This is now our seventh trip to Kosele - and our third long trip - but the sights and sounds always hit us afresh. Because we had an overnight flight to Nairobi and then the short flight to Kisumu mid-morning we stayed in Kisumu in a guest house on Wednesday night. On Thursday, Mary (the Project Manager) came with the hire car and driver to collect us. The project 's ageing Land Rover has not managed a trip to Kisumu for a long time, and after landing up in a ditch recently, it was being repaired. We did some shopping and Mary stocked up on things for the project and then we set off with a very full Toyota estate car on the two-hour journey. With all the recent rainfall, the last part of the journey on the road uphill from Lake Victoria to Kosele was slower than normal because of the even sorrier state of the road.
It is always good to see everyone again although we did not see all of the children until about 6pm as they had been competing in an inter-schools sports event. Thursday had passed with mostly catching up with people. So it took most of Friday morning to unpack and sort out our room again.
This time I hope to get into more walking again so at 4.45pm (the temperature is a bit cooler by then) I set off for Kosele village. This time we have brought our own thermometer and today it was 29 degrees in the shade. Friday is a market day and as a result I met so many neighbours, church members and children on my walk. My very limited Dholuo began to get reactivated and I was able to greet them and find out if they were well.
As I got near the market I met Dorina (an elderly grandmother who cares for her two small granddaughters) returning with an empty basket. She was able to communicate that she had no food. I think she must have gone to the market in the hope that someone would give her something but had given up -until she met me. I had the usual inner struggle that aid is not the answer and what would she do if I had not been there. I know the theory and agree that it is best to avoid dependency. But what would Jesus do and what should we do? Knowing I have money in my purse and I am not going to go to bed hungry makes it easy to buy her some small fish, kale and maize for a meal. What of tomorrow? This is the struggle many of our neighbours face daily.
After leaving the market I met George who repairs shoes - he sits under a tree doing this. I did not go over to greet him as he was talking with several men whom I did not know. A second later, I heard 'Hilda, Hilda' and there was George wanting to talk to me. His English is fairly good. So as well as asking how he had been, I asked him if he was managing to keep off alcohol. He said he hadn't but he wanted to stop again and proceeded to ask me for advice. George had come off alcohol for about a year and starting coming to church but last year he went back to his drinking friends, and stopped coming to church. Yesterday, when I told him it is God's help that he needs, he said that he will come back to church on Sunday. I am praying he will be able to follow through on this.
Soon after this I met Termina, one of our Sunday School teachers and we walked back together. Fortunately her English is good and we were able to chat all the way. However, for the last 5 minutes the wind started up and then there was a downpour of rain and hail– we both got totally drenched! It was well worth it to meet so many people again. I also saw the biggest snake I have seen here but fortunately someone had killed it!
There has been more rain this rainy season than people around here have seen for a long time. The waterlogged ground has resulted in the crops not doing well and although the rainfall pattern has returned to normal now it is not going to be a good harvest. People here have a hand to mouth existence and a poor harvest or an illness in the family can wipe out any savings a family has.
The temperature in the Visitor's Centre only dropped a couple of degrees with the downpour. The second day of the school sports event had also been on - so many of the children also got caught in the downpour on their way home.
In the evening we joined the younger children from the Home who were watching a DVD – Ice Age! - while the oldest six were with Terry learning how to play chess. Unlike our Children’s Home, most homes in the community do not have solar power or any form of electricity, so being able do these kind of things in the evening is a luxury most of our neighbours do not have. Most people would have one paraffin lamp and can't always afford to buy paraffin.
I also reflected on my walk into Kosele and the large number of people I met and spoke with and I began to imagine what it would be like in our community at home. While there, I frequently walked into the centre of Paisley and back without meeting anyone I know, but despite the price of petrol there were increasing numbers of cars. I know I can't make a direct comparison, but walking can mean far more social interaction if more people do it.
After a slowish start this morning – 30 degrees in the shade today – Ian has gone over to the church Men's Group this afternoon. Meanwhile I draft a blog and then chat with Pastor Dorine and catch up on news of how individuals have been getting on. A few disappointments but far more encouragements. Looking forward to seeing everyone in church tomorrow!
Saturday, 25 May 2013
Friday, 4 January 2013
Omondi
I first saw Omondi over a year ago, as he shuffled very slowly up to the gate of our compound. His head was down, he looked very disturbed and he was unable to speak. He was dressed in very poor clothes, was dirty, hungry and looked like an old man. The security guard told me that Omondi used to be totally normal, but a few years ago he had become like this. He is well known in the area and people have said that his condition is a result of witchcraft. The guard also said that Omondi was aged around 30! I guessed that he had experienced some sort of nervous breakdown.
I discovered that day that his legs were badly swollen and covered with infected sores. So we cleaned his wounds, applied antibiotic powder and found him some clean clothes. We fed him and prayed with him. I remember praying for him to return to his right mind and for his speech to return. Then he shuffled off again.
Thus began a series of visits from him. Often we would not see him for long spells and then he would reappear. The sores improved and healed but then would reappear, mostly because of the swelling in his legs. This swelling was partly caused by his habit of standing in the same place for over an hour at a time, in a catatonic manner.
One time he found his way to our church, and our pastor, Kennedy, invited him to come forward for prayer - which he did.
During his more recent visits to the compound he had been trying to speak to us; he would mumble a word or two. In the last week or two we heard that he has been speaking more. On New Year's Day he came to visit us as he wanted to thank me for treating his legs. At last, they are now totally healed. Even better, Omondi’s whole disposition was changed – his face was bright, he was relaxed and talking away very easily. All the staff and some of the children gathered round as he chatted and laughed with us, and yes - he can even speak English. He told me that his first name is Kenneth, and I told him that that’s a Scottish name – it means “handsome”. Everyone knew his condition in the past and they are all truly amazed at the change in him. Kennedy was able to pray with him again and we thanked God for his mental and physical healing.
Please pray that Omondi will also find Jesus as his Lord and Saviour as well as his Healer. Transformation is what we pray for this community - maybe it has begun with Omondi!
Monday, 26 November 2012
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.
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
Kisumu
Sorry we've been quiet for so long. Did you think we were "lost"?
We're just back from a few days' break in Kisumu, 2 hours drive from here - here's some reflections from our time there.
Kisumu! Lakeside city on the Equator. Hot, but with a thunderstorm not far away.
Milimani area where we're staying has the big houses and offices, all protected behind their walls and gates, on avenues lined with trees with beautiful flowers of many colours. Our guest house double room turns out to be a twin room with no space to swing a cat, but the food is good and we have all we need. The breakfast room is vast, decorated with lots of artificial flowers and those pictures of angelic-looking Chinese babies that you find here in Kenya.
Is this a city or just a big town? Towns don't have “international airports” like Kisumu has. Either way it's positively urban and even cosmopolitan compared to our village, Kosele. People here don't look twice when they see a white face – children don't all shout “mzungu, how are you?” and want to shake your hand.
There's still a relaxed feel about this place - nothing moves too quickly here. The main roads are populated by boda-bodas (bicycle taxis), piki-pikis (motor-bikes) and tuk-tuks (motorised rickshaws). There aren't too many private cars - many of them will be owned by the Asians who form the business community here. You can buy any car you like here – as long as it’s a Toyota!
Bustling colourful market – you can buy second-hand clothes or shoes here for a few bob! Haggle for a better price, as the first price they ask will be the “mzungu price”. Can't blame them for wanting to make a better profit from Europeans. We both know that I can afford it – even their top price is less than we would pay at home.
Church is big, polished, middle class. So many people and so many activities on offer, so why does it seem that most people just come in, sit/stand/sing/clap as appropriate, and then get up and go home again? There's nothing wrong with the service but actually we wish we were back in our own little rural church in Kosele.
Do we need orphanages? (Apparently so - nowhere else for all these children to go, nowhere else for them to belong.) There's something sad and bleak about this one. Some kind of lethargy. Do they know that God is still here with them?
Why is there a white boy here? Hold on, he's not white, but an albino. The facial features and hair type are very African. How does he feel? Do the others accept him?
Back home tomorrow! Is it home? Meantime anyway!
Monday, 27 August 2012
A busy month!
August has been a busy month for the church leaders, the Hope & Kindness management and us. After the visit from the national church leaders we were taken up with preparing for and running the first Youth Encounter, and last week, another Farming God’s Way training seminar. Despite it being the school holidays and most of the children in the Home having gone away to visit relatives, it has been a challenging time for the management team here, with various issues to be tackled, and we’ve been trying to support them in this.
So after a busy few weeks we got away at last for a 2-night break in Kisumu, two hours’ drive from here. Two of the children were not going to get a holiday of any type because, in one case there are no known relatives, so we took them along with us. So together with Vivian and Mercy we visited the Impala Sanctuary (a cross between a zoo and a small wildlife reserve) and the Museum, and took the girls shopping. A new experience for them staying in a big hotel, but overall we think they enjoyed the time away. Our only problem was the hotel – we had asked for quiet rooms but where did they put us? – right above the bar, where a karaoke session (mostly populated by students from British universities on a holiday) blared out till midnight. The rotten singing made it even worse!
The news in Kenya has been dominated by two major incidents over the past week. The first arose from a festering dispute between two tribes in Southeast Kenya over land and cattle grazing rights. This escalated into outright armed conflict between the two groups and hit national headlines when one tribe massacred some 80 men, women and children in a revenge attack on their rivals, destroying a whole village. Certainly, disputes over land and cattle are common in some parts of Kenya, but this incident shocked the nation.
