Saturday - October 18, 2008

I haven't been on the blog the last couple of days simply because I didn't think everyone would want to hear about the hours of office work I have been putting in. However, yesterday afternoon I took time off and had lunch with a friend of mine who owns a restaurant in town. On my way home I stopped off at the dog pound to look for a guard dog, only to find that all dogs are under quarantine because of some disease. Our dog Simba, died in September and we are needing to replace her, so we will wait and keep looking.

The rains have finally arrived. As I am writing this, the thunder is booming and there is a vehicle just outside my window on the other side of the hedge stuck in the mud, so there is a lot of activity and noise. About an hour after I got home this afternoon it started pouring buckets of rain. It has been so dry here, this is a real blessing. On Thursday, our water tanks were so low, that we emptied them out of all water to clean. We were going to purchase some water for our tanks, but God is so good, He brought rain that very night. Now with the rains today, we should have plenty of water once again.

I was so thankful to get home before the rains started in Rongai where our house/office is located. This morning we set out for church at a place in Maasailand called Emarti. It was so dry! Everything was brown and dusty. We met with worshipers meeting out in the open and as we were ending services we could see the rain off in the distance. Suddenly as we were driving away, the rains arrived and there was water everywhere, I have to hand it to Ogecha, our driver, for getting us through without getting stuck. (For those of you who know me and can't believe that I am using a driver, yes it is true. I have to admit it was difficult for me to hand the driving over to someone else. I like to drive and feel a bit out of control and very vulnerable when I'm not in the driver's seat, but believe it or not, I am learning to use the travel time as a time to relax and leave the driving to someone else.)

At Emarti, I found that our Lay Pastor, Philip Muzuri is meeting with a lot of challenges. For the past two years he has been struggeling with the community to raise funds to build an iron sheet structure for their church. Land was given to them and finally after two years they had purchased all the needed materials. When it was time to start building a man from the community came and said you cannot build your church there, if you do I will tear it down. He claimed that he had control of the land there. In the meantime another man came and insisted that they build the church anyway. Philip told him, no, our business is not to cause conflict. First we will negociate like Christians and make peace with our enemies and then when it is resolved we will build the church. The other young man began to cause problems and inciting some of the community coming to the church. At this time, Philip is standing strong, with only a handful of people left, but as I listened to him preach about the love of God my heart really went out to this man for his strong efforts.

When the services were over, we held a special prayer session for Lay Pastor Philip. Our MDP Coordinator, Patrick Muyia, Solomon Lenana and myself surrounded Philip with the church members also around, we asked him what he felt he needed prayer specifically for. He named the following:

• That the conflict will be negociated and we will have our church built
• That God gives me more of His Holy Spirit to do the work he has called me to do
• That the sickness that is affecting so many people in this area will go away
• The the conflicts caused by the man inciting the people will be taken away and the people will come back to church

What a beautiful prayer session we had. Please pray for Philip, he has a very big challenge ahead of him. Afterwards we talked about what we could do to encourage the community. Philip mentioned that already he has a few ladies that he has organized to do visitation. Because of the drought that they have been having (that is until today) people are starving. The ladies take packets of Unga flour and leave with the people and pray with them. Philip wants to lift Jesus up in his area. He wants to meet the basic needs of the people and encourage them in giving their hearts to Jesus. I thought that I would find a very discouraged young man when I went to visit Philips Sabbath School today but in fact I found a very enthusiastic young man who is not discouraged but sees challenges that with God's help will be overcome. Please remember Philip in your prayers and our other lay workers in the field. They are all meeting many challenges of people and other organizations that would like to destroy the work of Maasai Development Project but through the grace of God these dedicated workers are moving ahead, determined to preach the Word of God.