My phone is offline. No incoming calls. No incoming text. No incoming email. It’s as good as a flashlight. I need to take time out to sleep (I’ve been up for more than 24 hours) and settle my disturbed spirit.

This has made me realize how little I take time off, how close I am to burn out and how unnecessary it is to work all the time despite the need to pay the bills.

This year, we have restructured Semacraft and Synergia Holdings Ltd and started out by dropping any category of work that isn’t core or enabling for our objectives. It may mean working a little more but it definitely means working a whole lot more smarter going forward. And that goes for church involvement too.

Yep. I said church.

Sometimes we get so involved in projects and helping out we forget to say no when it’s clearly obvious we have no bandwidth to do any more good. So this month marks my retirement from small group ministry at Kileleshwa Covenant Community Church and restricted involvement in the Children’s department.

That’s how 2011 has started for me. Letting things go to make room for where I want to go.

Happy 2011.

Today, we the Muchiri’s celebrate 10 years of marriage. We have friends who’ve been married 36 years. And no, they are not our parents

When we got married, depressing statistics coming out of the US said we were very likely to end up divorced or separated within the first 2 years. Our peers told us the first year was always the hardest. Then they said the first three years were always the hardest. Then we heard that the first five years were touch and go. We’re here ten years later, still married and happy to be together.

Are you married? What horror stories have you been told about marriage and why yours won’t last? What will it take to prove the naysayers wrong? Let go off the fear, latch onto love and step into a brave new world for roses (complete with thorns) and amazing fragrance

Tight situations mean different things to different people. For the businessman, it’s when all the bills are due (plus taxes) and your total cash plus lines of credit only match up to a fifth of it all. Oh, and they are due today! For the parent with a sick child it could be the operation that has to be done really really soon and the specialist needed can’t be found for another month. For others, it’s looking down the barrel of a gun as a thug stuffs you into the trunk of your own car.

Have you ever been in a tight situation?

Have you ever noticed how frustrated you get when telling your story about the tight situation you are in? The frustration usually comes from the feeling that people just don’t get it. This bank manager just doesn’t get how badly you need the overdraft and how capable you are of settling it in a week. Your friends don’t seem to get how dire the situation with your child really is. You’re in a tight situation and you’re in no company.

Now have you ever been in a tight situation?

Two basic options present themselves in the midst of a tight situation.  Fight or flight. Same two options that faced our hunter-gatherer forefathers when faced by a lion in the wild. I can stay and deal with the situation no matter how it turns out, or I can run, changing my number and moving house in the process so my creditors won’t know where to find me. Stories abound in Kenyan hospitals of terminally ill children whose parents ran. The situation was too tight for them. They felt they can’t fight. They chose flight.

If there ever was a tight situation, King Jehoshaphat’s was definitely it. He chose to fight. The odds were stacked up against him but he disregarded the statistics and the mountain of evidence and obeyed his God.

Are you in a tight situation? What do you really believe deep down? Is there hope? Is there honor in staying the course, fighting the fight? So, will you run or stay on and fight?

I’ve been me a really long time. I have gotten used to it. In fact, I like it.  A lot.  You see, I have had lots of practice and become really good at it. I can afford to brag about how good I am at being me because I know no matter how hard you try, you could never be a better me than I am.

Sometimes, I feel the world doesn’t get how hard being me can be. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather be me than anyone else, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy.  There are deadlines I miss (and really can’t explain why), there are expectations I don’t live up to (and sometimes have a clue why) and there are messes I create that are so monumental they should be memorialized, somehow.  All this and more contribute to making being me no walk in the park.

And now I want to be a better me.

I’ve read the books, listened to the speakers, Googled, asked, gone to church and done all those things people like me do to become better at being themselves. After all the effort, I don’t think I’m all that better. Maybe just a little bit.

That’s what I think it eventually boils down to. If I can be a little bit better at being me every week, I will be a whole lot better at being me by the end of year.

Are you better this week than you were last week? A little bit maybe?

That’s a pretty long title. It’s also become one of my favorite quotes. I think a friend of mine attributed it to Pastor Muriithi Wanjau.

In this blog post, Seth Godin proposes that we become what we expose ourselves to (or we become what we are inspired to be by what we expose ourselves to). For instance you may just become angry if you expose yourself to anger. You will probably want french fries if you expose yourself to fast food ads. You will want to become a get-rich-quick story if you expose yourself to stories of people who got rich quick. You get the picture.