A couple of days later, nearer at hand (in the same county as we are), another disaster occurred. Eight girls, locked in a school dormitory at night, perished in a fire. The investigations and recriminations are continuing, but this is having repercussions for our own school here – fire safety has been reviewed and some small changes made. The school exam system is so competitive here, with Standard 8 children being given extra classes early in the morning, at weekends and during holidays to help them revise. The Education authorities have been cracking down on schools giving extra tuition during holidays, and are using this tragedy to enforce their position, because the girls who died should have been at home on holiday. Our own school takes different holidays from the state schools and was due to open today, but this has had to be postponed for another week. TIA !
So after a busy few weeks we got away at last for a 2-night break in Kisumu, two hours’ drive from here. Two of the children were not going to get a holiday of any type because, in one case there are no known relatives, so we took them along with us. So together with Vivian and Mercy we visited the Impala Sanctuary (a cross between a zoo and a small wildlife reserve) and the Museum, and took the girls shopping. A new experience for them staying in a big hotel, but overall we think they enjoyed the time away. Our only problem was the hotel – we had asked for quiet rooms but where did they put us? – right above the bar, where a karaoke session (mostly populated by students from British universities on a holiday) blared out till midnight. The rotten singing made it even worse!
The news in Kenya has been dominated by two major incidents over the past week. The first arose from a festering dispute between two tribes in Southeast Kenya over land and cattle grazing rights. This escalated into outright armed conflict between the two groups and hit national headlines when one tribe massacred some 80 men, women and children in a revenge attack on their rivals, destroying a whole village. Certainly, disputes over land and cattle are common in some parts of Kenya, but this incident shocked the nation.
A couple of days later, nearer at hand (in the same county as we are), another disaster occurred. Eight girls, locked in a school dormitory at night, perished in a fire. The investigations and recriminations are continuing, but this is having repercussions for our own school here – fire safety has been reviewed and some small changes made. The school exam system is so competitive here, with Standard 8 children being given extra classes early in the morning, at weekends and during holidays to help them revise. The Education authorities have been cracking down on schools giving extra tuition during holidays, and are using this tragedy to enforce their position, because the girls who died should have been at home on holiday. Our own school takes different holidays from the state schools and was due to open today, but this has had to be postponed for another week. TIA !
Tuesday, 7 August 2012
Ten years on
We’ve had a great weekend here in the church, and I hope Terry doesn’t mind me copying parts of his blog to tell you about it.
This weekend saw the final step in our church becoming part of Elim Gospel Church Kenya. It was a very exciting day and an extremely appropriate time for this development. Exactly ten years ago to the day, Terry and Judi and their children Tom and Ellie spent their first Sunday in Kosele and planted a small church, by starting a Sunday School with the children in the new Children’s Home they were setting up.
The church has been through its share of ups and downs. We’ve experienced a pastor being driven out of the area because of the post-election violence in 2007. We have been widely ridiculed in the community because of our Pentecostalism and we have seen church numbers go up and down depending on the number of Mzungu (European) visitors to the church. Like any church we have been let down by conflict between individual members of the church and conflict between the leaders of the church. The church family is, really, not very different from our own families. Like a good family we have held together through the ups and downs, celebrating together, grieving together and giving together.
In today’s service Pastor Paul, (who had to leave Kosele in 2007 because he came from the wrong tribe), said how delighted he was to be in church at this momentous time. Despite only being the pastor for a short time, Paul was loved by the church members and they were pleased to see him back for this visit. Paul and his colleague Pastor Reuben are members of the national leadership of the Elim Gospel Church in Kenya. (Ours is the only Elim church in Nyanza province.) Becoming part of this movement links our church to a number of others in different parts of the country and to a wider global family of Elim churches with a headquarters in the UK.
In a very moving service, Paul and Reuben anointed our new Pastor Kennedy and co-pastor Dorine, and their leadership team, all by the popular acclaim of the church members. Reuben preached the sermon in the service and coined a completely beautiful phrase. He was extolling the virtues of loving one another through showing each other kindness and creating hope in brothers’ and sisters’ lives. He said that as a result of this “the friendship becomes fatter”. It’s a lovely image and a wonderfully African sentiment.
Kennedy, our new Pastor, reminded the church of its roots in our Home ten years ago. Looking round the church and seeing the happy faces, young, old, men, women, boys and girls I was reminded of a New Testament scripture from 1st Corinthians 3:6-7 which says:
“I planted the seeds, Apollos watered them, but God made them sprout and grow. What matters isn't those who planted or watered, but God who made the plants grow.”
The church today is unrecognisable from that little group ten years ago, and I wonder what it will be like in another 10 years – how will it compare with today’s congregation? We are confident that Kennedy and Dorine will lead it well because it has became clear that God has called and equipped them and set them apart to serve him in this place. We feel privileged to be a part of what God is doing here at this time.
This weekend saw the final step in our church becoming part of Elim Gospel Church Kenya. It was a very exciting day and an extremely appropriate time for this development. Exactly ten years ago to the day, Terry and Judi and their children Tom and Ellie spent their first Sunday in Kosele and planted a small church, by starting a Sunday School with the children in the new Children’s Home they were setting up.
The church has been through its share of ups and downs. We’ve experienced a pastor being driven out of the area because of the post-election violence in 2007. We have been widely ridiculed in the community because of our Pentecostalism and we have seen church numbers go up and down depending on the number of Mzungu (European) visitors to the church. Like any church we have been let down by conflict between individual members of the church and conflict between the leaders of the church. The church family is, really, not very different from our own families. Like a good family we have held together through the ups and downs, celebrating together, grieving together and giving together.
In today’s service Pastor Paul, (who had to leave Kosele in 2007 because he came from the wrong tribe), said how delighted he was to be in church at this momentous time. Despite only being the pastor for a short time, Paul was loved by the church members and they were pleased to see him back for this visit. Paul and his colleague Pastor Reuben are members of the national leadership of the Elim Gospel Church in Kenya. (Ours is the only Elim church in Nyanza province.) Becoming part of this movement links our church to a number of others in different parts of the country and to a wider global family of Elim churches with a headquarters in the UK.
In a very moving service, Paul and Reuben anointed our new Pastor Kennedy and co-pastor Dorine, and their leadership team, all by the popular acclaim of the church members. Reuben preached the sermon in the service and coined a completely beautiful phrase. He was extolling the virtues of loving one another through showing each other kindness and creating hope in brothers’ and sisters’ lives. He said that as a result of this “the friendship becomes fatter”. It’s a lovely image and a wonderfully African sentiment.
Kennedy, our new Pastor, reminded the church of its roots in our Home ten years ago. Looking round the church and seeing the happy faces, young, old, men, women, boys and girls I was reminded of a New Testament scripture from 1st Corinthians 3:6-7 which says:
“I planted the seeds, Apollos watered them, but God made them sprout and grow. What matters isn't those who planted or watered, but God who made the plants grow.”
The church today is unrecognisable from that little group ten years ago, and I wonder what it will be like in another 10 years – how will it compare with today’s congregation? We are confident that Kennedy and Dorine will lead it well because it has became clear that God has called and equipped them and set them apart to serve him in this place. We feel privileged to be a part of what God is doing here at this time.
Sunday, 29 July 2012
Oink, the goat??
What’s been happening here? Not too much, but enough to keep us too busy to write a blog post for the past couple of weeks. The main thing in the diary has been preparing for and taking part in another 2-day seminar on Farming God’s Way. Those people who have tried the method on their own farms over the past few months have been encouraged by the results – the main problems have been getting enough mulch (grass and leaves to cover the ground and keep down weeds), keeping animals and birds off the growing crops, and water-logging due to lots of rain and poor drainage. These last two issues would of course be problems even if people were doing farming by the traditional methods.
For a couple of city dwellers, we’ve learned a lot about farming through Farming God’s Way. Our role is helping to co-ordinate the seminars, which are delivered almost all in Dholuo now. Last week we weren’t sure how many people to expect but 17 turned up on the first day, mostly from the community but not many from our own church. Hopefully they will all try out the methods and spread the word in their own areas.
We’ve been meeting individually with the church leaders and reviewing the leadership structure in the church. Next weekend we’re expecting a visit from two of the national leaders of Elim Gospel Church Kenya and their wives. They’ll be doing some leadership training and we’ll also discuss the proposal for our little church here to officially join up with the denomination.
Last week one of our oldest church members, Bernard, died. Bernard was brought to church every Sunday in a wheelchair by some of our older boys. We will miss him from the church – his usual place at the front will be empty. Bernard was increasingly frail and bent but he didn’t miss church very often, and liked to greet the church members. When he was younger, he went away to work on the tea plantations near Kericho, and it was there that he came across horses. (Horses are not found at all in this part of Kenya – only donkeys). When we visited him last year, his eyes lit up when he talked about these wonderful creatures!
The Land Rover is back in business after being off the road with electrical problems for a week. A group of us were halfway back from Kisii, our nearest large town, when it broke down. A guy from the petrol station in the nearby village agreed a price to tow us back to our mechanic’s place – but as he only had an old Nissan saloon – about 1200cc I would guess – he didn’t manage to tow us right up the hilly track to the garage. A second vehicle had to be hired to complete the job! Our good friend Douglas came to our rescue with his minibus and transported passengers, shopping, sacks of potatoes, timber etc for the remaining journey back to Kosele, only delayed slightly because the road was still blocked by a bus which had been stuck in the mud all day. Safe home before nightfall! No AA or RAC here but we get by thanks to people’s ingenuity and helpfulness.
