Today’s conference was a one-day session meeting with about 100 pastors who are from many different denominations all over Nairobi, similar to a ministerial alliance except these people are alive :). Tomorrow we will begin three days of training in the northern part of Nairobi with a different group of about 150 pastors.
The day started with a lot of frustration for me. I found that six e-mails did not send last night, so my sweetheart thought I wasn’t thinking about her. I’ve said before that I know Jesus was tempted in all ways but I would like to know what his equivalent of Microsoft was.
I’ve learned more Swahili –
nataka kewa biriki – I bless you
nataka neku biriki – I bless you all
nataka kuku biriki – I want to bless you
nafurahi ime okoka – I am glad I’m born again
nafurahi ume okoka – I am glad you’re born again
When we introduce ourselves to new groups, Richard starts and explains how they can tell the difference between him and an African – he has grey hair. Doug explains the reason he is bald is because God only made a few heads that were so beautiful they couldn’t be covered up, and I usually tell them it is ok to laugh at me when I practice my Swahili.
As usual, the conference started late and it looked like we were going to get two hours with them. There was no frustration on our part, because we are very content to walk through whatever doors the Lord opens for us. We really don’t have a preset agenda and we are flowing with the Spirit well, simply taking advantage of the opportunity before us.
By the way, all of us mentioned today how much we sense and experience the prayers of those who love us back home. We appreciate you greatly, and will have many stories for you when we get back of how the Lord sustained us.
Doug started the early session by sharing that God has created us to know him, to receive and return his love, to worship, obey, serve and represent him – a new tribe. I began after lunch by encouraging the pastors to carry out servant leadership taught by Jesus by washing their feet and equipping the saints for works of service. Pastors here frequently end up doing all the work and are getting exhausted. Doug finished up by giving a brief overview of the prayer that invites the Lord to speak and heal. In our evaluation, it seemed like nothing was wasted today. Nothing was left over, and in fact the people are hungry for this type of practical encouragement in their ministry. We just thanked the Lord that he would give us the opportunity of being involved in strengthening these brothers and sisters.
If you want an example of how the system works over here, when we parked in the city center of Nairobi for the conference this morning, Albert (the pastor here) was paying the parking attendant. He was wearing a vest that said, “Corruption is Evil.” Albert gave him the money and waited for his change, but the man would not give it to him and just walked off. If they have to tell you they are not corrupt, then you can bet they are corrupt.
After the conference, we walked to the former U.S. Embassy building that was bombed by Al Qeda in 1998. The building has been rebuilt and the embassy relocated, but they have a beautiful memorial garden area in honor of the hundreds that were killed.
Nancy Mulemi and the church prepared a wonderful dinner for us, and it only took us two hours to go 9 miles to get there. So we had an 8:30 dinner and back at the guest house at 10:00. We then had a pleasant interruption from Ben Buhati’s brother, Richard and his wife Helen who are responsible for another feeding school in Kitale with 350 children. They are in Nairobi with an orphan, Sammy, about 6 years old, who will be having open heart surgery tomorrow morning. We had a wonderful prayer time with them.
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