Where the Rubber meets the Road

*NOTICE* My intent for writing this post was to show many of the problems that we deal with here in Chebilat. They are many and if you look at them by themselves, it paints a dark and hopeless picture. I write this not only to let you in on this aspect of the town (there are many wonderful attributes of the town as well), but more importantly, to show the hopelessness of this place in sharp contrast to the stronger hope that we have in Christ - that these things are not insurmountable with him. Please keep this in mind as you read. */NOTICE* 

We walk through town squishing through the mud and trying not to fall in the gaping holes caused by road work, getting accosted by one of the many many drunk men that haunt the town at all hours of the day. He wants to talk at length to us, insisting he is a Christian and we should spread God's word. All that we say we know he will forget. We carefully disengage ourselves, nearing a small group of Chinese prisoners, brought here as free labor to make money for the People's Republic, and, as with the tax collectors in Jesus' time, generally despised by the people for their refusal to learn the culture and their frequent use of the prostitutes that are here for the truck drivers coming to and from Tanzania. They eye us warily as we pass them. 

We pass our friend, who we have never yet met sober, a very intelligent Kenyan who studied chemistry at Iowa University, and now with his family owns a large farm we visited the other day, where he showed us his catholic prayer beads and told us he deals illicit drugs on the side to make money. He is too drunk to formulate much of a sentence, and his companion gently keeps him moving.

We get out of the town and start walking through the countryside, passing fields of tea bushes, wandering cows and chickens scampering at our approach, children running from the fields to see us, yelling: "Chinese! Chinese!" We yell back: "Sisi si Wachina! Sisi Wamerikani!" (We are not Chinese, we are Americans!) After a distance, we finally reach the house we sought, invited inside to visit. Though we are on time, we wait for quite awhile for the other members of the family to arrive from the river, from whence they are retrieving water.

When they arrive, the family tells us of their horrifying recurring demonic visitations that continued although they moved to a new home, of their daughters illness, of the mother and father's drunkenness. We share with them the hope of Jesus and pray for all of them, laying our hands on them, telling them Jesus has more power than the demons, and if they trust their lives to Jesus they don't have to fear them.

They are extremely grateful and insist that we stay to eat lunch. After we've eaten, and they are walking out with us to the road to see us off, they tell us that we will see them in church. We smile and tell them that they are welcome and we'd love to see them, holding a small doubt in the back of our minds. Many have said this already and never come. But we'll hope, and pray. 

In this town, with it's rampant prostitution, alcoholism, demonic activity, backsliding christians, violent men: things we are not used to and are absolutely inadequate to deal with on our own, we need to trust in the power of Jesus to work through us and achieve the impossible: to see lives change, to see alcoholics lay down the bottle, to see Kisii and Kalenjin youths who fought a year ago reconciled, but most of all, to see all these wonderful people become our brothers and sisters in Christ that we might worship God together with them someday in eternity.

Prayer Requests:

- That we would learn how to deal with alcoholism in a beneficial way/Be able to start a ministry or program if we are lead that way.

- Continued prayer for Colin's health - that the medicine the doctor gave him will be effective.

- That we would in all things be spirit-led - especially as we have a large responsibility in church and will be preaching even more frequently starting next week.

Praises:

- We were relieved when we visited the hospital to find that Colin does not have malaria. Also, everyone has been very concerned for him, and we've had many guests come to pray for him.

- That people are very receptive to our message.

- That George is doing a very good job at trying to build a holistically healthy church and is an amazing guy to work with in General.

Bwana Asifiwe! (Praise the Lord)

God Bless you all,

Stef