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.