Tuesday - First day of Mombasa Conference

The day started out interesting. The conference was scheduled to start at 8:30 so Ibraham, Emmanuel Chai’s son and our driver, picked us up at 7:30. We were at a dead stop in Mombasa traffic about ½ mile from the hotel, and there we were for at least 1 hour. It was a fascinating experience of just watching people. The mutatas, or local taxi drivers, ignore anything close to road rules, taking their chances if the traffic police catch them. In fact, most of them if caught will just run, leaving their mutatas and occupants stranded. So the owner of the vehicle will have to pay the fine to get the van back, the passengers are stranded and have to pay another mutata to continue their journey, and the driver just tries to find another driving job.
The entrepreneurial spirit of the people is obvious. Most shops along the road do not have running water, so they purchase 5 gallon jugs from boys pushing carts. The faster the boys can sell the water the sooner they can get back to buy 10 more jugs and they start selling again. Thousands of people walk, looking for some opportunity to collect and sell something to provide their daily food. If someone doesn’t have a job, they will walk five miles down a road and turn around and come back, looking on the way for something to make some money with.
Crime is really not a problem. If you tamper with electricity, you are shot on site. If you are involved in stealing, you are shot without questioning. So their courts don’t seem to be overloaded. Most crime takes place at night and involves petty theft or burglary because of the darkness, and usually it is an effort to be able to eat.
Ibraham eventually took a “short-cut” through a residential area to get around the traffic jam and we made it to the church at about 9:30.
Doug launched out with the topic of what God is doing in the world today through his people. It was the big picture and well received.
I went next with the purpose of leaders in the church – equipping the saints for works of service. It also seemed well received and challenged their thinking.
Doug spoke then on the mission statement of Jesus from Luke 4. He led a very meaningful prayer time to close it up.
They had prepared a wonderful lunch for the people, about 200 attending, but the funny thing was that just after I had taught that “pastor” is not a title - it’s a job description - they broke us into groups for lunch – Bishops, Pastors, Elders, Reverends and Others eating in their respective locations. Some traditions will be hard to break.
Richard started after lunch with Ephesians 4 again, pointing out that he was “the saint” that was supposed to be equipped, and that these pastors had people in their congregations just like him that need to be equipped. I think they got that one.
We closed the sessions with a Question/Answer time, which was an experiment. It seemed to really tax their culture. I think they are used to observing and responding rather than initiating questions. All of these people we’ve met seem very humble and seem to lead quiet lives carrying out the ministry of the gospel out of deep love for the Lord. So I think we pushed the boundary with this one, but stretching is not bad.
We took about an hour break then started the evening “revival” session. In visiting with some of the guests, I discovered Kenya does not have “racial” problems like we are used to in the US – they have “tribal” problems. They can tell even in the same room if someone is from a tribe they don’t respect. So I was led to teach on Galatians 3:26 and 1 John 2:9 about being united in Christ and claiming to live in the light if we hate our brother. It seemed pretty heavy on them so I don’t know how effective it was. But about 20 responded when we asked if they wanted prayer for reconciliation and several were deeply moved to tears.
We prayed for two other gentlemen after we were done, then Ibraham got us back to the hotel where we had a late dinner and are ready for a good night’s rest.
Observations:
Seems like the Lord has led us to several “hot wires” where the spirit is moving and encouraging where needed. The people are getting it.
Doug’s prayer time where the pastors were praying for each other was powerful. This is not their culture. They seem to think coming to the front and having “the man of God” pray for them is the way to do prayer, so even in this small way of teaching them that they are important and useful in the body may help them shepherd their congregations.