Liberia

A quick note from Liberia (the land of the free). Dave -- Rev. DiCanio -- is bullying me into helping with collating and stapling notes for the workshops tomorrow, so I'm going to have to go in a minute. The meetings with the kids are going well -- they're actually listening better than last time! I guess maybe I shouldn't be surprised about that because I've been praying that they would be more settled this time. The unbelief pops up so quickly! I usually spend about 2 hours each morning with them, teaching them choruses, Bible verses, the Child's Catechism, and then the lesson. After that, I'm worn out! Enjoying it tho. The workshops with the adults are going well also. Dr Allison is teaching on Roman Catholicism at the moment, and Rev. DiCanio is teaching homiletics. A few of the young people who got saved a year ago have expressed the desire to be baptised so hopefully we'll be having a baptismal service in the ocean before the end of the trip.
Speaking of the ocean, I'm listening to it right now! A few hundred feet away from me. It's really beautiful! Haven't been in yet, but hopefully tomorrow evening after the meetings.
Better run!

Off to Liberia!

I’m sitting in a guesthouse in Nairobi, after a very quiet Sabbath day! I listened to the Ballymena Adult Bible Class and morning service, and -- now that I count them up – three other messages on my Ipod while I was taking a walk etc. I don’t know of any church here in Nairobi that would be in any way sound and that I would be able to find, so I opted for the safe option – just to stay put. It’s good to have access to the internet and be able to listen to the services though.
I flew up here from Kitale yesterday – here’s the plane we travelled in. It was quite exciting – probably the smallest plane I’ve ever been on! I got the front seat so I could watch the pilot and co-pilot at the controls. It was a pretty smooth flight too – just a little bit of turbulence as we started the descent. The flight was about an hour long – then I got a taxi and spent an hour and a half or two hours fighting Saturday lunch-time traffic in Nairobi – and in all that time we only went about 25 kilometers!
I leave for Monrovia in the morning. Paulcy Cange will be arriving in Liberia tomorrow evening as well; then Dr Allison and Rev. DiCanio arrive on Wednesday I think. Keep us all in prayer as we travel, and then for the time spent there itself. Dr Allison and Rev. DiCanio will be teaching the pastors each day in the “workshop” as they call it – I’m not quite sure of the subjects they’re covering this time, but it may be things like homiletics, cults, etc. Apparently, I’ll be teaching the kids again while the adults are in the workshops, so please pray for this. Pray that the kids will be settled and quietened so that they can listen. Most of them have no concept of what it is to sit still and listen! A lot of the adults don’t either, it seems sometimes!
I’m not sure of what else is planned for the trip. I’m taking my laptop with me, although I’m not sure if we’ll have an internet connection anywhere. So if I get a chance, I’ll blog while I’m there!

Pray for the young people at the school

A couple of interesting sights recently! I don't know if this counts as an eclipse of the sun, but it was pretty cool-looking. It was on Thursday past -- did anyone in any other countries notice anything strange about the sun that day?
Now I know you get traffic jams of cattle and sheep in NI, but I've never shared the road with a herd of camels before! They must have been taking these to sell somewhere - I think it's a pretty unusual sight even for Kenya, because everyone was stopping to stare!

All's well with me here -- I was at a church called Kesogon this morning. One of the Bible College students preaches there most Sundays, and today he got up and preached in English!! (Usually the preacher would speak in Swahili, and someone would translate for me.) He said that he just decided to preach in English, although his notes were all in Swahili and he had never done it before. He did a good job though -- I was really encouraged by the message itself, as well as his ability in explaining it. Sometimes that's a problem here -- the students know the truth and the doctrine, but they can't seem to communicate it clearly to the people. But I was encouraged today. Then we were invited to a lady's house for lunch -- now I'm stuffed!!

I've been teaching computers to Form 3 class for a couple of weeks now. They range in age from 17 to 19. I asked them, for typing practice, to type a paragraph about themselves, and some of the things they said were really revealing. A lot of them know the language of Christians -- like saying that the most important thing in life is to know God, and that their desire is to be a good Christian etc. But sometimes I wonder if they just say this to please me or because they know that's the right thing to say. The majority of people in Kenya will say that they are saved -- even if their lives completely contradict that profession. But a few of the kids did ring true in what they said by way of giving a testimony of salvation. It certainly gave me a bit of an insight into their lives and encouraged me to pray for them more. Pray for these kids -- I'm going with Margaret now for their evening devotions at the school; pray that I'll have a chance to speak with a few of them.

Online again!

Hi folks! Heading out for a prayermeeting very soon, but I wanted to put a quick note on here to let you know that I'm still alive :-) My internet has been down for the last week -- they've been doing some work in the area with the Orange platforms or something. Anyway, I decided to check this morning on the offchance that it's working again -- and lo and behold -- it worked! I don't know how I could have coped on the mission field 50 years ago when there was no internet to keep in touch with people, because I was getting a little frustrated when this wasn't working for a week! I suppose we take all these blessings for granted when we have them.
The missionaries get together once a month for a day of prayer and fellowship, so Brian and I are heading to Kitale now for the morning prayermeeting. Keep us all in prayer please, and I'll blog again soon with a proper update.

