PETERSON'S PASSPORT OF PRAYER
Peterson Kamwathi, a teen worker in the Nairobi church, is an artist, and when he entered a competition to be one of three men chosen from Kenya to participate in the prestigious Festival Mundial in The Netherlands, some told him that he didn't stand a chance. But he prayed about it and succeeded."The competition was open to all artists who chose to participate," says Peterson, "and I made it to the short list of ten. We had been told not to even enter the competition if we didn't possess passports," he recalls, "and though I didn't have one, I decided to put the situation before God." In Kenya, it often takes a very long time to get a passport, so it did not make things any easier for Peterson that he did not have one. A simple renewal can take three weeks and a new, first-time passport usually takes months. "The theme in the Nairobi church that month was 'I kneel before the Father,'" Peterson recalls, "so I knelt before the Father." And God did not let him down. Not only was Peterson chosen to travel to Tillburg in the Netherlands, but his passport came through in just nine days!
The Festival Mundial lasts for three weeks. It is the largest cultural festival in Europe and involves performance, dance and a small section for the visual arts. Peterson got to work in the studio and work with local students. And at the end of the festival, together with the rest of the Festival's participants, Peterson contributed to a work called "Living Sculpture" and presented it in the Hague, the capital of Holland, to the Dutch Minister of Culture.
Artistically, through what Peterson experienced in the Netherlands, he shares, "I've learned to diversify my thinking." He also learned clearly that "God, above all, answers prayers, and this was a prayer answered." Prayer is truly a passport to open doors of opportunity if we will only have faith in God and entrust our way to him.