We’re now on Facebook (Ian N Hilda McMillan) where we’ve posted some photos. One photo is of our newest residents at Hope & Kindness – two greedy female goats (named Oink and Annabel by Terry’s daughter Ellie, who’s been visiting).
For a couple of city dwellers, we’ve learned a lot about farming through Farming God’s Way. Our role is helping to co-ordinate the seminars, which are delivered almost all in Dholuo now. Last week we weren’t sure how many people to expect but 17 turned up on the first day, mostly from the community but not many from our own church. Hopefully they will all try out the methods and spread the word in their own areas.
We’ve been meeting individually with the church leaders and reviewing the leadership structure in the church. Next weekend we’re expecting a visit from two of the national leaders of Elim Gospel Church Kenya and their wives. They’ll be doing some leadership training and we’ll also discuss the proposal for our little church here to officially join up with the denomination.
Last week one of our oldest church members, Bernard, died. Bernard was brought to church every Sunday in a wheelchair by some of our older boys. We will miss him from the church – his usual place at the front will be empty. Bernard was increasingly frail and bent but he didn’t miss church very often, and liked to greet the church members. When he was younger, he went away to work on the tea plantations near Kericho, and it was there that he came across horses. (Horses are not found at all in this part of Kenya – only donkeys). When we visited him last year, his eyes lit up when he talked about these wonderful creatures!
The Land Rover is back in business after being off the road with electrical problems for a week. A group of us were halfway back from Kisii, our nearest large town, when it broke down. A guy from the petrol station in the nearby village agreed a price to tow us back to our mechanic’s place – but as he only had an old Nissan saloon – about 1200cc I would guess – he didn’t manage to tow us right up the hilly track to the garage. A second vehicle had to be hired to complete the job! Our good friend Douglas came to our rescue with his minibus and transported passengers, shopping, sacks of potatoes, timber etc for the remaining journey back to Kosele, only delayed slightly because the road was still blocked by a bus which had been stuck in the mud all day. Safe home before nightfall! No AA or RAC here but we get by thanks to people’s ingenuity and helpfulness.
We’re now on Facebook (Ian N Hilda McMillan) where we’ve posted some photos. One photo is of our newest residents at Hope & Kindness – two greedy female goats (named Oink and Annabel by Terry’s daughter Ellie, who’s been visiting).
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Perspective
Today at the women’s Bible Study group several of the women shared the issues they were facing in their lives right now. Just hearing these helps us to put our own minor problems and frustrations into perspective.
• A’s daughter was having a baby and haemorrhaged so badly that she lost her life, although the baby was saved. She probably would have been OK if she had been in a hospital in Britain. Who will now feed and take care of the baby?
• M went away to her granddaughter’s funeral and on her return home found that her 17-year-old son had just taken his belongings and disappeared. Where has he gone and why?
• Another lady was pressured by her husband into getting a loan from a women’s co-operative. The loan is due to be repaid but her husband has probably spent the money on drink. She was asking him for money but he has chased her away with a machete and she has not gone back home today.
Apart from these, other church members are struggling with ill health in themselves or their families, with poverty and hunger, and with mistreatment by husbands. Others are HIV positive but most cannot bring themselves to admit it openly. Life here in Kenya can be harsh but people know that church is a place where they can receive some care and compassion. How much we need to see this community changed by people finding a real relationship with God and putting his ways into practice!
On a lighter note, our senior school girls did us proud by going to the provincial round of the Kenyan Schools Music Festival and being placed a very commendable 12th out of around 75 presentations for their traditional dance/song. They nearly didn’t make it to the festival at all as the bus which was due to pick them up at 6.00am allegedly broke down on its way here and they didn’t get away until after 9.30.
Two of our teenage visitors are starting their journey home tomorrow having spent a couple of weeks playing football and touch rugby with our kids and improving our sports field with new paths, new goalposts, netball pitch and volleyball court. A big improvement - and they’ve been a big hit with the children.
• A’s daughter was having a baby and haemorrhaged so badly that she lost her life, although the baby was saved. She probably would have been OK if she had been in a hospital in Britain. Who will now feed and take care of the baby?
• M went away to her granddaughter’s funeral and on her return home found that her 17-year-old son had just taken his belongings and disappeared. Where has he gone and why?
• Another lady was pressured by her husband into getting a loan from a women’s co-operative. The loan is due to be repaid but her husband has probably spent the money on drink. She was asking him for money but he has chased her away with a machete and she has not gone back home today.
Apart from these, other church members are struggling with ill health in themselves or their families, with poverty and hunger, and with mistreatment by husbands. Others are HIV positive but most cannot bring themselves to admit it openly. Life here in Kenya can be harsh but people know that church is a place where they can receive some care and compassion. How much we need to see this community changed by people finding a real relationship with God and putting his ways into practice!
On a lighter note, our senior school girls did us proud by going to the provincial round of the Kenyan Schools Music Festival and being placed a very commendable 12th out of around 75 presentations for their traditional dance/song. They nearly didn’t make it to the festival at all as the bus which was due to pick them up at 6.00am allegedly broke down on its way here and they didn’t get away until after 9.30.
Two of our teenage visitors are starting their journey home tomorrow having spent a couple of weeks playing football and touch rugby with our kids and improving our sports field with new paths, new goalposts, netball pitch and volleyball court. A big improvement - and they’ve been a big hit with the children.
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Update 5 July
David and Yvonne are now home again, after a long journey, with both the Kisumu-Nairobi and Nairobi-Amsterdam flights being delayed. They didn’t take home much in the way of suntans, but just lots of photos and video footage, many happy memories and some great experiences of Africa. On the way home they stopped off to see Lake Victoria and visited the craft market in Kisumu, where Yvonne displayed her new skills in haggling – making big savings on the top prices the traders started off by asking for.
David had spent some time training and coaching our older boys for football, and a friendly match against another school was arranged. However, in true Kenyan fashion, it was to take place the day after David left for home. However the boys did David proud – actually playing 2 matches and winning both - on penalties!
Since they left, the visitor centre has filled up again with 4 teenagers from England who are here for 2-3 weeks. They are all working with the schoolchildren – taking art, sports and giving maths tuition. It seems like they will have a good time here.
With our own visitors away we have got back into our main role here, working with the church leaders. We all met last Sunday with the 8 people who did the “Encounter” in early June, to get feedback from them. We are so encouraged – they were all so positive about the Encounter itself and the changes it brought to their lives. We could see it in their faces! They each testified about the new freedom, lightness in spirit and closer walk with God they are experiencing. The church leaders feel that even these few people being changed has improved the atmosphere in the church and the joy in worship. This gives us confidence as we plan the next Encounter and hopefully also a Youth Encounter during the school holidays in August.
We’ve also been doing some strategic planning with Kennedy and Dorine regarding their respective roles in the church and the potential for expanding their responsibilities. We continue to be impressed and inspired by these two people, by their humility and dedication and their commitment to serve God here in Kosele. This church has come through many trials but we are all filled with hope for what God is going to do here over the next few years.
We’re also jointly on Facebook now (Ian N Hilda McMillan) – made possible by the improving network connections here in the middle of Africa – so another way to keep in touch with home!
David had spent some time training and coaching our older boys for football, and a friendly match against another school was arranged. However, in true Kenyan fashion, it was to take place the day after David left for home. However the boys did David proud – actually playing 2 matches and winning both - on penalties!
Since they left, the visitor centre has filled up again with 4 teenagers from England who are here for 2-3 weeks. They are all working with the schoolchildren – taking art, sports and giving maths tuition. It seems like they will have a good time here.
With our own visitors away we have got back into our main role here, working with the church leaders. We all met last Sunday with the 8 people who did the “Encounter” in early June, to get feedback from them. We are so encouraged – they were all so positive about the Encounter itself and the changes it brought to their lives. We could see it in their faces! They each testified about the new freedom, lightness in spirit and closer walk with God they are experiencing. The church leaders feel that even these few people being changed has improved the atmosphere in the church and the joy in worship. This gives us confidence as we plan the next Encounter and hopefully also a Youth Encounter during the school holidays in August.
We’ve also been doing some strategic planning with Kennedy and Dorine regarding their respective roles in the church and the potential for expanding their responsibilities. We continue to be impressed and inspired by these two people, by their humility and dedication and their commitment to serve God here in Kosele. This church has come through many trials but we are all filled with hope for what God is going to do here over the next few years.
We’re also jointly on Facebook now (Ian N Hilda McMillan) – made possible by the improving network connections here in the middle of Africa – so another way to keep in touch with home!
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
Our visitors
Well, the weather hasn’t been that hot but it’s been hot enough for David and Yvonne. By now the rainy season is usually over but we’ve had a lot of rain, particularly on Saturday and Sunday in the late afternoon and evening, resulting in us all being caught in a downpour, having to shelter for an hour and walk back from the stadium (actually just a playing field) through some floodwater. On Sunday, David and I and Mary took our big boys back to their school in Oyugis after their half-term, and had an interesting journey back to Kosele in the Landrover, driving through torrential rain along a road that’s in bad condition at the best of times.
David and Yvonne have been enjoying their visit here and learning to get by without some of their home comforts. They have been visiting the school, playing with the younger kids, visiting homes in the community and shopping in the bustling market in Oyugis. Today we have all been helping to build a house. The funding for the new house came from part of the money raised through the ceilidh which we organised in Paisley - and Yvonne’s employer, Santander, doubled the money raised. The house will provide a new home for Julita, a young widow with 4 daughters who has been living in a tiny 1-room house. Our part in this ,along with some church members ,was helping to apply mud to make the walls of the house. It’s hard work when you’re not used to it!
