Back to Nairobi (again)!

Monday – September 13, 2010

The only thing we had scheduled for today was the trip from Kisii to Nairobi which would take about 5 hours. We had a sign on our door at the Jazz that stated that check out time was "9:30am strictly." When I asked the manager about that last night he said, "No – it is 9:30am FLEXIBLE!" if we liked. So we weren’t in any hurry to leave this morning. We slept in and rested up a bit. It felt pretty good to not have anything scheduled. We packed up our bags and checked out of the Jazz. We walked to the bus station just a few blocks away, and found an express to Nairobi. I was a little nervous at first, because there was no one on it, and I really didn’t want to spend two hours waiting for it to fill up like we did when we left Uganda a couple days back. But the manager, whose name was Elvis, assured me that they already had most of the seats sold and wouldn’t take long to fill. And he was right. About half an hour later we were on the road back to Nairobi once again.

My wife sent me this picture of my five oldest kids - Mark was being a stinker so he wasn't included. I miss them all!

Once again we settled in for the long and loud ride. Mike, Stephen and Russ were in the row right behind the driver, and I was in the row behind them between and new mother and the bus doorman. The mother I was sitting next to had a one week old baby with her that was sleeping soundly. But here is the amazing part: The baby slept the whole way to Nairobi without a peep, in spite of the ear piercing noise that was coming from the speaker right next to the baby’s head! The music was loud enough to cause me to plug my ears, even after we had asked them to turn it down once - so that child was either already acclimated to the noise of music in African buses, or deaf. Either way the baby took the noise a lot better than I did!

We made a quick stop in Narok – a town halfway between Nairobi and Kisii – for bathrooms and snacks, and then were on the road again. The boys up front saw another pedestrian / car accident on the trip to Nairobi. It looked like it was a fatality this time. It is really sad how incapable people are of using common sense. How sad. How unnecessary.

We arrived in Nairobi at about 4:00 and then had to get a taxi to take us to the Southern Blue Hotel. It wasn’t very far, but took us a little bit to get a taxi, load up, get through rush hour traffic and then unload at the SB. Charles and Jonathan arrived at around 5:00pm and I sat down with them to discuss the schedule for the next few days. We will be teaching the in a pastor training seminar on Wednesday before we leave, conducting elections for new officers in the Nairobi district, and meeting with the seminary students. So we have a lot to do yet before we leave on Wednesday night.

We passed this mosque in Nairobi on our way to the Southern Blue. We see more and more every year.

Tonight I am especially reminded of the importance of our work as I think of that man who was killed on the road. Concern for the soul and the work for souls is most important. We thank the Lord Jesus for what He has done to win our souls from sin and death, and are privileged to be part of reaching souls for Him!

In His service,

Nathanael

"Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?’" – Matthew 16:24-26