LAST LESSONS #92 – KAREN

“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.” Hebrews 13:17 

In 2012 Rafiki installed Karen Elliott to be the Executive Director to take my place in that job. It was time for me to give that responsibility to someone else and I was happy to do so. Although I would remain the Founder (obviously!) and President of Rafiki (which I am to this day), Karen would take on the task of directing the work of Rafiki. I want to tell you why she was chosen. 

Her History 

Karen was born in 1958. She had been working with me for many years. I had trained her to be a BSF Teaching Leader when she was only 28 years old, and she told me then that she wanted to be a missionary. As you can imagine she won my heart! She did become a missionary to Nigeria with TWO/Rafiki where she taught BSF classes for ten years and eventually became a BSF Area Advisor. She did an excellent job. When she came home, I invited her to become a Rafiki staff member and she accepted. At the time, she did not know that I had in mind for her to follow me as the Director of Rafiki. 

Her Qualifications

• The most important qualification for anyone in Christian ministry is that they believe the gospel, have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and are sound in their doctrine. Karen was raised in a doctrinally sound church, learned sound doctrine in BSF, increased in sound doctrine in Rafiki, and now attends a doctrinally sound church.
• Karen is well educated. She has a master’s degree in education and is presently working on a doctorate. Obviously, Karen is intelligent. Furthermore, she has worked in the world of finance and became the treasurer of the denomination in Nigeria with which Rafiki worked.
• Her knowledge of Scripture taught Karen to learn to follow before she was ready to lead. That means that she followed Jesus, her various employers, and the leaders in Rafiki. In the years that Karen served under my leadership, I never heard her complain about not being the leader. LESSON: I am convinced that no one can lead without first learning to follow. 

Her Commitment 

There is no question about Karen’s commitment to the Lord through Rafiki. She has been unwavering in her loyalty to her calling. She says she is in Rafiki until the Lord takes her home! Furthermore, Karen loves what she is doing. She says it is the best job in the world. Of course, I agree with her! 

Lessons: 

1. God prepares those he calls into leadership. Consider how God prepared Moses and David and Paul. For what is God preparing you?
2. You can’t teach what you do not know. To teach the Bible you need to know the Bible and you know the Bible by studying it. Are you studying the Bible regularly? Every day? Karen does, and I do. 
3. Once a person is saved by God’s grace through faith, the next step is to give one’s life unreservedly to the Lord to use as he wills. Sometimes it’s called “surrendering”, or “dedicating”, or “committing”, one’s life. Whatever you want to call it, it means giving all of you to the Lord. Nothing held back. Karen’s life belongs to the Lord.
4. Commitment is not temporary. Giving of one’s life to the Lord for his purposes means forever. God showed me that he wanted to use me in different ways at different times. However, when he would change my task for him was his decision, not mine. Karen has given her life to God’s calling whatever it is. 

Karen is God’s choice as Rafiki’s Executive Director now, and I hope for many years to come. She is loved by all who know her—especially me!

LAST LESSONS #91 – NO DEBT

 “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Romans 13:8

Because I was raised in the depression (born in 1929), my family had little money. That did not keep my parents from doing the best they could for their six children. I remember my father borrowing money to pay for music lessons for us children. I also remember how depressed he became at the end of each month when he tried to figure out how to pay his debts. That was when I determined that I would never borrow money. I saw what debt could do to people. That was one of the FIRST LESSONS that I learned.

When Rafiki started, our Board of Directors codified some Rafiki Distinctives and one of them was that we would not borrow money. We would not spend money until it was “in the bank.” After all, all our operations were funded by donors, and we had an obligation to spend what they gave us carefully.

Then Rafiki moved to Florida and began the building process for the new Home Office to be built like a Rafiki Village in Africa. We put a trailer on the site as an office and contracted with a builder. Steve Kranz oversaw the process. We knew we did not have funds to finish all the buildings, so we built several of the fourteen buildings and only poured the foundations for the rest of them. We would wait until the money came in to finish each building. However, the point came when the Board suggested that we borrow money to finish all the buildings. I was opposed to doing that but since I, as the Executive Director, was under the authority of the Board I had to yield. The finance committee of the Board began to make arrangements to borrow over a million dollars. Want to know what happened?

One day I was sitting alone in my newly built office opening the mail. One letter came in a plain envelope addressed by hand to me personally. When I saw the letter and the personally written check, I simply put my head down on my desk and literally cried. The check was for two million dollars! Rafiki could use it as we wished, and it was more than enough to finish all the buildings. I called in all the staff members to rejoice and to thank the Lord that we did not have to borrow any money and the whole of our Home Office could be built just as we wanted. 

Some LAST LESSONS

1. God provides when we are in his will, and we trust him. We almost named the Home Office “Jehovah Jireh” (the Lord will provide). 
2. It is good to write down the distinctives that will characterize your ministry or your own life. Having distinctives written in black and white makes important decisions so much easier.
3. God in mercy sometimes overrides our bad decisions and gives us beyond what we even pray for.
4. It’s better not to go into financial debt. The only real debt we have is the debt of love.

Rafiki dedicated a debt-free Home Office on December 13, 2008.

To God Be the Glory!

LAST LESSONS #90 – MOVING PEOPLE

“You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.” Exodus 15:13

It’s one thing to move an organization with buildings, but it’s another thing to move people! Certainly, I do not compare moving Rafiki to Florida to the Israelites moving to the Promised Land. However, God has moved his people throughout history, and he does so even today. To move Rafiki to Florida, it was necessary to move some staff members. Not all existing staff members were willing to move and those who were willing would need help.

