Sunday, January 31

Today was our first meeting with the church. Emmanuel Chai is called a bishop over Faith Victory Church, which is composed of about 85 congregations throughout Kenya. Here in the Mombasa area he has 15 congregations. We were at the Chamgwe congregation where Emmanuel pastors.

We were told that the first service began at 7:00 am, so we were ready for breakfast at 6:30. We met a very pleasant young man, John, who is a Christian and was saved at 16 in a Crusade - a fairly typical testimony for many people here.

Mombasa had a Christian population of 7,500 about 20 years ago. That was 1.5% of the population. Now it is about 60% Christian, with growth coming from families and from Muslims. We got to meet a very kind, older gentleman who left Islam for Jesus at a cost of being completely cut off from his family and inheritance, but easily shared the hope he has in Jesus that is unlike anything that Islam had to offer.

Richard spoke at the first service, which is their English service (which didn't start until about 8:30), and the Swahili service follows. I spoke at the second service and there was a neat opportunity to minister to the congregation.

Doug went to another church of about 350 who is pastored by Alice, and spoke there. He is telling us right now about the service and the church, and he was really impressed with the work that Alice is doing. She has started 18 more churches and has taken on a lot of orphans in the ministry.

Richard spoke about persevering, finishing the race, keep on keeping on, don't give up, and landed on Hebrews 12:1-3 about fixing our eyes on Jesus.

It is really clear that Doug and Richard are highly respected and well loved among these people. They are treated like brothers - closer than friends, and they have great credibility among the Kenyan people and pastors.

I spoke about the third commandment, love each other. The message was clearly for the church, and it followed by the congregation coming forward and commiting to each other to love each other.

We were done by about 2:30, and went to eat at the equivalent of the Mombasa Walmart (don't get me wrong - it's nothing like Walmart) and I had an avocado burger. The avocado was great! Not sure what the meat was, but it was filling.

We've had a really relaxing afternoon. Richard and Doug both got in some naps and I fought with the internet but it's been relaxing.

Look carefully at the picture of the beach - yes, it's a camel. And this guy is a beach vendor. I had to take his picture to get him off my back from pestering me about walking through his beach shop where he was selling some kind of ebony carved key chains. I'm going to go back and see if I can share Jesus with him.

Relaxing dinner tonight and we should all get a good nights rest.

Saturday, January 30

Well, two days worth of updates at the same time. We've had some difficulty getting a good Internet connection here in Mombasa, so pardon the length of this post.

Saturday:
Here's a picture of Hampton House where we stayed in Nairobi.
We had a very leisurely breakfast with Albert and Nancy at Java House. We learned more about their ministry and heard their stories about coming to the Lord and getting married. They are from two different tribes and so the result is close to being disowned from their families. They are beautiful people serving the Lord and pastoring one of the Nairobi churches.

We eventually made it back to the airport, stopped in traffic for at least 15 minutes. Dead stop. Then to our surprise the President and Vice President went speeding by in the other lane of traffic, so we've joked that even the President came out to see us :)


This guy isn't the president. He's one of the thousands of street vendors or beggars selling anything someone will buy. There are too many people and not enough jobs so that creates quite an entrepreneurial spirit. And when they see "tourists" we are easy targets.

Here's some more Swahili:
acunatabu, or acunamatata - no problem. You don't hear it much but it's the real deal here.
asante - thank you
supende - no thank you
Interestingly, English is the official language, but Swahili is the predominant. Most people know at least three languages: Swahili first, English second, and their tribal language 3rd.

We made it back to the airport where they found the missing luggage, and we headed for Mombasa on Kenya Airways. The airplane taxies right up to the terminal, the gate agent makes his announcement by yelling out that boarding is beginning, you board on air-stairs having to be very careful for baggage carts and buses that are running full blast across the tarmac, then getting on an older 737 with no air conditioning, at least while it was on the ground. It was great!


