Wednesday, November 18, 2009
One last church to visit. We left this morning at 8:30am for the hour drive to Misesi. Once again the roads were bad so Enosh and Fred met us at the hotel and we took an alternate route to get to Pastor Joseph’s home. We arrived at about 9:30 and were greeted by Pastor Joseph and his wife. She offered us bread and tea while we discussed the training of the four seminary students who had been going to school in Himo. There was a lot to discuss, and we all had ideas about how this could be made to work for the time being. We also talked about hymn books in our congregations here and what we might do to assist our people learn more solid, theological hymns and become more familiar with the liturgy. We are considering the possibility of printing our own small hymn book since the existing ones are lacking in many ways. This is something we will have to discuss more next year when I return.
Discussing a hymnal for the Etago churches (and singing a few together in Swahili)After the conclusion of our meeting we walked down to the road and along the way Pastor Joseph pointed out the land he had designated as the location for the church in the future. Right now he is growing corn and sugar cane in the place where one day a church will stand. We continued on down the road to visit a small building which has been serving as a temporary orphan school. There are about 30 children being taught here now who have lost one or both parents. The church at Misesi works with the community to carry out this program and they would like the CLC to support it as they do at Etago. We will have to see what the KINSHIP committee and Mission Board are able to do.
After visiting the orphan school we went back to Pastor Joseph’s were we all ate lunch. Mrs. Nyaribo served us ugali, mutton stew and kale. I’m not a big fan of ugali, but the stew and kale was very good.
From here we had to return to Kisii to prepare for our trip back to Nairobi. We gave Fred and Enosh the Bibles we had purchased, then said our goodbyes.
The shuttle picked us up at the hotel and took us to the station where we waited for about an hour for it to fill up. At about 2:00pm we left Kisii with a full bus. This bus was nicer than the others. It had three big seats per row, and they didn’t put in more people than they had seats. It was a fairly new van and that we nice as well. As we left Kisii it was beginning to rain again. It sprinkled off and on almost all the way to Nairobi. At one point we had to stop because water was rushing across the highway and a car had become stuck in a sinkhole. A four-wheel-drive truck succeeded in pulling it out, but I hoped that we wouldn’t have to turn around. A road worker came over and directed us and others through so we would get stuck as well and we were off again. We came to the outskirts of Nairobi at 7:00pm but there was another traffic jam and it took us two hours to make it to the bus stop! This is just as bad as home, and maybe a bit worse!
A mechanic working on the engine of a matatoo (don't try this at home!)
Charles picked us up and took us to the Terminal Inn to check in. Then we walked down the street to Steers’ to get a hamburger and some subs. It really hit the spot after four weeks in Africa!
Tomorrow we meet with the Nairobi men and then head for the airport for our trip back home.
In His service,
Nathanael Mayhew
“And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6).
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