 

I have learned that if you ask people to make a sacrifice, you should give them as much help as possible. Therefore, my daughter, Kathy, knew a real estate person in Central Florida who was willing to come to San Antonio to determine the needs of families who would require homes in Florida. That was a big help. 

There were several people who were absolutely necessary for the work of Rafiki, especially Karen Elliott who was becoming my right-hand man (woman!) and Steve and Carol Kranz. Steve would oversee the building process and Carol would continue to write curriculum. Others were willing to come also, and I was very grateful to them. The work of Rafiki needed to continue without interruption and God gave us those we needed immediately, and others who would come after the buildings were finished. 

The most difficult to move was my husband Bob and me. Although Bob had retired from teaching at the University of Texas Medical School in San Antonio, he was just finishing his memoirs of the Korean War called Bloody Snow. The reason it was difficult to move was because Bob had begun to show signs of dementia. (After we arrived in Florida a brain scan confirmed that Bob suffered from Alzheimer’s.) I realized that there was something wrong when Bob couldn’t find his way home one day. We needed to sell our house in Texas and buy a house in Florida as well as pack up everything and move. We had to do what we had to do!

The Kranz’s house sold in Texas before their house in Florida was ready, so they came and stayed with us for a month. They helped me pack because Bob was not able to manage it. And we had so much stuff!!! Because of his writing Bob never threw anything away! I wasn’t much better. One day all three of my daughters came and cleaned out masses of stuff! 

In the meantime, I had the responsibility of selling the house in San Antonio and buying one in Florida. God graciously gave us a buyer for the house in San Antonio and found for us a nice one in Florida that Bob loved because it was on a small lake. The realtor also found a beautiful house for the Kranzes not too far from ours. The plan was for us to move at the same time. This took several trips pulling trailers from San Antonio to Eustis. We had cars to move as well as things. I will be forever grateful to the Kranzes. God knew we could not have moved without them. 

I have learned that moving people is hard. Asking people to make sacrifices is hard. Only God can make people willing to make the sacrifice of moving from family, friends, and the security of the known to the work and insecurity of the unknown. But that is exactly what God did for Rafiki.

I also learned that God sees to it that we finish the work he has planned for us to do. Bob finished Bloody Snow before he was no longer able to write (It is available on Amazon). Now, years later, I am depending on God to enable me to finish what he wants me to do before I go to my real home with him. 

God may be making it necessary for you to move so you can finish a work he has planned for you. And the move may be hard, but it will be worth it. I have certainly learned that lesson!

I will never forget the day Bob and I moved to Lake County, Florida. It was 7/7/07. 

LAST LESSONS #89 – RAFIKI MOVES TO FLORIDA

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9

Rafiki had started in Texas but when I retired from BSF in 1999, I knew that in 2009 we would need to leave the beautiful buildings that BSF had so generously provided for us for ten years. Therefore in 2007 we began to pray that God would reveal his will for a new home for Rafiki. I really wanted to stay in San Antonio where Rafiki had started and where we had a good support base. So first, we asked BSF if they would sell us the five acres on which our buildings were located. They did not want to sell. Then we asked if they would rent but they did not want to rent. It would have been nice if they had given us that plot with buildings, but that was not to be. We had almost no money because we had no equity in buildings, and all Rafiki’s work depends on donations. Rafiki missionaries raise their own support—which they spend! We knew we had a problem when we had only two years to vacate BSF property. Nobody on the staff wanted to move from Texas. My husband and I did not want to leave Texas. I have learned that God does not always give us our “wants” but he does answer prayers so our Rafiki board began to pray that God would show us where he wanted us to be. I remembered that God had given BSF land in Texas where BSF should move, so I prayed that God would give Rafiki land where he wanted Rafiki to move. And he did!

An anonymous donor said that he would give Rafiki property in Florida and we should come see two properties that might be suitable. I couldn’t believe my ears! Florida?! Florida is where I was born and raised! Florida was where my daughters lived!

We chose the beautiful 57-acre property in Eustis where Rafiki now has its Home Office. The property was totally unimproved—no water, no electricity—only trees, birds, deer, bears, and gopher tortoises!

There was so much that needed to be done to build a new headquarters for Rafiki. We decided to call it “Home Office” since we had Rafiki Villages in Africa. Another thing we decided was to make the Home Office have the same look and feel as a Rafiki Village. It would be the place we trained short- and long-term missionaries and we believed that having a “village” look would let missionaries know that they would not have to live in tents when they go out with Rafiki!

We had our own architect in Chris Moyer who had drawn all the plans for every Rafiki building in Africa. We asked Chris (who lived in Illinois and had been the head of the Fine Arts Department of the University of Illinois for many years) to draw up preliminary plans. We were going to move Rafiki from Texas to Florida!

I will tell more of the details of the move in next week’s blog. In the meantime, I want to tell you that what I have learned again and again, is that when God says “no” to something that I have prayed for, it is because he has something much better to give me. I wanted Rafiki to stay in Texas, but God had a thousand-times better plan for Rafiki and for me too!

If we had not come to Florida, Rafiki could not have grown to what it is today. We would not have close contact with some of the most effective ministries in the world. We would not have been able to attract excellent staff and accommodations for them. Being in a small town instead of a large city, has had huge advantages economically, politically, and for security. I can’t count the blessings God prepared for Rafiki in Florida.

I’m so glad God said “no” to our staying in Texas. He had a much better plan.

Is God saying “no” to something you are praying for today? Maybe he wants you to keep on praying and be patient. Maybe there is something that you need to learn before he answers your prayer. But maybe he has something that is far better to give you than you even imagined.