Life Center Foursquare Church

Pastor Joe's Kenya Update - Part 5 (click here to see all the updates)

It's 9:13 PM on Monday...you're at 11:13 AM. We just arrived back at the Mayfield Guest House in Nairobi after a short flight from the tiny airport in Kisumu.

The big news first: we have water! Woohoo! The drillers arrived on Friday night, started drilling on Saturday, continued on Sunday, and we stopped by Adiedo this morning on our way back to Kisumu from Homa Bay. It was a thrill to see the rig there on site, and so many of the villagers sitting watching the progress. When we arrived, they had already finished drilling to 96 meters (about 300 feet), and were starting to "develop the well"--cleaning it out to prepare for casing and screen and gravel. Water was spraying out when they shot air down the hole, and the driller told me it was a very good well, and should produce 1250 liters of water per hour (about 20 gallons a minute). If that proves to be the case, it will provide enough water for 6000 people a day...more than enough since it was intended to serve 1000-1500. Of course, we won't know the final results for awhile. Tomorrow or the next day they will do a 24 hour pump test to determine just how much the well can produce. We await those numbers. But as I said, everything looks very positive and the villagers are thrilled. David has been working on this for 10 years, and it was very gratifying to see it finally come to pass. We were only there for a couple hours, gathered for prayer and blessed the well, and then loaded the vans and got stuck in the mud again!!! We've had heavy rains in the afternoons or evenings, and the tiny road into the well site was a sea of mud. My new Birks got baptized pushing the van out!

We got up early this morning so we could load the vans and be on our way to Adiedo by 7:30. Even though it's only about 20-25 kilometers (15 miles), it takes 75 minutes to drive there over the most atrocious road you've ever seen. There's one very deep mud hole where we've gotten stuck every day for the last several...and we get pushed out by the same 12 guys who make their living pushing vehicles out of the mud (there are no tow trucks). Jeremiah is the leader of this merry band and is now my friend...I have pics and video. When you get stuck, you negotiate a price with Jeremiah and the gang pushes you out. It's about 1000 shillings ($12...a buck per man)...but worth every penny because to avoid this whole you have to take another road which makes it a 3 hour trip instead of 75 minutes! By the way, these men keep the hole deep...there is a pile of rocks on the side of the road that they've removed so that you will need their services! Very resourceful!

Before we left the hotel this morning, Grace came by to thank us for the gift of money we gave her (she is the recently widowed mother of two little boys who works at the orphanage, and David's good friend and contact and "fixer" in the area). We all prayed for her, then loaded the vans and we were off; got to Adiedo, blessed the well and visited with family and then headed for Kisumu where we ate lunch, then went to the airport, waited for our plane, flew here, and now...here I am.

Tomorrow we leave at 7:30 AM for safari in the Maasai Mara...a national park and wildlife refuge. We drive there all day tomorrow; enjoy the wildlife tomorrow night, Wednesday morning and night, and Thursday morning and then drive back Thursday to Nairobi. We should have internet on safari...they cater to tourists with money! Friday we have the day in Nairobi and will go to a market. Friday night we get on the plane and begin the loooooong flight home.

Yesterday was another spectacular day. We went to the Homa Bay Boys High School for their morning church service; Colt preached; the boys' singing was wonderful--800 boys in a boarding high school...very common here. David went to high school there...all these places are connected to David in some way, which is really cool. We'd never even know about them otherwise. We got a tour of the compound, visited with staff and students, and of course, as we have everywhere, heard about what they need. Every person, every organization is looking for "partners". As I've said before they are very resourceful, but the resources are slim. The boys school needs a well too.

I need to back up. We also went to the boys school Saturday night. We ate a hurried dinner at the hotel and arrived at Mrs. Odanga's apartment (a teacher there) on the compound so we could go to a meeting of the Christian students association. Craig was preaching to that group of boys which turned out to be small but spirited. During the meeting, a giant beetle kept flying through the room...I knew it would land on our girls and it did, producing a scream and commotion and considerable laughter from the boys! :) The other hilarious thing that happened was that when we arrived at Mrs. Odanga's, we walked in to the small front room and saw a familiar site: a table set with dishes and empty chairs. Grace and Mrs. Odanga had prepared another huge dinner for us; we hadn't know they were doing that and had just finished. We ate two full dinners in an hour!! We were all laughing our heads off, and Mrs. Odanga in the kitchen thought we were the happiest group she had ever seen! :)

Back to Sunday: after the boys high school, Mrs. Odanga insisted we go to the girls' school about 20 kilometers away where her daughter Glory is a student. When we arrived, the 700 high school girls were in the cafeteria/auditorium singing and waiting for us (wherever we go, people drop everything and treat us as honored guests with lots of fanfare). What happened in the auditorium is almost indescribable...it was so fun! The girls lit up the room with energy. I videoed their singing...Dan got much more...it was LOUD! And fun...dancing...clapping...smiling. Then they took us all on tours of their dorms: 120 girls to a small dorm in triple decker bunks! A form 3 student (junior in HS) named Judy adopted me, held my hand and walked me around campus (with a dozen other girls) showing me her school.

Sunday afternoon we relaxed; I visited with a pastor from Homa Bay on the lawn for an hour...fascinating story. Reminds me of George Mueller, caring for orphans totally on faith.

As they say here: God is good! (All the time!) All the time! (God is good!)