Nandi Hills

While I was in the Nandi Hills, a few of the pastors asked me about the BTCP curriculum. A week later, I told the Directors whom I work with about what God had been doing in the Nandi Hills and asked if they would be open to me forwarding these Men of God some information regarding BTCP classes. To my surprise  they said “No! We won’t forward them information. We will go back for them! You and Thomas (one of the directors) will go and introduce them to the teachers in Kapsabet [which is largest town in Nandi].” I must say I was very excited. I wrote all the pastors, they gave me a date and Thomas and I were on our way to Kapsabet. The pastors were very excited to see the books and are very eager to form a class whenever the Lord opens doors. 

(The organization I work with, Life Changing Discipleship, is a non-denominational bible school which teaches the Bible Training Center for Pastors’ curriculum.)

This also gave me the opportunity to discuss with the Pastors, and the BTCP teachers in Nandi hills, the possibility of returning to the tea plantation camps with Bibles and also ask the BTCP students if they would be willing to accompany me and help disciple the workers who live there. All I can say is praise God! If it is in His will, He makes a way. They are all very excited about the idea and praying that God will allow us to go.

Above is a picture of Pastor Julius. He took home a copy of the foundation course (the book that I teach). It is a great tool for teaching new believers.

Saying Goodbyes

Well, the pictures I took didn’t turn out. I tried deleting a few and accidentally deleted all of them! So, here is the conglomeration of posts I intended to make over the past few days:

  • Last week, Caroline and I made 4 apple pies and chicken spaghetti casserole. She is turning into quite the chef. I am proud to announce that she is now helping another missionary couple and not just me. Thank you Lord! Please keep praying that she will find more work.
  • I spent last Friday night with the youth at one of the churches I have been teaching at. It was awesome. One young man in the BTCP program and I sat with the youth around a camp fire for nearly three hours teaching them about God, praying with them, and encouraging them to stand for Christ. They were very open with us about problems in their lives and their need for guidance. We spent a lot of time talking to them about the Western Culture and conformity to the world in God’s eyes. Lucky for them, I just happened to know where to buy the supplies for smores! None of them had seen a marshmallow before. At first they laughed at me, but after I convinced them all to try one, they converted. One of them asked me, “Is it safe to eat a marshmallow raw or do you have to cook it?” Other than that small misconception, they are still slightly confused and interchangeably using the term “smore” and “hamburger.” I keep telling them that hamburgers are completely different, but they don’t seem to be convinced. 
  • Other than this, the past week has been full of goodbyes and celebrating what God has done over the past few months while praying about the future.
  • Sheila, one of my good Kenyan friends, spent a whole day in the kitchen making all of us missionaries a traditional African feast to say goodbye.
  • As everyone is departs for home, the Wootton family had one final BTCP prayer meeting at their house. We spent a lot of time praying for those we are leaving behind in Kenya and for those working in Sudan who are facing many challenges. By the time I left their home, I felt like we had celebrated Christmas back in the States. There was much feasting, many desserts, and everyone spent a very long hour in something called a sauna (which was a first time experience for me). Their whole family is amazing, and I am going to miss them for these next two months. 

Visiting Home

As of the 25 of this month, I will be leaving for Nairobi, and then heading home to the states and arriving on the 27th–for a visit. Words cannot express what transformation God has done in my heart over this past year. I have truly seen the lost found and the broken healed, and in the process been healed from a lot of pride and self centered ideology.

I have no answer for why I have seen what I have seen other than Christ, and am honestly ashamed of the person I was two years ago. Going home is necessary for me to continue because I have to share with churches what I have seen, ask for support, and explain future plans, but it is very hard for me. I am either clinging to Christ and home sick for Africa, or quickly conforming to the world and going back to my old self.

I am not the only one going home for a visit, the missionary couple I work with are leaving tomorrow for the same reasons. Please keep all of our Kenyan brothers in Christ in your prayer. Most importantly please pray for all of us safety as some of us are traveling and others are continuing here in Kenya.

I also need prayer that God would give me the same boldness I have here to share the gospel with people while I am back home.

Laini Moja

If you remember the post I made when Lisa and I took the orphans shopping, you will probably recognize this place. It is the clothing market on Laini Moja street. It is part of Kitale’s open air market (between the dried fish market and the carpentry open air market).

Buried somewhere in this long tunnel of second hand American clothing is a little lady with a clothing store who wants to know more about Jesus. I met with her this past week. We talked for around an hour and covered the first section of the foundation course. It was on the original sin.  Out of excitement, and humility, she told me there were things I had shared with her about the Bible that she had never known. Although this saddened me, I am excited there are so many things I will be able to share with her about the Word of God! Not only this, but after we finished, she rounded up all the women who sell clothing in the neighboring shops and taught them everything I had shared with her. Now all of them want to study with us.

Please pray for our little group. I want to see us learning, encouraging one another, and sharing everything we study. It is amazing sometimes how God just leads you to the right person, a conversation starts…and then something like this happens.