David has been taking football training for the older boys and we hope to organise a friendly match against another school nearby. Yvonne has been helping some of the children with their maths homework and also visited the young mothers group at the church and saw them making beads. Another day we went with 37 of our older girls and two teachers to the county primary schools music festival. Our girls were doing a traditional dance and song from the coastal region, and did so well, coming first in their class and beating 5 other schools. The music festival was good – most of the choirs and dancers were of a very high standard.
David and Yvonne have been enjoying their visit here and learning to get by without some of their home comforts. They have been visiting the school, playing with the younger kids, visiting homes in the community and shopping in the bustling market in Oyugis. Today we have all been helping to build a house. The funding for the new house came from part of the money raised through the ceilidh which we organised in Paisley - and Yvonne’s employer, Santander, doubled the money raised. The house will provide a new home for Julita, a young widow with 4 daughters who has been living in a tiny 1-room house. Our part in this ,along with some church members ,was helping to apply mud to make the walls of the house. It’s hard work when you’re not used to it!
David has been taking football training for the older boys and we hope to organise a friendly match against another school nearby. Yvonne has been helping some of the children with their maths homework and also visited the young mothers group at the church and saw them making beads. Another day we went with 37 of our older girls and two teachers to the county primary schools music festival. Our girls were doing a traditional dance and song from the coastal region, and did so well, coming first in their class and beating 5 other schools. The music festival was good – most of the choirs and dancers were of a very high standard.
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Rado and Safari
The Encounter, or Rado in Dholuo as we are now calling it, went very well on 12th and 13th June. The aim of the Encounter is to facilitate the work of the Holy Spirit in consolidating people in their faith and taking them forward in areas such as forgiveness, breaking curses, deliverance, and knowing the love of their Heavenly Father. Eight church members completed the two-day seminar, and all of them were very responsive to the teaching and to the times of ministry. This was the best of the three Encounters we have done so far in Kenya and it confirmed Dorine and Kennedy in their roles as leaders who are anointed to use tools such as this to take our church forward.
The next day we headed off by taxi to Kendu Bay and then by matatu (mini-bus) to Kisumu. There are Chinese restaurants even in the heart of Africa and that’s where we had lunch and then to the airport for a short flight to Nairobi, where we arrived in good time to meet David and Yvonne arriving from Amsterdam. They had a good journey apart from being tired. A new experience for them coming to sub-Saharan Africa, and also for us welcoming our family to Kenya!
After an overnight at Sam’s guest house we were picked up by our driver, Matthew for our safari to the Masai Mara. Plenty to see on the way – the bustle of Nairobi, the amazing view from the escarpment over the huge Rift Valley, Maasai tribesmen in their traditional brightly-coloured blankets herding their cattle, goats and sheep, and plenty of wildlife even before reaching the National Reserve. Our driver proved to be something of a mechanic as well as he kept the vehicle going despite problems with the fuel pump.
Even a small corner of the Masai Mara is outstanding in its wildlife – thousands of gazelles, impala, topi, zebra, wildebeest and buffalo. Seeing lions, giraffes and ostriches in their native habitat is great, but for me the highlights were a herd of elephants making their way through the savannah, and a pair of cheetahs that we saw close up. Wonderful!
Another long journey on Sunday over rough tracks and some decent roads brought us to Oyugis and then the very bumpy road to Kosele. David and Yvonne have met so many new people they must be confused, and been welcomed to the whole school at Assembly. They’ve also had the chance to visit the little boy Dan whom they sponsor and his family at their home. They will have a good time here as long as they can stick the heat!
The next day we headed off by taxi to Kendu Bay and then by matatu (mini-bus) to Kisumu. There are Chinese restaurants even in the heart of Africa and that’s where we had lunch and then to the airport for a short flight to Nairobi, where we arrived in good time to meet David and Yvonne arriving from Amsterdam. They had a good journey apart from being tired. A new experience for them coming to sub-Saharan Africa, and also for us welcoming our family to Kenya!
After an overnight at Sam’s guest house we were picked up by our driver, Matthew for our safari to the Masai Mara. Plenty to see on the way – the bustle of Nairobi, the amazing view from the escarpment over the huge Rift Valley, Maasai tribesmen in their traditional brightly-coloured blankets herding their cattle, goats and sheep, and plenty of wildlife even before reaching the National Reserve. Our driver proved to be something of a mechanic as well as he kept the vehicle going despite problems with the fuel pump.
Even a small corner of the Masai Mara is outstanding in its wildlife – thousands of gazelles, impala, topi, zebra, wildebeest and buffalo. Seeing lions, giraffes and ostriches in their native habitat is great, but for me the highlights were a herd of elephants making their way through the savannah, and a pair of cheetahs that we saw close up. Wonderful!
Another long journey on Sunday over rough tracks and some decent roads brought us to Oyugis and then the very bumpy road to Kosele. David and Yvonne have met so many new people they must be confused, and been welcomed to the whole school at Assembly. They’ve also had the chance to visit the little boy Dan whom they sponsor and his family at their home. They will have a good time here as long as they can stick the heat!
Sunday, 3 June 2012
Back to Kosele
Hard to believe but this is actually our sixth trip to Kenya. Each time we’ve travelled the same route – by KLM via Amsterdam – this has proven to be the cheapest and easiest way from Glasgow to Nairobi. We prefer travelling by day but this means a very early start to catch the 0600 Glasgow-Amsterdam flight. Arriving at Nairobi Airport we had the quickest ever passage through Passport Control – found a short queue and the official accepted our multi-trip visas, even though they were in our old passports, so we didn’t have anything to pay. Minor scare while we waited for our luggage – we got 3 bags very quickly off the carousel but took ages to find where they had put our other one. Our friend Sam met us at the exit and we were soon at his guest house.
Wednesday’s objective was to go into central Nairobi to get our Work Permits stamped in our passports. After the bomb in a shopping centre in central Nairobi on Monday we were more aware of the security situation, so we didn’t hang about too long. Reuben, one of the national Elim church leaders, met us and guided us through this last stage.
On Thursday morning we took an early flight to Kisumu and were met at the airport by Dancun. The only other part of the immigration jigsaw was, we thought, to collect our “Alien Cards” from the Kisumu Immigration office. This was achieved very quickly, but when we looked at the cards in detail we saw that they had already expired! The frustrations of Kenyan bureaucracy! Nothing else we could do but apply for renewal, which involved getting our fingerprints taken again, and we go back in a few months to collect the cards. Then we can officially be Aliens!
Spending 2 and a half days travelling and dealing with officialdom is well compensated by arriving at last at Kosele and being welcomed by the schoolchildren, staff and church leaders. It’s good to see them all again. Such a good welcome even though we’ve only been away 3 months. Since Thursday we’ve been resting, getting unpacked, sorting out our room, shopping, and renewing acquaintances with people here and in the church.
One of the good things about the weather here is that when it rains, it usually rains at night or in the evening, so that is what we’re experiencing just now. Next week we’ll start to get back into our routine again – we’ll be having a meeting with Kennedy and Dorine and with all the church leaders and preparing for another Encounter which may be held on 12th and 13th June. After that we look forward to meeting David and Yvonne on the 14th June as they make their first visit to Kenya.
Wednesday’s objective was to go into central Nairobi to get our Work Permits stamped in our passports. After the bomb in a shopping centre in central Nairobi on Monday we were more aware of the security situation, so we didn’t hang about too long. Reuben, one of the national Elim church leaders, met us and guided us through this last stage.
On Thursday morning we took an early flight to Kisumu and were met at the airport by Dancun. The only other part of the immigration jigsaw was, we thought, to collect our “Alien Cards” from the Kisumu Immigration office. This was achieved very quickly, but when we looked at the cards in detail we saw that they had already expired! The frustrations of Kenyan bureaucracy! Nothing else we could do but apply for renewal, which involved getting our fingerprints taken again, and we go back in a few months to collect the cards. Then we can officially be Aliens!
Spending 2 and a half days travelling and dealing with officialdom is well compensated by arriving at last at Kosele and being welcomed by the schoolchildren, staff and church leaders. It’s good to see them all again. Such a good welcome even though we’ve only been away 3 months. Since Thursday we’ve been resting, getting unpacked, sorting out our room, shopping, and renewing acquaintances with people here and in the church.
One of the good things about the weather here is that when it rains, it usually rains at night or in the evening, so that is what we’re experiencing just now. Next week we’ll start to get back into our routine again – we’ll be having a meeting with Kennedy and Dorine and with all the church leaders and preparing for another Encounter which may be held on 12th and 13th June. After that we look forward to meeting David and Yvonne on the 14th June as they make their first visit to Kenya.
Monday, 28 May 2012
Off again
It’s Monday evening and we’re getting packed up. As usual, we seem to have accumulated a huge pile of stuff to take, but after a while chaos turns to order and the stuff all disappears into 4 cases, and the right things into our hand luggage. Need to tidy up the flat and try to get some sleep tonight, but the thought that we’ll have to be up again before 4.00am could mean that we will struggle to settle down to sleep at all!
This is actually the 6th time we’ve done this journey, Glasgow-Amsterdam-Nairobi, but it’s always gone smoothly and we quite enjoy it. We arrive at Nairobi at 2015 which is 1815 BST. Praying that we’ll go through Immigration quickly and that our multi-entry visas will still be accepted. We expect Sam to meet us and drive us to his guest house which is on the airport side of the city. On Wednesday we need to visit the Immigration office in central Nairobi to get our (missionary) work permits and the necessary stamp in our passports. Reuben, one of the leaders of Elim Kenya, will meet us there again – he has been so helpful to Terry and us through the process of applying for work permits.