This was the greeting committee at the Mombasa airport. They had 3 bouquets of roses, and we began handing them out one at a time to all the girls. We were very popular. Pictured right to left are Benjamin and his wife (he is an elder and musician; she is in the choir); Simon's wife; Esther, Doris, Emily, Lillian, Catherine, and Gloria. Can you guess who the tourist is?

We got to our hotel in Mombasa - a fascinating city of about 800,000. There are people everywhere, mostly walking, and everyone struggling to make some kind of living. They sell everything they can. The hotel we are in is like another world.



I want to be respectful of the people by not taking pictures of general life in the city, but it looks like the scene from Indiana Jones with all the street vendors, goats and cows scouring over the local trash dump areas that are set on fire, women carrying water jugs on their heads, traffic that has no rules but somehow works, and thousands of Toyota "Caravan" private taxis that are used to supplement the public transit. Seems like most people walk. I'll see if I can get some street scenes through the week.

Security at our hotel is high. They search the underside of the vehicle when we come through the gate with mirrors. The hotel served us Hibiscus Juice, which tasted like a combination prune/cranberry juice...it was...interesting! We had a late dinner and headed for a good night's rest.

So while everyone is back home enjoying 6 inches of snow, the three of us are kicked back with our feet in the 90-degree Indian Ocean (ok, we really don't have our feet in the ocean), but it's quite the resort.

We're Here

8:00 AM in Nairobi. We're here! Our flight from AMS to NBO had an unexpected surprise. We stood in the security line for the KLM flight and Richard checked on our boarding passes - which we did not have. We all had to get out of line and greet the gate agent for KLM who checked our luggage tags. Then we walked away with boarding passes and went back to the end of the line.

When we got to the gate, the lady taking our ticket said, "You didn't have to wait in this line - you have priority boarding." Well from that point on we all experienced the Lord's favor. First Class on a KLM 777 is the way to travel. The service was phenominal, we ate and ate and ate, and when finished we ate some more - with a choice of meals, no less. So we asked if they could keep flying for a couple of more hours just so we could keep enjoying the flight :).

Out of all our luggage, one bag didn't make it and it was the one with soccer balls for the orphanage. May get here today. Albert and Nancy Mulemi were there to greet us at the airport and brought us to the Hampton House - a very nice, reasonable SBC Missionary guest house.

Agenda for today: Spend some time with Albert and Nancy, probably get a little look at Nairobi, then get on the Kenya Airways flight at 5:00pm to Mombasa.

A couple of more interesting observations -
1) Europe was cloud covered for virtually the entire flight, except for a beautiful opening over the Alps. There was a lot of air traffic (noticible by the contrails) over europe and the Mediterranean, and none starting at Egypt and all the way to Nairobi.
2) It would take an incredible imagination to look down on the Sarahan Africa and not come to the conclusion there was a flood of global proportions. The evidences of retreating water is unmistakable - there is just no water any more.
3) I believe that all the water in Egypt and Sudan is kept in one place - the Nile River.
4) I've already learned a few Swahili phrases: Bwana Safiwe - Praise the Lord. Habari - How Are You? And they have no phrase for "How are you REALLY doing?"

Pray:
1) The Lord tells us what to say and when to say it
2) God's favor that the Holy Spirit builds relationship with these people before we ever begin speaking. While I have nothing to compare to, Doug says this is different than other trips because we will be speaking to people that there is no previous relationship with.
3) That the enemy has no victory in us with the minor irritations of changes in travel arrangements - i.e. we've already been notified that our Mombasa-Nairobi flight was canceled, probably due to lack of enough passengers, so we'll be on a later flight. Keep you posted!

Really on our Way

We're sitting on UA908 and scheduled to depart on time in 15 min. We get in to AMS at 9:10A with 1+10 time for connection, trusting connections are going to work well. NWA, stay safe with the ice.

