From Nairobi to Kisii

Sunday, November 8, 2009

The hotel has been full of activity this weekend. Yesterday when we arrived we noticed some “ushers” on the second floor by the conference room. The hotel is designed in a square shape with rooms all around the outside, but open in the middle from the second floor up to the roof. Our room was on the third floor and from the hallway outside our door we could look down to the greeters and conference room a floor below. There was some kind of church gathering going on. We heard singing, energetic addresses by both men and women (I hesitate to call them sermons), and chaotic prayers with many people praying at the same time. It must have been a charismatic group of some kind (no denominational affiliation was apparent.

This morning we ate our breakfast and were waiting for Charles to pick us up in front of the hotel. As we were standing there, Larry noted that there were two different church banners hanging up on the front of the hotel. One was meeting on the second floor (we again heard the prayer competition going on up there) and another was meeting on the first floor. The one on the first floor only had one or two people attending the “service” which sounded more like a praise concert than a worship service. There are all kinds of these small churches here that are basically Baptist or Pentecostal in their beliefs. This theology is very prevalent here, and so I am focusing my message on the proper understanding of being “born again” in a true, Biblical sense. Too many people here are influenced by synergism in one way or another.

Church banner in front of the Southern Blue

We were supposed to be picked up at 10:00am to get to church by 10:30, but our driver was not on time. It was almost 10:30 by the time he arrived, so when we arrived in Githurai, the church service was already in full swing. We pulled up into an alley with a big steel building on one side with a generator going and powering a microphone and amplifier system for a “Gospel Church.” We drove further down the alley and came to a stop in a area which was under construction. As we opened our doors we could here another church service going on, but not ours. Many people were praying (yelling) at the same time in the same way we had heard at the hotel before we left. I thought of the passage “For God is not the author of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33).

We walked through a gate and into a courtyard that also was clearly under construction. From there we entered a small block building that our members rent for church services. There were about 20 people there and Charles was in the middle of teaching them. He finished up what he was doing (after telling us that they were in the middle of the service) and then gave the floor to me for the sermon. When the service was over we met and visited with the people and took some pictures.

The members of Githurai

We said goodbye and were off to the bus station to catch our bus to Kisii. We were cutting it close and I didn’t think we were going to make it. We had a bit of a fiasco due to some misunderstandings between our driver, Charles and Russ, but that is an entirely separate story!
We made it to the “bus station” and boarded a Matatoo which was supposed to go directly to Kisii. Instead of the regular city Matatoos this one had individual chairs instead of bench seats that were a bit more comfortable than the benches. There were a total of 12 seats (including the driver), four rows of three seats each. Larry, Russ and I were in the second to last row and I had the seat that folded up to let the people in the back row out. It didn’t sit flat so I had to get used to sitting in a chair that slanted toward the side of the van!

We left around 1:30 and drove out of Nairobi with a full load (they won’t leave the station until they have every seat full – no matter what the schedule says!). Then we began the trip to the West toward Kisii. The area we drove through was mostly dry for most of the trip.

We took a different route from that which we had taken in previous years, more southerly than the other. But we didn’t care because the roads seemed to be better this way then they were on the other route. As we came to within an hour of Kisii the landscape began to change. We started to see tea and corn crops – a result of the regular rain that is received from Lake Victoria. This is a very prosperous area because of the rains it receives.

We finally arrived in Kisii at about 7:00pm after a six and a half hour trip. Fred and Enosh were at the Zonic Hotel waiting for us, so after checking in we sat down with them to go over the schedule. We wrapped up at around 8:00pm and after Fred and Enosh left, we went up the restaurant to get some something to eat. Other than a few peanuts I bought on the trip, we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast at the Southern Blue! Chips for Larry and Russ and Cream of Chicken soup for me – with Coke of course!

Tomorrow we head to the Orphan School in Etago for the day. We continue to thank the LORD for keeping us safe and healthy. May He continue to bless our travels and His message of salvation!

In His service,

Nathanael Mayhew

“For God is not the author of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33).