On Thursday morning it’s back to the airport for the short flight to Kisumu. Mary will have organised a taxi for us so after visits to the travel agent, Immigration (hopefully to get our Alien Cards) and the supermarket, it’s a 2-hour drive along by the shore of Lake Victoria and then up the hill to Kosele.
A long journey but we look forward to seeing our friends in Kosele once again and taking up from where we left off just 3 months ago. It’s a slightly strange experience moving from this “world” in the prosperous and seemingly advanced West to our other “world” – in a poor rural community in the middle of Africa. Despite all the struggles and the problems affecting people’s lives in Kosele they have a joy that is infectious, that doesn’t rely on material possessions but on relationships, and in particular on faith and dependence on God. We are happy indeed to be going back to join them for another while.
This is actually the 6th time we’ve done this journey, Glasgow-Amsterdam-Nairobi, but it’s always gone smoothly and we quite enjoy it. We arrive at Nairobi at 2015 which is 1815 BST. Praying that we’ll go through Immigration quickly and that our multi-entry visas will still be accepted. We expect Sam to meet us and drive us to his guest house which is on the airport side of the city. On Wednesday we need to visit the Immigration office in central Nairobi to get our (missionary) work permits and the necessary stamp in our passports. Reuben, one of the leaders of Elim Kenya, will meet us there again – he has been so helpful to Terry and us through the process of applying for work permits.
On Thursday morning it’s back to the airport for the short flight to Kisumu. Mary will have organised a taxi for us so after visits to the travel agent, Immigration (hopefully to get our Alien Cards) and the supermarket, it’s a 2-hour drive along by the shore of Lake Victoria and then up the hill to Kosele.
A long journey but we look forward to seeing our friends in Kosele once again and taking up from where we left off just 3 months ago. It’s a slightly strange experience moving from this “world” in the prosperous and seemingly advanced West to our other “world” – in a poor rural community in the middle of Africa. Despite all the struggles and the problems affecting people’s lives in Kosele they have a joy that is infectious, that doesn’t rely on material possessions but on relationships, and in particular on faith and dependence on God. We are happy indeed to be going back to join them for another while.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Last post? - for now
Time has run away from us and we are now getting prepared for the long journey home. We are looking forward to seeing all our family and friends but wonder how much we will miss our friends here in Kosele – they certainly say they will miss us!
The last few weeks have been busy and gone quickly and there are still some things undone on our “to-do” lists, people we hoped to visit that we have not seen.
We feel the church here is in a stronger condition than when we came in June. A lot has been done in practical terms – two of the leaders employed part-time to do church work, the start of a discipleship programme (Encounter), the launch of Farming God’s Way training, a bicycle to help Kennedy get around his pastoral visits, and now use of an office for the church leaders complete with computer and internet access. More importantly, God has been working in people, not least the men and there is a more positive, “can-do” attitude amongst the men. The young mums have also been encouraging – there were 11 of them here this week and they are now branching into crafts and hope to form a co-operative.
Hilda spent most of last Saturday trying to find a local hospital that could deal with an emergency – a little boy who had signs of an obstructed bowel. Finding a hospital that can do an ultrasound and even blood tests at a weekend is nigh on impossible, and after trailing round 5 hospitals in Oyugis and Kisii we eventually sent him with his parents back to Kisii in a taxi. This was on the strength of a promise that a doctor would be there. We expected him to have to be transferred to yet another hospital on the Sunday for an emergency operation but the Kisii hospital actually did it at midnight on Saturday night. This gave us hope that he would soon be well again, but something went wrong and he sadly died on Wednesday. We can forget sometimes that this is a third world country and the resources and standards of healthcare are very different from what we are used to in the UK.
The construction work at Hope and Kindness has been completed. The four new school classrooms are now occupied by the junior classes and they are finding the accommodation very spacious after the small rooms they were in temporarily. The visitor centre is also finished and is looking “very smart”, as they say here. It has a large lounge, a good kitchen and 6 bedrooms and could sleep up to 24 people. It has its own showers and Ecosan latrines – outside of course! The standard of accommodation for visitors here now is not luxurious by Western standards but it is very comfortable and great progress from what it was like on our first visit here.
It was finished just in time for the first group of visitors that we were expecting – a team of 5 people from the multinational IT company Cisco. They were only here for a few days, but did a lot of work and enjoyed themselves so much, especially getting to know the children. They are now on their way back to London but another Cisco team, this time of just 3 people, have arrived today. Also, a lady called Barbara from South Africa is here for a month to work mostly with the children in the Home. She has a lot of experience and we believe will make a real contribution to the work here.
We had a nice little break in Kisumu a few weeks ago – we acted like tourists for a couple of days and visited the impala sanctuary (actually a small zoo – really interesting) and the Museum. It has been really hot here and we didn’t have any rain from early December until mid-February but there are signs that the long rains are now approaching. We aren’t looking forward to a cold wet Paisley but it will be so good to see you all again soon.
The last few weeks have been busy and gone quickly and there are still some things undone on our “to-do” lists, people we hoped to visit that we have not seen.
We feel the church here is in a stronger condition than when we came in June. A lot has been done in practical terms – two of the leaders employed part-time to do church work, the start of a discipleship programme (Encounter), the launch of Farming God’s Way training, a bicycle to help Kennedy get around his pastoral visits, and now use of an office for the church leaders complete with computer and internet access. More importantly, God has been working in people, not least the men and there is a more positive, “can-do” attitude amongst the men. The young mums have also been encouraging – there were 11 of them here this week and they are now branching into crafts and hope to form a co-operative.
Hilda spent most of last Saturday trying to find a local hospital that could deal with an emergency – a little boy who had signs of an obstructed bowel. Finding a hospital that can do an ultrasound and even blood tests at a weekend is nigh on impossible, and after trailing round 5 hospitals in Oyugis and Kisii we eventually sent him with his parents back to Kisii in a taxi. This was on the strength of a promise that a doctor would be there. We expected him to have to be transferred to yet another hospital on the Sunday for an emergency operation but the Kisii hospital actually did it at midnight on Saturday night. This gave us hope that he would soon be well again, but something went wrong and he sadly died on Wednesday. We can forget sometimes that this is a third world country and the resources and standards of healthcare are very different from what we are used to in the UK.
The construction work at Hope and Kindness has been completed. The four new school classrooms are now occupied by the junior classes and they are finding the accommodation very spacious after the small rooms they were in temporarily. The visitor centre is also finished and is looking “very smart”, as they say here. It has a large lounge, a good kitchen and 6 bedrooms and could sleep up to 24 people. It has its own showers and Ecosan latrines – outside of course! The standard of accommodation for visitors here now is not luxurious by Western standards but it is very comfortable and great progress from what it was like on our first visit here.
It was finished just in time for the first group of visitors that we were expecting – a team of 5 people from the multinational IT company Cisco. They were only here for a few days, but did a lot of work and enjoyed themselves so much, especially getting to know the children. They are now on their way back to London but another Cisco team, this time of just 3 people, have arrived today. Also, a lady called Barbara from South Africa is here for a month to work mostly with the children in the Home. She has a lot of experience and we believe will make a real contribution to the work here.
We had a nice little break in Kisumu a few weeks ago – we acted like tourists for a couple of days and visited the impala sanctuary (actually a small zoo – really interesting) and the Museum. It has been really hot here and we didn’t have any rain from early December until mid-February but there are signs that the long rains are now approaching. We aren’t looking forward to a cold wet Paisley but it will be so good to see you all again soon.
Friday, 20 January 2012
2012 already
Sorry again for our long silence on the blog – don’t know where the time has gone. Here in Kosele, Christmas came and went without any commercialisation. Having spent two Christmases here, we may find it hard to adjust back to Western excesses and
indulgences!
There was a special Christmas meal for children and staff in the Home – chicken and beef being a real treat where the diet is mostly vegetarian. ‘Sodas’ (Coke, Fanta or Sprite) are always a welcome treat as well.
The church was full on Christmas Day and then people were able to go home and cook with the rice, beans and oil that had been given out to church and community members on Christmas Eve. Also, after the service everyone had a soda and biscuits and sweets. All of these were bought, thanks to the kind donations of our church in Paisley and friends of Hope and Kindness in England. In previous years, a meal has been cooked for 200-300 people, which has been a lot of work for a few people. This year people were in their own homes and because of the amount of food given out I believe many more people benefitted.
We had hoped to go away for a couple of nights between Christmas and New Year but because of events here that was not possible. We may manage to do this by the end of this month.
Six of us were involved in delivering a two-day training seminar on Farming God’s Way last week to a group of people from the church and community. This was repeated for another group this week. The trainees appeared enthusiastic and we are hoping that most of them will put the things they have learned into practice on their own land, and that this will be a small beginning for a transformation of farming in this area, lifting people out of poverty and dependency.
Here it is extremely hot and sticky just now. The rains have totally stopped. Planting will start again towards the end of February – so more rain will be appreciated then. There has been a lot of illness recently in the Home and amongst our neighbours – mostly a mild form of malaria but a few young children have been very ill and we have had to take them to get medical attention quickly.
Last weekend, Ian went to Nyahururu with Kennedy (one of our church leaders) to speak at a one-day Elim regional conference there. It involved most of the day travelling there by matatu (mini-bus) on Friday and the same coming back on Sunday. Ian thought it went alright but it can be hard to tell when everything is being translated. Nyaharuru is very close to the equator but because it is over 7800 feet above sea level, they found it much cooler than here.