Pray for true conversions

Margaret and Brian were supposed to come to me for dinner last night. There’s a prayermeeting on Wednesday evenings at 4pm in the BCFC church next door (the Bendera congregation) so I would usually make my dinner after that. So I guess I probably started dinner about 6:00pm – put chicken and potatoes into the oven to bake, and started making a dish called BBQ beans – that’s string beans in a sauce which is very good! Unfortunately, the electricity went out half an hour later! We put on the generator which can run the lights and refrigerator but doesn’t have enough kick for the oven. So I took everything out of the oven and started frying it (thankfully I have a gas stove-top). I’m not the best or most organised cook at the best of times, and when something like this happens, and people are expecting their dinner from me, I kinda panic! Oh well, it tasted good once it was made – eventually – like after 8pm! Nobody fainted from hunger while they were waiting, so I guess it could have been worse.
After dinner, we had a time of prayer which I really enjoyed. More than made up for the hassle of the dinner! We were really focusing on the need for the Lord to move in the hearts of people, and the need for true conviction of sin and conversion. We were reading Ezekiel 36 before we prayed – pray with us that God will move sovereignly by His Spirit and regenerate hearts – that He will put that new spirit and heart of flesh into people around here (v. 26). Nothing else but that is going to transform this desolate land into a fruitful garden (v. 35). I was reading this morning in Matt. 9 – v. 18 & 19 tell us that “Jesus arose” in answer to Jairus’ prayer and went to raise his daughter from the dead. Our desire is that we will have that same power in prayer that Jairus had – that as we pray, God would graciously arise and work by the conversion of souls for His glory and the extension of His kingdom!

A Few Photos for Y'all!

One of the Bible College students -- Andrew is in his fourth year.
I went on outreach for the first time on Tuesday. I did enjoy it, but it was kinda difficult to understand exactly what the people were saying and how they were responding to the message. The Kenyan pastors with whom Brian and I went were very good about translating most of what was being said, but it’s just not the same. I went with Rev. Kendagor and another young pastor called Immanuel. They call it “visitation” here, rather than door-to-door work or outreach, but it’s the same idea. We were given seats at each house we went to – inside or outside, depending on how big the house was. Some of them were only one-room houses.
The first man we stopped with told us that he had been saved four times already and it had never done him any good! He did not seem to be interested in the least at first but of course was very respectful and willing to listen. But as the conversation went on, he seemed to open up a bit. The second home belonged to a young woman (she looked like she was in her middle teens, if even that) who had a 10-month old baby, and 3 other kids in the house. I don’t know who belonged to her and who had just come in to see the white people! Anyway, this girl told us that she knew very little about Jesus Christ and how to be saved. So Rev. Kendagor turned to me and asked me to explain the Gospel to her. I was a bit daunted, but God certainly undertook and gave me the words to say. The men translated for me as I spoke, and then they took a turn speaking. Pray for these people – sometimes I think that they just agree with what is being said in order to keep us happy or get rid of us. Pray that a true work of grace will be done in their hearts.
I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to get out on the visitation. The men go two or three times a week, and Brian has been going with them, but with commitments at the school etc. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to go. I heard on Friday that I’ll be starting to take a computer class this week – it will be two classes on Tuesdays and two on Fridays. Now I’m sure that my brothers will laugh their heads off when they hear that I’m teaching computers, but apparently most of the kids (this is at the school and will be Form 3 – equivalent of Lower 6th or 11th grade) don’t even know how to turn the computer on! So it will be pretty basic. Here's the Standard 7 class that I teach Bible to on Fridays!
I now have a car to drive while I’m here! It’s so good to have some independence again; everyone’s been really good about giving me lifts here and there, but it’s nice to be able to go somewhere when you feel like it (or need to go). This is Kathy’s car – it was in Nairobi for the past couple of weeks getting some repairs done. When it arrived in Kitale on Thursday, I went to pick it up and spent the entire day there getting the rest of the work done on it that they hadn’t finished in Nairobi. It needed a new battery, and four new tires. You can’t just leave the car into a garage and have them do all the work – at least not in Kitale. You have to go to one shop to get a battery, wait until it charges and they install it, then go to another shop and buy the tires (actually we ordered them in the morning and then waited 2 hours while they were brought from Eldoret), then take the tires to another place to be fitted, balanced, aligned, etc. Thankfully one of the drivers that the missionaries use was with me the entire day, and did most of the talking and bargaining – otherwise I would never have gotten the car sorted. As it was, I left the house at 8am to “pick up the car” and didn’t get home until after 5pm! That’s life in Kenya.
Today I went to an “umoja”, which is a joint meeting where a lot of congregations come together to one church. They have these meetings once a month, and today we went to Kerenger. It was a good day – we left here at 10am, spent an hour driving round collecting people (and waiting for them), then travelled about 40 minutes over pretty rough roads.

We arrived about 11:30am, and the meeting started an hour later, which wasn’t too bad for Kenyan time! The preliminaries included congregational singing, a couple of special groups singing, a lot of announcements, etc. We were meeting outside because the church building wasn’t big enough to hold everyone, and the preacher had only spoken for about 10 minutes when it began to rain – downpour. So after a few minutes, when it became obvious that the rain was there to stay, the whole congregation got up, picked up their benches or chairs or desks, and crammed into the church. We sang a couple verses of a hymn and then the preacher started again! I felt badly for him – I’m sure it was off-putting. So altogether the service lasted about 3 ½ hours, which is about the par for these joint meetings. One of the Bible students kindly translated for me, which made all the difference!