to believe that money in!
We all started out on a great adventure about which we knew nothing. For the first 10 years of our ministry we struggled financially. We were from an area that had not known any real move of God since the 1830s. Although the Charismatic movement was in full swing in many parts of the country, it was still very small in the northeast. We saw God do some wonderful things but we did not see any kind of rapid growth and we certainly had no notoriety. Those years were often very discouraging, but we kept pressing on.
At the same time, we began to hear teachings on what was then called the “Uncompromised Gospel.” Those preaching this message had some underlying themes.
1. The Word of God is the highest truth in the truth in the universe.
2. God created all things by his Word (Genesis 1)
3. Faith in God’s Word can change whatever is part of the world God created.
This was a major revelation in my life. I had been saved and filled with the Holy Spirit nearly 10 years. We had followed many of the popular Charismatic teachings but I knew there was more. When I heard these people teach on the consistency of God’s Word and how faith in God could change my life and circumstances, I was hearing things I had not heard them said that way before. As we faced the challenges before us we simultaneously were learning how to apply the truths we were hearing.
For the next 38 years, we learned these powerful principles by both studying them and living them. As I was standing before these precious people who had very little in the way of either money or prospects for the future, I realized that if the faith I learned could work in my life, it could work in theirs as well. If it does not work for tea pluckers in Kenya it is not really from God.
As time went on the “Uncompromised Gospel” began to be referred to as the Word of faith movement. Although I knew this was a word from God for the times, I also began to notice some problems. This is not unusual. Anytime God reveals a truth there will be those who misinterpret what God is saying or take the truth to a place God did not intend. In the case of the Word of Faith there were some mindsets that developed that got us off track just a bit.
We realized that if the Word was true, we could live victorious lives. We read promises about healing, prosperity and victory over circumstances. These promises are true but our focus began to be too much on the natural. We knew God would meet our needs, but we began to think in terms of bigger houses and cars. We knew God’s Word promised healing, but in some cases people began to judge their faith or that of others by whether they got the manifestation of healing. We saw that the Word promised victory over circumstances but interpreted that to mean we should never go through trial.
As I began to pastor local people, I found that good people who were believing God and studying the Word of God were not all rich. Many of them were fighting sickness and having a hard time receiving healing. Others were going through trials in life and were not walking in victory. Some in our camp would dismissed this by saying, “Those people just don’t have enough faith.” I knew “those people” and they did have faith. They were doing the best they could.
We have applied these principles for 38 year. We were not rich in the way the world would judge rich. Yet I have traveled to over 40 nations and touched thousands of people. We do not drive a luxury car but we have always had a nice car. We do not live in in a big house but we have always had a decent house. We have always had enough food. We have raised our six children and they have never done without what they needed and most of what they wanted.
My wife and I are in our sixties and we are in exceptional health. Our marriage is strong and our children are serving God. We are ministering around the world in ways that people seem to believe are impacting their lives in a positive way.
We are talking about faith in God and his Word. If it would work for us it would work for “tea pluckers” in Kenya or anyone else, rich or poor, anywhere in the world. Faith in God has no boundaries or limits. It does have a process that must be learned and respected and principles that govern it. That is what I told the people in my friend’s church and that is what I want to share with you.
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