The group for young mothers that we started recently has been going well. This week we are learning about dental hygiene, and next week a heavier subject – family planning! One of the young women, whose husband died last year, has had a new baby son. However, one of the twins, the little girl, who was the more severely affected by malnutrition, became very ill and died. The death of a child is never easy – this is the third child we have known here who has died.
The school has started back again and the new Agricultural College has opened. The five pupils who scored highest in their KCPE exams are going away to High School and the others will do the agricultural course – a mixture of academic and practical work - for 2 years and then sit International GCSEs.
All wildlife i.e. termites and bees have now been exterminated from the house. Occasionally we have a visiting frog or cockroach and last night we had a lizard but it didn’t stay long! The new buildings are nearing completion and the children can look forward to moving into their bright spacious classrooms at the end of January.
One of our neighbours and church members came last week looking for help – a “twister” wind had lifted the whole roof off her house and dropped it some 25m away. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the results with my own eyes, as there had been no wind here. We managed to find some “community assistance” funds to help her get it reconstructed.
It is less than six weeks until we return to the UK. We are hoping that the worst of the winter will be over by then! We’re looking forward to seeing family and friends again and catching up with everyone, having a rest, and reacquainting ourselves with some of the food we like – cheese, chicken bhoona and ice cream to name a few!
indulgences!
There was a special Christmas meal for children and staff in the Home – chicken and beef being a real treat where the diet is mostly vegetarian. ‘Sodas’ (Coke, Fanta or Sprite) are always a welcome treat as well.
The church was full on Christmas Day and then people were able to go home and cook with the rice, beans and oil that had been given out to church and community members on Christmas Eve. Also, after the service everyone had a soda and biscuits and sweets. All of these were bought, thanks to the kind donations of our church in Paisley and friends of Hope and Kindness in England. In previous years, a meal has been cooked for 200-300 people, which has been a lot of work for a few people. This year people were in their own homes and because of the amount of food given out I believe many more people benefitted.
We had hoped to go away for a couple of nights between Christmas and New Year but because of events here that was not possible. We may manage to do this by the end of this month.
Six of us were involved in delivering a two-day training seminar on Farming God’s Way last week to a group of people from the church and community. This was repeated for another group this week. The trainees appeared enthusiastic and we are hoping that most of them will put the things they have learned into practice on their own land, and that this will be a small beginning for a transformation of farming in this area, lifting people out of poverty and dependency.
Here it is extremely hot and sticky just now. The rains have totally stopped. Planting will start again towards the end of February – so more rain will be appreciated then. There has been a lot of illness recently in the Home and amongst our neighbours – mostly a mild form of malaria but a few young children have been very ill and we have had to take them to get medical attention quickly.
Last weekend, Ian went to Nyahururu with Kennedy (one of our church leaders) to speak at a one-day Elim regional conference there. It involved most of the day travelling there by matatu (mini-bus) on Friday and the same coming back on Sunday. Ian thought it went alright but it can be hard to tell when everything is being translated. Nyaharuru is very close to the equator but because it is over 7800 feet above sea level, they found it much cooler than here.
The group for young mothers that we started recently has been going well. This week we are learning about dental hygiene, and next week a heavier subject – family planning! One of the young women, whose husband died last year, has had a new baby son. However, one of the twins, the little girl, who was the more severely affected by malnutrition, became very ill and died. The death of a child is never easy – this is the third child we have known here who has died.
The school has started back again and the new Agricultural College has opened. The five pupils who scored highest in their KCPE exams are going away to High School and the others will do the agricultural course – a mixture of academic and practical work - for 2 years and then sit International GCSEs.
All wildlife i.e. termites and bees have now been exterminated from the house. Occasionally we have a visiting frog or cockroach and last night we had a lizard but it didn’t stay long! The new buildings are nearing completion and the children can look forward to moving into their bright spacious classrooms at the end of January.
One of our neighbours and church members came last week looking for help – a “twister” wind had lifted the whole roof off her house and dropped it some 25m away. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the results with my own eyes, as there had been no wind here. We managed to find some “community assistance” funds to help her get it reconstructed.
It is less than six weeks until we return to the UK. We are hoping that the worst of the winter will be over by then! We’re looking forward to seeing family and friends again and catching up with everyone, having a rest, and reacquainting ourselves with some of the food we like – cheese, chicken bhoona and ice cream to name a few!
Friday, 9 December 2011
9 visitors and a wedding
Sorry for the long silence – where has the time gone? We can’t even say that it’s because we’re busy in the lead-up to Christmas because Christmas is such a low-key event in this culture – the other extreme from the commercialised Western Christmas.
We hear the weather at home has got cold and snowy. Here, after a few weeks where we have had a lot of rain (which really brings the temperature down) we are having a couple of hot sunny days. We are praying that the rains will slow down now, as people are complaining that their land is waterlogged, their houses are damp and the cobs are beginning to rot on the maize plants. A couple of weeks of sunshine would restore hopes of a great harvest.
We’re well, keeping going with supporting the church leaders, helping out here at Hope & Kindness, farming (!), visiting people and helping to assess needs, taking photos and practising speaking Dholuo.
Last Saturday we had the pleasure of attending the wedding of one of the teachers – a bizarre experience indeed. The invitation said “from 10.00am” but the bride was not in the church until sometime after 2.00. The procession of 8 flower girls, 11 bridesmaids, 13 men and boys forming the groom’s escort and various other bride’s helpers took a full hour to sashay into the church. Unlike British weddings, it seemed like they had the party in the middle of the service, at least in terms of the amount of celebration and dancing! A great experience, if you could avoid a headache due to the high noise volume!
We’ve had visitors staying with us here. Two Danish girls doing a “gap year” and spending 4 months in Africa stayed for two weeks and spent a lot of time working with the children, particularly doing art with them. In the middle of that we had another team from the international company Cisco, which supports the school and home. They were really busy for the few days they were here – painting the classrooms, helping to build a house, and organising the kids in a “talent show”, amongst other things.
All these visitors really joined in the work here so well; they all seemed to enjoy their time here and the kids loved them. It’s been a pleasure to have them but it has also been nice now that they’ve all gone away and we have the house to ourselves again. Even Terry has gone home for a few weeks and the school has closed for the long holiday. Most of those children in the home who have a grandmother or aunt or other relatives to go to have gone off for a holiday. Only 14 children are still here.
There’s still a lot happening here – building work is progressing well and there’s a lot of maintenance work getting done on the site. Yesterday we had another practice session for the people who will be involved in training others in “Farming God’s Way” – we hope to be ready to offer the training to church and community members from early January.
The group for young mothers has got off to a good start with up to nine mums and their babies and toddlers attending. They have been very attentive to the teaching on nutrition, hygiene and vaccinations that Hilda has brought so far. The men’s and women’s groups and the church generally are also encouraging.
This Sunday we will start with the Pre-Encounter teaching for the 4 people (English speaking) who will be our “guinea pigs” for the first Encounter – this is scheduled for 14th and 20th December.
We hear the weather at home has got cold and snowy. Here, after a few weeks where we have had a lot of rain (which really brings the temperature down) we are having a couple of hot sunny days. We are praying that the rains will slow down now, as people are complaining that their land is waterlogged, their houses are damp and the cobs are beginning to rot on the maize plants. A couple of weeks of sunshine would restore hopes of a great harvest.
We’re well, keeping going with supporting the church leaders, helping out here at Hope & Kindness, farming (!), visiting people and helping to assess needs, taking photos and practising speaking Dholuo.
Last Saturday we had the pleasure of attending the wedding of one of the teachers – a bizarre experience indeed. The invitation said “from 10.00am” but the bride was not in the church until sometime after 2.00. The procession of 8 flower girls, 11 bridesmaids, 13 men and boys forming the groom’s escort and various other bride’s helpers took a full hour to sashay into the church. Unlike British weddings, it seemed like they had the party in the middle of the service, at least in terms of the amount of celebration and dancing! A great experience, if you could avoid a headache due to the high noise volume!
We’ve had visitors staying with us here. Two Danish girls doing a “gap year” and spending 4 months in Africa stayed for two weeks and spent a lot of time working with the children, particularly doing art with them. In the middle of that we had another team from the international company Cisco, which supports the school and home. They were really busy for the few days they were here – painting the classrooms, helping to build a house, and organising the kids in a “talent show”, amongst other things.
All these visitors really joined in the work here so well; they all seemed to enjoy their time here and the kids loved them. It’s been a pleasure to have them but it has also been nice now that they’ve all gone away and we have the house to ourselves again. Even Terry has gone home for a few weeks and the school has closed for the long holiday. Most of those children in the home who have a grandmother or aunt or other relatives to go to have gone off for a holiday. Only 14 children are still here.
There’s still a lot happening here – building work is progressing well and there’s a lot of maintenance work getting done on the site. Yesterday we had another practice session for the people who will be involved in training others in “Farming God’s Way” – we hope to be ready to offer the training to church and community members from early January.
The group for young mothers has got off to a good start with up to nine mums and their babies and toddlers attending. They have been very attentive to the teaching on nutrition, hygiene and vaccinations that Hilda has brought so far. The men’s and women’s groups and the church generally are also encouraging.
This Sunday we will start with the Pre-Encounter teaching for the 4 people (English speaking) who will be our “guinea pigs” for the first Encounter – this is scheduled for 14th and 20th December.