Beyond the Nandi Hills

Beyond the Nandi Hills and towards Uganda lies a little town known as Kitale. Kitale has become my home over the last year and a half, and although I have always known how to get around town and where to buy what, it was not until I joined Life Changing Discipleship that I learned about the people of Kitale and their spiritual needs.

Unfortunately, the spiritual situation here is the same as that of the Nandi Hills–only with a twist. On top of the spiritual deficit, and alcoholism, you have the process of Westernization taking place. Our little town is quickly turning into a big city, and the bigger it gets, the more Western garbage that comes. Yes, there are some good things that come with Westernization, but it also comes with all our garbage. All the provocative, second hand clothing that leaves Europe and America, lands in my town. Girls are now buying tight, skinny jeans, halter tops, and anything else our culture promotes pressing up against your body to get boys attention. Young men are trading trousers for low riding jeans and cocking their hats sideways to represent their support and belief in every lyric they hear in our rap music.  Not only is the message behind our rap music being accepted, but all of Lady Gaga and the worst of our Hollywood flicks are being pirated and sold on every street corner. I had a 12 year old walk up to me the other day and say “F you” to my face. He didn’t know what it meant, just thought it was something you say to a white person. I also had a doctor ask me how many “N” people were in my town back home. He didn’t know it was a bad thing, just thought the African Americans liked to be called “N” because that is what they refer to themselves as in their music.

So, what is the point of this blog post? I love Nandi, and I want to do something for them, but I don’t want to fail to communicate the issues that are taking place where my main ministry is located. It is easy for me to forget to blog about my home town, and the ministry I am doing here, because it has become “the norm” for me.

Oh also, food crisis update:  the supermarket manager that had everyone in a panic over food shortages forgot one very important yet simple word: “imported.” Yes, all “imported” foods will no longer be available for the next couple of months, but everything else should be on the shelves. Still, keep the elections in your prayers. If tribalism breaks out, there will be road blocks and that means no transportation of goods–no gas, no food, no phone credit, no toilet paper…until transportation is resumed and shipments can be delivered. Last elections, quite a few people were killed due to genocide. Some of it was genocide that had been planned years in advance by armed militant groups, and some of it was due to election results and accusations of corruption. Everyone has been promising peace this time though, so we will see. 

The Search for Bibles Begins

After spending a week in prayer over the issue, I have decided to look into buying bibles for the work camps in the Nandi hills, and if possible, providing each house with a copy of God’s Word. After that, if the women there want to start a biblical foundation class, I want to teach them.

It is a very long drive there and back, the bibles cost a lot of money, and there will be a language barrier, so doing this will get complicated. However, if it is in God’s will it will happen. But if now is not the right timing, or if God has other plans, I understand.

In the mean time, there is no harm in assessing possibilities! Which leads me to Imani radio ministries in Kitale. Imani radio is a Kenyan gospel station based out of my region. One of my Kenyan friends just happens to know the man who runs the place, and he happens to have a cargo container arriving in Mombosa this weekend with over 6,000 bibles in it. I was very excited at first, but then I learned that all these Bibles are in English. Unfortunately I need Swahili ones. All I can say is good thing I was praying about the issue because I almost placed an order without thinking about language!  Oh, that would have been a bad, bad mistake.

This man was very kind however, and he gave me ideas of different publishers I could contact–like Biblica. I guess that is the next step.

The Work Camps

On our last day of evangelism we headed out to the tea plantations yet again. However, this time, we visited a different area–the actual tea plantations. The previous days we had just been walking through private fields, but now we visited the work camps. In the Nandi Hills there are enormous tea plantations owned by tea factories and they have large housing units where some of their African workers live.

After asking permission to enter, we spent hours and didn’t even reach all 3 of the camps. In one camp, we visited with around 50 people; among them, I only found one very small bible. It was very sad for me seeing how many of them had given up on God, how many of them had never heard the gospel, and how many of them went to church, but had no understanding of God’s Word. We spent a lot of time encouraging people, praying, leading people to Christ, and answering tough questions.

There was one little widow in particular whom I will never forget. She told me “I have had every preacher in town pray over me but God hasn’t healed me…now I don’t go to church. I don’t know why God has not healed me.” After about 20 minutes of discussing with her the promises of scripture and not looking to pastors for powers, she was in tears as my African friend Sharlene and I prayed for her. It amazes me how far a little bit of truth and compassion can go. After this, we went next door and her neighbors accepted Christ for the first time.

Like the rest of the Nandi Hills, this place is very beautiful on the outside, and the white people who run these factories have put more than adequate money into their housing projects. Some Africans described living in this neighborhood as if it is an honor, but the people who live there are in need of some spiritual encouragement and I am praying over who to speak with and what to do for them.

1 2 3 4 5 6 … 35 36
  • Sharing God's Love in East Africa