October 15th

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

Today was the first day of our yearly East African Pastoral Conference. We had planned for around 17 pastors, four from each area (Nairobi, Kenya; Etago, Kenya; Arusha, Tanzania and Himo, Tanzania). Last night there was some concern that some of the Tanzania men would not be able to attend since they had not arrived and because I was unable to reach them by phone. But we were pleasantly surprised when we heard that everyone had arrived who was supposed to, plus we had a few additional men as well. In all, we had 25 men in attendance, which included Bruce, Russ and myself. We also had more papers to present than we expected, which was also wonderful. At about 8:30 Charles picked us up at the Southern Blue and drove us to the Kijabe Hotel where the conference was to be held. After meeting new men and exchanging greetings with those who I knew from last year in the courtyard, we climbed the four flights of stairs to the hotel conference room to meet the rest of the men and begin our conference. I knew the majority of the men who were there, and many of them were surprised that I had remembered them from last year.

After some opening remarks, an opening devotion and hymn, Bruce got things rolling with a study on the End times with special emphasis on Millennialism. This was a great and very beneficial study because of the heavy influence of Reformed theology in this part of East Africa.
Most of the pastors who attend the conferences can read English, although they do not all speak it well. While all the papers are presented in English, we have the presentation translated into Swahili for the benefit of those who do not understand English as well. Because of the time this takes we are not able to get through as much information as we would like in the time that is available to us. It is our hope that in the future this conference will become an exclusively English conference, in order to get more accomplished in the short time that we have.

After lunch Pastor Fred from Etago, Kenya was given the floor to present his paper on the Kings of the united and divided kingdoms. Pastor Enosh of Etago followed him with an overview of the Gospel of Mark, and then Pastor Gondwe of Tanga, Tanzania finished out the day with a study on Pastoral Theology and the ministry. Questions, comments and discussion followed each of the four presentations.

We finally brought our meeting to a close at around 7:00pm and agreed to begin at 8:30 tomorrow morning, in order to get everything done before lunch when many of the men would have to start to head back home again.

It was another long day, but it is always such a wonderful time. I enjoy the time that we spend together in the Word growing in our knowledge of the wonderful mysteries of God. But I also enjoy sitting down with the men and learning about their work and the challenges that are before each of them. After such a beneficial day today, I very much look forward to tomorrow.

Nathanael