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
wildlife
We are fine here and trying to keep out of the rain which is still coming most afternoons. This has been a really wet “short rainy season” and people are now concerned that if the rain continues like this, the ripening corn cobs will not dry properly.
It’s Monday and I’m looking forward (can you believe this?) to our regular Monday lunch of boiled potatoes and beans. The potatoes (“Irish potatoes” as they call them here) are really tasty and are cooked in water with a little oil, onion and tomato. The beans are just normal beans but are delicious with a dollop of chilli sauce. (Terry maintains that chilli sauce makes anything edible here!)
We have a nice wee house here and we don’t mind sharing it with others. However, apart from the bees in the chimney, a few of which find their way out each morning and commit suicide trying to get out of the (permanently shut) back door, the other creatures we have found sharing the house have been a bit of a problem. On Monday evening Hilda noticed a little pile of earth on the floor in the hallway, and on close inspection found termites coming up through a tiny hole in the concrete floor. The night guards confirmed that they were indeed termites and we also found more evidence of their presence outside. In fact there was a large frog sitting beside a termite hole just waiting for more of them to emerge. Where there are frogs there are also snakes, the next link up the food chain, and Leonard’s torchlight then found a nearby baby black mamba, which he quickly dispatched with his hatchet. Life here is never dull! Today a fundi (expert) was brought in to dig round the house and spray insecticide, so hopefully we have seen the beginning of the end of the termites.
While we were out of the house this evening, waiting till the insecticide fumes drifted away, I joined some of the Home kids in a classroom doing “prep”. Some were revising for tomorrow’s Standard 7 maths exam, some were reading books or today’s newspaper, but six of them were gathered round a table reading the Bible and discussing its meaning. Encouraging!
On the other hand, a young man who recently became a Christian and seemed to be turning his life around has gone against the godly advice a church leader offered him and has got married. Arranged marriages are no longer the norm here, but this young man’s sister apparently found a suitable girl for him and he went off to meet her last weekend. The next we knew, he had brought her back to his house and they had “married”. While Western ways of courtship and marriage are not necessarily good either, the church here has a lot to do to help people to apply biblical principles to relationships and many other aspects of life.
Hilda and Dorine are starting a group for young mothers and the first meeting is Thursday morning. Hilda will be giving some basic health education and the first topic is “water”; Dorine will do a very short Bible lesson . The purpose of this group is to support young mothers who are struggling and to outreach into the community. We’ll let you know how it goes.
It’s Monday and I’m looking forward (can you believe this?) to our regular Monday lunch of boiled potatoes and beans. The potatoes (“Irish potatoes” as they call them here) are really tasty and are cooked in water with a little oil, onion and tomato. The beans are just normal beans but are delicious with a dollop of chilli sauce. (Terry maintains that chilli sauce makes anything edible here!)
We have a nice wee house here and we don’t mind sharing it with others. However, apart from the bees in the chimney, a few of which find their way out each morning and commit suicide trying to get out of the (permanently shut) back door, the other creatures we have found sharing the house have been a bit of a problem. On Monday evening Hilda noticed a little pile of earth on the floor in the hallway, and on close inspection found termites coming up through a tiny hole in the concrete floor. The night guards confirmed that they were indeed termites and we also found more evidence of their presence outside. In fact there was a large frog sitting beside a termite hole just waiting for more of them to emerge. Where there are frogs there are also snakes, the next link up the food chain, and Leonard’s torchlight then found a nearby baby black mamba, which he quickly dispatched with his hatchet. Life here is never dull! Today a fundi (expert) was brought in to dig round the house and spray insecticide, so hopefully we have seen the beginning of the end of the termites.
While we were out of the house this evening, waiting till the insecticide fumes drifted away, I joined some of the Home kids in a classroom doing “prep”. Some were revising for tomorrow’s Standard 7 maths exam, some were reading books or today’s newspaper, but six of them were gathered round a table reading the Bible and discussing its meaning. Encouraging!
On the other hand, a young man who recently became a Christian and seemed to be turning his life around has gone against the godly advice a church leader offered him and has got married. Arranged marriages are no longer the norm here, but this young man’s sister apparently found a suitable girl for him and he went off to meet her last weekend. The next we knew, he had brought her back to his house and they had “married”. While Western ways of courtship and marriage are not necessarily good either, the church here has a lot to do to help people to apply biblical principles to relationships and many other aspects of life.
Hilda and Dorine are starting a group for young mothers and the first meeting is Thursday morning. Hilda will be giving some basic health education and the first topic is “water”; Dorine will do a very short Bible lesson . The purpose of this group is to support young mothers who are struggling and to outreach into the community. We’ll let you know how it goes.
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
bizarre?
Kenya is a place of bizarre experiences.
• The preacher on Sunday is wearing a Somerfield fleece jacket. No-one thinks there is anything unusual about this.
• The Standard 8 children are sitting their primary school leaving exams – this is taken extremely seriously and as well as an invigilator from another school we also have a policeman on site (actually he looks more like a soldier, complete with semi-automatic rifle) to ensure that there is no cheating!
• We came back from Oyugis in a shared taxi the other day. The taxi waits until it is filled with passengers, then the driver gets in – how is he going to drive when there is another man sitting in the driver’s seat? Not a problem – he just squeezes over. There are 4 adults in the front of the Toyota estate car, 4 in the back, and another 5 in the boot, not to mention babies and luggage!
As I said, this week our Standard 8 pupils are sitting their KCPE exams which will determine if they can go on to high school and potentially university. Last Thursday, in preparation, all the standard 8 pupils from the area met in one of the local schools for a “day of prayer” for the exams! Then here on Friday all the school gathered together, one of the teachers spoke on the David & Goliath story (the exams are their “Goliath”!) and we prayed for their success. It was something we couldn’t imagine happening in the UK! In church on Sunday they were again prayed for. So if they don’t do well it won’t be due to a lack of prayer.
Our main work continues to be to support the church leaders in developing and implementing a vision for the church. We seem to have an open door at the moment for leading them into new ideas. We have a lot of respect for them as we see how strong their faith is, and their love for God. Some of them have come through very difficult circumstances, and all of them struggle to a greater or lesser extent to feed and care for their families.
I have been out in the community also with Dorine. We visited a 19 year old who first came to the Hope & Kindness gate last week with her 17 month old son. The child has really bad Kwashiorkor (wet malnutrition) due to lack of protein. The mother was given a supply of food, vitamins, de-worming tablets, iron syrup and an antibiotic for his infected sores. We will keep a close eye on him. She had stopped breast feeding early because she had become pregnant with his sister, who is now one month old. She gave birth, all by herself, in her mud house! Her husband keeps leaving to get a job in a nearby town and disappears for months and does not provide for them.
I have recently met another 19 year old, who has twins as a result of rape - they are very malnourished.
Seeing these two young mothers has made Dorine and I decide not to wait until next year to start a Young Mothers Group but to start next Thursday. Neither of these girls have support from families. They don’t attend church but both have been responsive to what we have shared with them, and one of them just cried when Dorine prayed with her yesterday.
We have a church leaders meeting on Sunday afternoon so we will seek their approval first – but I’m sure there won’t be a problem. We plan to do some basic health education and will have some spiritual content also. Maybe I’ll just play with the children!
With the leaders this Sunday we will sort out dates for the first Encounter weekend, which will just be for a few English speakers, including Dorine and Kennedy. Hope it’s not too hard going with just the two of us taking it! We are going away this Friday for the day to start working on it.
We have been invited to the wedding of one of the teachers on 3rd December so will be interesting to see how things are done here. It is only the better-off here who have a wedding. Most girls just go and live with their husband when a cow or two are handed over as a dowry. Often even this does not happen and the husband can still be owing the cows many years later!
• The preacher on Sunday is wearing a Somerfield fleece jacket. No-one thinks there is anything unusual about this.
• The Standard 8 children are sitting their primary school leaving exams – this is taken extremely seriously and as well as an invigilator from another school we also have a policeman on site (actually he looks more like a soldier, complete with semi-automatic rifle) to ensure that there is no cheating!
• We came back from Oyugis in a shared taxi the other day. The taxi waits until it is filled with passengers, then the driver gets in – how is he going to drive when there is another man sitting in the driver’s seat? Not a problem – he just squeezes over. There are 4 adults in the front of the Toyota estate car, 4 in the back, and another 5 in the boot, not to mention babies and luggage!
As I said, this week our Standard 8 pupils are sitting their KCPE exams which will determine if they can go on to high school and potentially university. Last Thursday, in preparation, all the standard 8 pupils from the area met in one of the local schools for a “day of prayer” for the exams! Then here on Friday all the school gathered together, one of the teachers spoke on the David & Goliath story (the exams are their “Goliath”!) and we prayed for their success. It was something we couldn’t imagine happening in the UK! In church on Sunday they were again prayed for. So if they don’t do well it won’t be due to a lack of prayer.
Our main work continues to be to support the church leaders in developing and implementing a vision for the church. We seem to have an open door at the moment for leading them into new ideas. We have a lot of respect for them as we see how strong their faith is, and their love for God. Some of them have come through very difficult circumstances, and all of them struggle to a greater or lesser extent to feed and care for their families.
I have been out in the community also with Dorine. We visited a 19 year old who first came to the Hope & Kindness gate last week with her 17 month old son. The child has really bad Kwashiorkor (wet malnutrition) due to lack of protein. The mother was given a supply of food, vitamins, de-worming tablets, iron syrup and an antibiotic for his infected sores. We will keep a close eye on him. She had stopped breast feeding early because she had become pregnant with his sister, who is now one month old. She gave birth, all by herself, in her mud house! Her husband keeps leaving to get a job in a nearby town and disappears for months and does not provide for them.
