Jail Time and Seminars

This post is for Monday 9/24 and Tues 9/25.  Both days were spent in a little town north of Eldoret named Nzoia which is right in the middle of the sugar cane growing zone of Kenya.  Beautiful green cane fields for miles and miles. 

Reunited:  Ray is on far left, Mikey is on far left

Many of you through FB or email heard of our situation where our Driver Ray and his friend Mikey who I have known for years were arrested when we sent Ray back to Eldoret to have the van repaired.  It's too involved to explain but in short, the pastor who was hosting our seminar had asked Ray to pick up something for him while in Eldoret.  They use a system here called MPesa to transfer money to each other through their phones. You have to go to an MPesa counter to get your money.  The lady at the MPesa counter thought Ray was part of a Con game that is going on when he went to get the money and the phone msg from the Pastor had gotten hung up somewhere in MPesa space. She got excited and called the police.  Bottom line he and Mikey were jailed for the night in an 8x8 cell with 6 guys, no bed, nothing except cement floor and a bucket for the toilet. The van was confiscated as well as a good amount of money for the van repair.  They were released Tues. morning after the Pastor went to Eldoret and showed the officials all the MPesa msgs on his phone.  We are all back together now and spent Tues. night in Eldoret.  They have lots of jail stories to tell but the best one is that they were able to share Jesus with one of the younger guys that night.
 

Worship Center where seminar was held

That kind of craziness in the police system should not overshadow all that God was doing in our Pastors/leaders seminar 2 hrs away in Nzoia.  All in all the pastors/leaders seminar went better than I could ask or imagine.  The books on Preaching I took were received with joy.  They were so relaxed and even more ready and excited to receive the teachings than they had been in past years.  I taught and Martin interpreted in KSwahili for about 5 hrs each day.  God was so gracious in that he once again took me away form my outlines and led to where I needed to lead these faithful and hungry men and women in Scripture.

Martin, trusted Interpreter

I knew the need was great for resources and good Biblical teaching but my eyes were opened to a whole new level of need out in these "village churches" where the traditions of culture are held higher than scripture.  At the end of the first day, I asked if there were any questions and a guy handed me a note that had the question that went something like this..."Is it OK wrong to allow a woman who is on her monthly period to enter the church?...along with a question regarding how long after childbirth does a woman need to wait before entering the church?

The Ladies decided I need to learn to dance..ugh!

I looked at Martin and asked if this was a serious question or a joke. No joke.  We had an amazing time of teaching and Jeremy Treat's lesson on law and Gospel from the 10 commandments came in pretty handy.  At the end of the 2nd day I was exhausted yet could have done the same thing again another 2 days.  I have asked myself so many times... "Where has our hunger gone for the Word of God and for the truths of Scripture?"  I keep coming back to the need of the people of Kenya and similar countries are so hungry because they have no other security to fall back on.  They yearn for the promises of hope and provision from God.  Their faith is in Him and not in what they have to give them that alternative to truly trusting in God.  It's Wednesday AM and we are heading back to Nairobi.