Our big God adventure: episode 16 – “… and you will dream dreams and see visions (part 1)

Wairimu preparing to make bricks

Lydia Venter shares a testimony from the mission field in Kenya of what can happen when God’s people act on dreams He gives them

When menopause hit because of an early hysterectomy, my sleep became greatly affected. One night during the course of 2012, I suddenly woke up at 2am. I immediately knew how to make plastic bricks. I felt like God had downloaded instructions in my spirit because I had a clear picture of every step of the process. May I just add that before that moment, I never even thought of ordinary bricks, never mind PLASTIC ones! At that time, I’d also never even heard of such a concept. I’m not a very technical person and I surely never cared much for building. 

Needless to say, when my husband and children woke up that morning, their nightmare began (wink-wink). I was like: “Get the sufuria [cooking pot], gather plastic, find a box or container that can be used as a mould, make a fire!!” I must have sounded like a sergeant major. That day we made our first plastic brick. Wilco then designed moulds and shortly after that we started renting a place that was slightly isolated because of the minor release of toxic fumes. Don’t blame me – talk to the Father as it was His idea to start with :-D

Wairimu was already working for us and soon she was making 60 bricks per week. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but because we paid her per brick and because of our limited budget and zero business savvy, that was all we could afford. We did this for many years and later even started making plastic tiles and flower pots. 

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Tiling the floor of our mud hut in Lomolo with our plastic bricks

What a blessing it was to go into a village and tile old mamas’ toilet areas which were usually very muddy since they also take their showers in there. In 2018, after we started working in Lomolo, a small village on the border of the Nakuru and Bogoria Counties in Mogotio, Kenya, we saw the need for a small library for especially the children in the area. 

How excited we were to finally put our bricks to use, so in October of that year we started the relatively small project as we had no idea how the bricks would react to cement. Fortunately, with the wisdom of God, the help of local “fundis” (skilled builders)’, and my husband’s practical expertise, we pulled it off and up to this day it serves us well. We also bless the Lord for Books Are Power who then equipped YASHA Library with enough books to even bless the local primary school.

The library we built in Lomolo

If you think of how it all started: God choosing to reveal Himself to us because He has a plan for the future to demonstrate His love to mankind. What if we believe that God doesn’t speak to His children anymore? What if I decided that, surely it wasn’t God, or that the idea was too far-off to even consider? What if I believed it was from God, but I became boycotted by my own inadequacies? What if my hubby wasn’t impressed with the idea and just squashed it the moment I shared it with him? How many people would have missed out on Abba’s practical display of His loving kindness?

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Not only was the idea of recycling plastic in such a manner way beyond it’s time in Kenya back then, but it also provided finances for Wairimu in such a way that she could put all her children through school. The Lord doesn’t speak to us every day in such a profound manner, but I believe that if we seek His strength and His presence continually (1 Chron 16:11), He will speak to us and reveal to us great and hidden things we do not know. (Jer 33:3)

Let’s allow Him to mightily work in and through us as we continue on this journey with Jesus.

Our son, Timothy, reading to the little ones during a holiday camp in Lomolo. See the library in the background

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