Interesting conversation with a believer from XNA to ORD who was bumped from our same flight on Delta. He was familiar with the area we are going as his daughter teaches at Rift Academy where Doug has been, west of Nairobi. Very small world.
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Africa 1.jpg

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Interesting Events This Morning

Well for those in Arkansas you know that freezing weather in NW Arkansas today. So in anticipation of that Delta/Northwest canceled almost every flight today (all other airlines are flying normal and the ground is dry as I write this - which is another reason I don't pray for weather :) )

So the kind people at Delta rebook us to arrive in Nairobi on Sat. Night instead of Friday. We're already booked on Kenya Airlines to arrive in Mombasa Saturday night so that doesn't work. They were able to book us through American and United so we can (hopefully) catch our original connection in Amsterdam. So for those of you who do pray for weather we could use a good tailwind from ORD to AMS since we have about an hour between connections.

Here's our new schedule flying over:

1:45P depart XNA on AA4192, arr ORD 3:30P
6:01P depart ORD on UA908, arr AMS 9:10A
10:20A depart AMS on KL565, arr NBO 8:25P

For you aviation buffs, we're flying American, United, and KLM. The bottom of our ticket says, "Thank you for flying Northwest Airlines." You bet; any time.
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Change Already

Richard got notification last night that Delta has re-routed us through ATL to AMS instead of Minneapolis. So we depart XNA about noon, I think. Keep you posted!
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Prayer Points and Flight Information

This is what I'm asking for our team: Paul Bridges, Richard Cazzell, Doug Van Davender. Please pray that the Holy Spirit will show us what to say and when to say it, each day.

Here's our flight information for departure:
28 Jan 10:56A Depart XNA on NW3781 Arr MSP 12:56P
3:25P Depart MSP on NW258 Arr AMS 6:40A
29 Jan 10:20A Depart AMS on KLM565 Arr NBO 8:25P
30 Jan 5:00P Depart NBO on KQ612 Arr MBA 6:00P

Question: Faith

Why does it seem difficult to walk by faith?

More of the Schedule

Here is a little more detail on the trip:

Thu. Jan. 28 10:56A Depart XNA for MSP, AMS (Amsterdam), NBO (Nairobi)
Fri. Jan. 29 8:25P Arrive in Nairobi
Sat. Jan. 30 6:00P Arrive in Mombasa
Sun. Jan. 31 Speak at Momasa churches in a.m.; meet with AIDS orphans in p.m.
Mon. Feb. 1 Meet with church leaders, prayer, planning
Tue. Feb. 2 Faith Victory Pastors and Leaders Conference 8:30A to 8:00P
Wed. Feb. 3 Faith Victory Pastors and Leaders Conference 8:30A to 8:00P
Thu. Feb. 4 Faith Victory Pastors and Leaders Conference 8:30A to 8:00P
Fri. Feb. 5 8:30A Depart Mombasa
9:30A Arrive Nairobi, drive to Nakuru
Sat. Feb. 6 Depart Nakuru, drive to Eldoret
Sun. Feb. 7 Speak at Eldoret church
Mon. Feb. 8 Tour school/feeding stations
5:00P Depart Eldoret
5:45P Arrive Nairobi
Tue. Feb. 9 Meet with local pastors
Wed. Feb. 10 Pastors Conference Nairobi
Thu. Feb. 11 Pastors Conference Nairobi
Fri. Feb. 12 Pastors Conference Nairobi
Sat. Feb. 13 10:50P Depart Nairobi for AMS, MSP, XNA
Sun. Feb. 14 5:28P Arrive Northwest Arkansas

Kenya 2010

Welcome to my new blog. I expect to update this blog as much as I can beginning on Thursday, January 28 as we leave for two weeks in Kenya. Our itinerary is as follows:

Arrive Jan 29 Nairobi
Jan 30-Feb 5 Mombasa
Feb 6-7 Eldoret
Feb 8-13 Nairobi
Return Feb 14