still here!

We are fine. Sorry for the long silence – did you think we were lost? (That’s a Kenyan expression!) As the short rainy season nears an end it is getting hotter here again. December and January can be the hottest months of the year. We had another couple of days’ break in Kisumu last month – more or less by ourselves. Since the beginning of August there has been a succession of challenging situations for the management team here, and we’ve tried to be a support to them in these. We are encouraged by the church and by how both Kennedy and Dorine are growing in their leadership and gifting. The Encounter went well - all eight participants were open and all were impacted by God. Kennedy has been doing some leadership training and that has been going really well – we haven’t even been involved in it – it will take less time if they don’t slow things down to translate for us. This is an example of the leaders here taking on more themselves, and we can see our role in the church reducing accordingly. On Wednesday, until Saturday, Dorine and 9 ladies from the church are going to a women’s conference at the Bible college in Bungoma where Kennedy studied. Hilda is planning to go with them – she’s just not sure about the long journey and where she will end up sleeping! The school closed on Friday for the long vacation – until 7th January – with a service and prize-giving. In the Kenyan system, right from the nursery class the children do exams and get ranked from top of the class to the bottom. Three-year-old Salin was back to school last week and, as far as can be told, her eye is healing well and her eyesight is fine. If that is the case it’s a real answer to prayer. She was back at the specialist eye hospital at Sabatia again the previous week, we supposed just for a check-up, but they took her to theatre again and removed stitches and the contact lens that was covering them. She and her mum had to stay a couple of nights there again. Hopefully that is the end of the treatment. Although there have been various instances of terrorist activity and inter-tribal conflicts in various parts of Kenya, this region is quiet. We’re trusting that it stays like this in the lead-up to the presidential and general elections on 4th March 2013. We’re due to come home on 24th January so we’ve now less than 2 months left on this trip. Going on Amazon and looking for Christmas presents for family somehow lacks appeal here - so David’s idea of waiting until we come back and having a late Christmas celebration together seems a much better idea.