Travel Days

On Thursday we had a brief meeting with Pastor Malyi in Moshi before boarding a shuttle for the 2 hour ride back to Arusha.  We met an Australian couple on the bus (one was English and the other German, but they were living in Australia) who were spending 6 months traveling through Africa before returning to Australia.  It was very interesting to hear the German’s perspective on the results of World War II on the German people and the state of the church in Germany.  They were both well traveled and very interesting people.  They had just climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and dissuaded Russ from ever trying it!

Once we arrived in Arusha we settled into our hotel and arranged for our travel to Nairobi for the following day.  Then we met with Pastor Jeremiah and his son Elisha in the late afternoon.  Plans were made for the conference in Kisii, which is in just over a week.  At our hotel we met with a man from Wisconsin who helps a Non-denominational organization in teaching pastors.  One of the pastors he was working with was with the ELCT (the large liberal Lutheran church body in East Africa).  I explained that we were not associated with them and pointed out some of the differences.  I gave him my card which has our www.lutheranmissions.com website on it.  I hope that he looks into it more.

On Friday Elisha picked us up early to take us back to the shuttle stage.  We boarded it and were off by 8:00am.  It has been so wonderful to have good roads now from Arusha to Nairobi.  After 6 years, they are almost completely finished.  They only have a little left right at the bordertown of Namanga - other than that, it is smooth sailing and almost cuts the time of that trip in half!   By 3:00pm we were at the airport and a little later we were picked up by Jemima and taken to her house which is only about 10 minutes away.  We had an enjoyable night visiting with her family and getting things packed and ready to go for our trip to Matunda.  One more traveling day still lay ahead, and we were going to have to leave early in the morning....

Saturday morning came too early.  We were up by 6:00, and finished packing and eating breakfast by 7:00am.  Jemima took us to the bus stage where we caught a shuttle to Kitale in western Kenya.  It was a hair-raising ride.  We saw one accident, and several other trucks turned over in the ditch on the side of the road.  The roads are so narrow and the buses and matatoos all go so fast and pass the trucks without regard for what is coming it seems....  We finally arrived safely in Matunda at around 2:30pm and took a taxi up to Anna Sagala’s home to see the family.  This was a bit exciting as well.  It was a 30 minute ride on muddy roads in a 1972 French Peugot car that was well worn (to be PC).  There was a plastic jug with fuel in it at my feet that had a tube going through the dash and into the engine cavity (aka "gas tank")... the window kept rolling itself down ("air conditioning")... and the wipers stopped working when we hit a big bump ("rainx test")... and three of the doors were missing their handles on either the inside or out (maybe it was a French police car???)...  It was quite the experience!

The view from our '72 French made "death trap"!

When we arrived, Anna greeted us with big hugs, and we were also met by her children Mary and Eric.  We were warmly greeted and enjoyed seeing them all.  Tomorrow morning we will be here for church at Mois Bridge and then Monday we are back on the road once more.  More about that later...  We thank the Lord for all the safe travel and for all your prayers!

In His service,

Nathanael