I have recently met another 19 year old, who has twins as a result of rape - they are very malnourished.
Seeing these two young mothers has made Dorine and I decide not to wait until next year to start a Young Mothers Group but to start next Thursday. Neither of these girls have support from families. They don’t attend church but both have been responsive to what we have shared with them, and one of them just cried when Dorine prayed with her yesterday.
We have a church leaders meeting on Sunday afternoon so we will seek their approval first – but I’m sure there won’t be a problem. We plan to do some basic health education and will have some spiritual content also. Maybe I’ll just play with the children!
With the leaders this Sunday we will sort out dates for the first Encounter weekend, which will just be for a few English speakers, including Dorine and Kennedy. Hope it’s not too hard going with just the two of us taking it! We are going away this Friday for the day to start working on it.
We have been invited to the wedding of one of the teachers on 3rd December so will be interesting to see how things are done here. It is only the better-off here who have a wedding. Most girls just go and live with their husband when a cow or two are handed over as a dowry. Often even this does not happen and the husband can still be owing the cows many years later!
Sunday, 23 October 2011
together
One late afternoon we had gone with three of the children from the Home to visit an elderly grandmother, and the sky darkened just as we arrived at her house (the usual mud walls and floor and tin roof variety). We managed to have a brief conversation with her before the skies opened and the rain came pouring down. She quickly organised her four- and six-year-old orphaned granddaughters who live with her to run out with all their basins and containers to catch the rainwater from the roof. They returned and we all sat, unable to verbally communicate because of the noise on the tin roof. We could only smile and wait for half an hour for the rain to stop. We seemed to share together in a way that speech would have spoiled. Even the chickens that followed the girls in seemed to sense the moment and sat down on the floor between us until one got hungry and began to peck the ants off the floor!
The crops had been watered again and no one would complain about the mud that followed. A neighbour rushed to assist me as I was leaving and got a firm hold of my arm and did not let go until we had reached the end of the muddy path!
The chickens joining us there were preferable to the swarm of bees that decided to join me in our house while Ian was out in the community. They had been living in the supposedly blocked off chimney! However three of the guys who work here came to my aid with Doom (an appropriate name for an effective insect eradicator) and they were soon exterminated!
Last Monday we went with Terry and some of the staff to a seminar in Kisumu, held by the charity Teach a Man to Fish. This organisation aims to help rural schools like ours which are dependent on outside funding become more self-sufficient, and in the process teach children skills in agriculture and business which will enable them to support themselves when they leave school. It was an interesting and useful day, especially hearing how other people are tackling this.
We continue to work with the church leaders and have set up another “away day” with them next Wednesday. We have been able to set up part-time paid roles for two of them – Kennedy will be working particularly in preparing and leading programmes of preaching and teaching, while Dorine will have more responsibility in pastoral care. We are looking forward to working more closely with both of them over the coming months. Kennedy has already started a preaching series which will introduce the biblical themes that underpin Farming God’s Way.
The schoolchildren, led by Duncan who is enjoying his additional role as “farm manager”, have already got the first crop of maize and beans growing well on the Farming God’s Way demonstration plots. There has been a lot of rain recently and this has really helped. We hope to see the concept being taught to church members as well and help them put it into practice in the next growing season starting in January. We believe it has the potential to change people’s attitudes and greatly improve what they can achieve on their very small farms.
We hope you enjoy our blog but you can read much more about what’s happening here by following Terry’s blog at http://terryathopeandkindness.blogspot.com/
The crops had been watered again and no one would complain about the mud that followed. A neighbour rushed to assist me as I was leaving and got a firm hold of my arm and did not let go until we had reached the end of the muddy path!
The chickens joining us there were preferable to the swarm of bees that decided to join me in our house while Ian was out in the community. They had been living in the supposedly blocked off chimney! However three of the guys who work here came to my aid with Doom (an appropriate name for an effective insect eradicator) and they were soon exterminated!
Last Monday we went with Terry and some of the staff to a seminar in Kisumu, held by the charity Teach a Man to Fish. This organisation aims to help rural schools like ours which are dependent on outside funding become more self-sufficient, and in the process teach children skills in agriculture and business which will enable them to support themselves when they leave school. It was an interesting and useful day, especially hearing how other people are tackling this.
We continue to work with the church leaders and have set up another “away day” with them next Wednesday. We have been able to set up part-time paid roles for two of them – Kennedy will be working particularly in preparing and leading programmes of preaching and teaching, while Dorine will have more responsibility in pastoral care. We are looking forward to working more closely with both of them over the coming months. Kennedy has already started a preaching series which will introduce the biblical themes that underpin Farming God’s Way.
The schoolchildren, led by Duncan who is enjoying his additional role as “farm manager”, have already got the first crop of maize and beans growing well on the Farming God’s Way demonstration plots. There has been a lot of rain recently and this has really helped. We hope to see the concept being taught to church members as well and help them put it into practice in the next growing season starting in January. We believe it has the potential to change people’s attitudes and greatly improve what they can achieve on their very small farms.
We hope you enjoy our blog but you can read much more about what’s happening here by following Terry’s blog at http://terryathopeandkindness.blogspot.com/
Saturday, 8 October 2011
rain
Hi. We are well. We are now into the short rainy season, although we had a lot of rain since August so the contrast hasn’t been too marked yet. On Thursday we had a particularly heavy thunderstorm – with huge hailstones – in late afternoon. People here have planted their second crops for this year and the maize is growing up strongly.
Last week we had a trip to Kisumu and Nairobi. In Kisumu we renewed our visas and applied for registration as “aliens” – visions of little green men? In Nairobi we met up with Terry and two of the leaders of Elim Kenya who helped us in the process of applying for work permits. Hopefully these will get approved soon, which will allow us to stay in Kenya and work as “missionaries” for 2 years before they need renewed. We enjoyed our trip, doing some shopping, staying in guest houses and getting some meat in our diet again! Nairobi is getting increasingly busy, and the traffic jams get worse!
Back here we are continuing our work with the church leaders. We are planning an “Encounter” weekend for them, based on those done in Paisley Elim. We think the first one will need to be just for a few English speakers, some of whom could then help us with the next Encounter. Running the event over a weekend may not be suitable so it will probably be run over two days in two successive weeks. This weekend Ian is speaking in church on Sunday. Today we were at a special church meeting held at the home of a man who got into some trouble, was in jail for 2 months (it could have been 10 years if he had been found guilty of assault) and has subsequently come back to God and to church and turned his life around.
Some things are frustrating here, like inefficiencies, erratic internet connection, and the length of time it can take to achieve some things. And Hilda’s very slow progress in learning Dholuo! But on the other hand there are lots of encouragements, so we have lots of hope for the future. Health is such a major issue for people here. Recently we visited a young man who is HIV+ and who had been very ill the last time we saw him – his father had lost hope for him. But this week he was so much better we didn’t even recognise him!
We’ve established that people can get onto the national health insurance scheme if they make contributions of KSh160 a month (just over £1). This will basically pay for any hospital costs, but not surgery or out-patient costs. Even this amount will be beyond the means of many people, so we are looking to see if we can set up sponsorship of people to get this insurance provided.
We’ve just finished reading “When Helping Hurts” for the second time together. It’s by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert and we would recommend it to anybody interested in working with the poor either in the developing world or at home. We’re now reading “The Purpose-Driven Church” by Rick Warren and finding it really useful for our situation here.
Last week we had a trip to Kisumu and Nairobi. In Kisumu we renewed our visas and applied for registration as “aliens” – visions of little green men? In Nairobi we met up with Terry and two of the leaders of Elim Kenya who helped us in the process of applying for work permits. Hopefully these will get approved soon, which will allow us to stay in Kenya and work as “missionaries” for 2 years before they need renewed. We enjoyed our trip, doing some shopping, staying in guest houses and getting some meat in our diet again! Nairobi is getting increasingly busy, and the traffic jams get worse!
Back here we are continuing our work with the church leaders. We are planning an “Encounter” weekend for them, based on those done in Paisley Elim. We think the first one will need to be just for a few English speakers, some of whom could then help us with the next Encounter. Running the event over a weekend may not be suitable so it will probably be run over two days in two successive weeks. This weekend Ian is speaking in church on Sunday. Today we were at a special church meeting held at the home of a man who got into some trouble, was in jail for 2 months (it could have been 10 years if he had been found guilty of assault) and has subsequently come back to God and to church and turned his life around.
Some things are frustrating here, like inefficiencies, erratic internet connection, and the length of time it can take to achieve some things. And Hilda’s very slow progress in learning Dholuo! But on the other hand there are lots of encouragements, so we have lots of hope for the future. Health is such a major issue for people here. Recently we visited a young man who is HIV+ and who had been very ill the last time we saw him – his father had lost hope for him. But this week he was so much better we didn’t even recognise him!
We’ve established that people can get onto the national health insurance scheme if they make contributions of KSh160 a month (just over £1). This will basically pay for any hospital costs, but not surgery or out-patient costs. Even this amount will be beyond the means of many people, so we are looking to see if we can set up sponsorship of people to get this insurance provided.
We’ve just finished reading “When Helping Hurts” for the second time together. It’s by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert and we would recommend it to anybody interested in working with the poor either in the developing world or at home. We’re now reading “The Purpose-Driven Church” by Rick Warren and finding it really useful for our situation here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)