October 26 - A change of plans in Kisii

Sunday, October 26, 2008

In my last post I mentioned that we almost lost our muffler on our way back to Kisii from Etago yesterday. Charles was going to try to get that fixed but because today was a Sunday, there was little chance of getting that done early enough for it to be ready to take us to church in Omotembe this morning. So Charles called me this morning and arranged for alternate transportation. The problem was that we would have had to pay extra for the vehicle we were hiring, plus pay for the repair of Charles car. So we decided to see if we could reschedule our visit to Omotembe for Monday since we only had one other church to visit on that day. We hated to miss the Sunday church service, but we were already running behind and would not be able to make it in time for the start of the service anyway. We ran the idea past Charles and he thought it was a good idea, so we called Pastor Enosh to break the news. He was very gracious, and said that would be fine.

So now, with our recent change in plans we suddenly had some extra “catch up” time. The three of us walked to the Nakumatt (Africa’s version of a super Wal-mart) and did some shopping for financial supplies for the church, and other odds ‘n’ ends. From there we went to the Nile to get something to eat. I was very disappointed. I ordered a Beef burger and got a “club sandwich” instead (it was a grilled piece of bread with tomatoes and onions on it). There was all kinds of confusion with our order, and Russ was the only one to get what he ordered. When he brought out the food for me I asked about the Beef burger and his response was a simple “No beef burger!” How disappointing!

While we were eating out late lunch I received a call from Fred who said that four of the men were coming to town to talk about a few things and would like to meet with us. So I met with them at about 2:00 for almost an hour. Bruce was not there right away, but came in a little later (he was trying to get some info on the blog). We discussed a little more about the changes that would soon be implemented in the Etago church. We ironed a number of things out and had a profitable meeting.

After they left Bruce and I set to work on typing out a constitution for a group of congregations, an individual congregation, and a financial policy to provide more security and less chance for abuse by a single person. We spent the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening getting all this information typed up and ready for printing tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is our last day here and we want to be able to leave it in their hands for implementation. After hours of work we felt it was ready to go.

It wasn’t the typical kind of day for us today, but it was very beneficial none the less. We needed some time to get caught up on paperwork and get the constitution finished up before we left Kisii, and that we were able to accomplish. We will have a longer day tomorrow since we will have to visit two congregations instead of one, but that should work out fine.

W thank the Lord for His continued blessing upon our trip...

Nathanael