It’s part of how we become what we ‘eat’.

The end of your story is known by the persistence of your present state. You can disrupt the end of the story by changing what you are becoming today.  I have in the past persistently exposed myself to people who treated me like a third rate citizen and an owner of a 10th rate business. I consumed their sentiments and thought about them all the time. If I continue to persist in exposing myself to these kinds of people there’s a real danger I will begin to think so in my heart. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.  Therein lies the case for putting your foot down and becoming aggressive in what you expose yourself to.

I am going to be in business a long time. Life is too short to spend precious time doing business with brands/people who make it their business to be condescending.

What are you ‘consuming’? Whose opinions are you spending time seeking out? Who have you allowed to influence how you do business? Which clients have you sought to add to your portfolio?

I am disrupting tomorrow today.

Not tv channels.

That’s a luxury many African churches still don’t even know about.

On the blog at Church Marketing Sucks, Ryan Spilhaus gives some important tips on how your church can use multiple channels to communicate to members in a crisis.

Within the African context, we may not need to worry too much about Snowmageddon.  However, flooding, fires and riots are a very clear and present danger in many African states.

How do churches here go about communicating to their members a change in services (location, time etc) when there’s only 24 hours notice?

I’d like to hear how your church would do it.

2009 was full of gloom and doom. Market crashes, foreclosures, political alignments, political re-alignments and the end of epic eras (the passing of Dr Oral Roberts for instance).

It is easy to get caught up in all this drama this season and focus on doing something for yourself. Put extra effort in giving yourself the treat you deserve…probably at the expense of others too. Let’s keep the reason for the season at the forefront of our minds this holiday. It’s all about Jesus and the gift of life He represents. What gift do you represent to your workmates, family and friends?

2010 will be the year of double grace and favor. For all the trouble you have had in 2009, God is setting you up for double restitution. It won’t fall on your lap though, you will need to be attentive to what He is doing and what He is saying to you. You will need to do a lot of work. In the first quarter of the year you will encounter your Jericho. If you don’t step out and do what God is asking you to do because you think it will look foolish, those walls will stare you down to the end of your days. Your rest shall come from obedience to God and what He asks of you. Step out in obedience, be willing to pay the price and see what Jehovah will do for you.

Have a very blessed Christmas and be a blessing to someone this season. May your 2010 be your best year yet.

From the House of Muchiri, to yours.

Small miracles, big miracles, amazing miracles, mundane miracles.  How do we size a miracle? If I was to ask God to open doors for me so that my business would grow exponentially in two weeks, would that be a big miracle or a small one?

What is a miracle anyway? We use the word to describe an event that we could not possibly have influenced, brought to pass on our own and that could not be replicated (if we tried).  A small miracle therefore is a more ordinary event that we couldn’t have brought about, didn’t think could come about but which did come about anyway.  A big miracle would be an extraordinary event that fits the same bill.

If we could not replicate, bring about, design or influence a miracle should the ‘size’ matter?  Because if it does, then that would mean I should have degrees of gratitude (which I have anyway) for miracles.  If I got healed from a persistent headache and someone else got healed of a malignant tumor should we be equally grateful for our miracles?

I find myself recently re-evaluating my attitude towards God and His provision in my life because I have become very aware of the many things I take for granted.  Just because one miracle seemed commonplace and another not so common, I choose to react differently, with different levels of gratitude.  The truth is, if He didn’t come through with that little cash miraculously I couldn’t possibly have found a way to put food on the table that day.  If he hadn’t come through and healed her miraculously…..

I choose to be excited about the smallest things today.  It’s the least I expect from me.

In the midst of all the real estate developments in the press, there’s this one that is truly unique.  Blue Bay Cove is in Watamu.  The only similarity with the apartments you see in Nairobi or Mombasa is that these are apartments.  The similarities end there.

These duplex units are located on a scenic location with great views, awesome weather and swahili inspired design.  Check out the development’s website at http://www.bluebaycove.com/bluebaycove-watamu-the-project.html

Got to get me one of those

The Harvest School of Prayer is now running at the Kileleshwa Covenant Community Church on Saturday morning from 8am for the next 9 weeks.  It promises to be an awesome experience for all of us who signed up but I am convinced the effect of the journey will be felt by the entire church too.

The Bible does say that the church is a ‘house of prayer‘ so it should be disturbing that prayer meetings are usually the least attended.

I would love to hear about exceptions in your area.