Heavens Rejoicing

We were privileged to go to Maua, Kenya. God answered many prayers and His angels are rejoicing in heaven for the souls that were brought into the kingdom.

The devil was not too happy from the beginning. On Sabbath before we left, the truck died and needed to be towed. On the Thursday before we were to leave, my laptop was flooded accidently. I drained the water off and stuck the computer in a bag with two pounds of rice and Sunday afternoon took it out and God blessed and it was operational again. The Laptop is vital for the trip. Then on Friday before leaving my boss called me into the office and reduced my hours by fifty percent.

We arrived at our orientation city of Nairobi, Africa after seventeen hours in a plane. We turned our monies over to the official at the conference office, so they could exchange it for their currency. Later we learned that they had lost $1100 of someone’s money. Praise the Lord that a week later they had found $800 of it! That was good news for some in the group who had a very tight budget.

We got our marching orders and prepared to leave for a seven hour trip to Maua, Kenya. It was originally to be Meru, Kenya but on the Friday before we left, they changed it, due to social unrest in that region. This trip was different in many ways from last year’s mission trip to Rundu, Namibia. This area had much more vegetation verses the sandy terrain in Namibia. The people were a lot more friendly and interested in seeing white people, (mzungus). They would feel my wife’s hair and skin to see what it was like. But the area was very dusty. I probably brought home 5 pounds of Kenya dirt in my lungs.

The devil just did not want to give up. Most of us in our group had intestinal problems the first week and I just started to feel good on Tuesday of the second week. That was the day my wife and I were invited to the local pastor’s home for dinner. Well, all night while preaching I was burping up supper. Then on the hour, starting at 12:30 AM on Wednesday morning, I did what I have not done since I was a child. That was puking my guts up, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30 and 4:30. The last two times were projectile. (Too much info probably!) I could not believe where it was all coming from. God answered my prayers again and I was well enough to speak that night. All I had to drink was ginger ale all day. I was afraid to take anything else by mouth. My immune system was totally destroyed. I had sores all over my tongue which made it difficult to preach for several nights. The hotel was good to us; they provided us good meals and would stay up until we returned at night to feed us. We never had time to eat supper because we left for our sites at 5 PM.

The crowds were much larger and much more interested in hearing the word of God than are the churches back here in the states. My wife who did the children’s program was overwhelmed by their enthusiasm. Some of these people walked up to two hours to the site. Then they would see a Jesus video on the life of Christ, this was followed by the sermon, after which was a health talk. Then they would make the 2 hour walk back home in dark. The second week into the series many submitted their prayer requests and add to this the altar calls for baptisms and that added another 30 minutes to each evening. There were no chairs here. Most stood the whole time. On the Sabbath mornings most had no protection from the sun.

The children loved to have their pictures taken and see them. Some adults did not want their pictures taken. They thought they would lose their soul in that box. The children would bring my wife fruits and vegetables on most nights.

The side roads were very rough to travel on. This was probably the worst part of the trip when returning exhausted, late at night, it was very bone shaking. The area’s biggest cash crop was a drug named mirra. Almost everyone grew it and sold it. In its fresh state, it is equivalent to cocaine and as it ages it becomes very high in caffeine.

We lost electricity often at our hotel and once went two days without it until the transformer was replaced. Our water was heated by electric, so no power equaled cold showers and little time to prepare our sermons since our computers have short battery life. These were probably the sorriest people I have ever seen. Now let me explain. They were totally committed to providing us with the best of everything. If we said our electric was off, they said they were sorry, when I told them I was sick they were sorry, if
I got too dusty they were sorry, and so on.

We had to go through a police road block every night. When they saw white people in the car they let us through. Our driver told us it was because they were corrupt and feared we would report them to our government. We twice went to pray for and visit children in two different hospitals. They were in the Malaria and AIDs wards. We regularly had visits to our room from a mouse. One of the speakers woke up with him on her one night. Several nights we needed to use an inverter for the seminar because there was no electric.

The group went on a trip to a wildlife sanctuary which was interesting, especially how the Elephants eat. We also saw a cheetah eating a recent kill. On the last Sabbath over 900 people were baptized from the 9 different sites at different locations. At the last meeting Sabbath night we gave the pastor bibles for those baptized in the morning. The people gave my wife and me gifts as well. It was not the gifts that they would have liked to give though. They tried hard to give and could not understand why we could not take goats, rabbits and other animals back home with us. My driver gave me some books on Swahili. The hotel gave us goodbye gifts as well. Then many lined up to take pictures with us. My wife and I decided to leave her projector. So after they presented us with our gifts, we presented the pastor with our gift and he was all smile from ear to ear. He said it was an answer to his prayers. He has 16 churches, 8000 members and no vehicle. The people from the conference in Nairobi thought we were all wealthy and were being paid to do this.

Recent letters from Africa tell us that the Pastor’s wife had her baby and the church has grown to the point where they are talking to expand.