On Wednesday we came from Kitale to Kakamega, about a three hour drive. I am ministering here with one of our newest affiliated ministers, Pastor John Ochieng, and staying with him and his family in their home. This is how I prefer to do missions – staying in hotels may have some advantages, but staying with the pastors in their homes is better for building relationships.
As a means of supporting his family and the church, John runs a dressmaking business, so I now have yet another African style dress, a gift from him made by his girls.
I also had to go shopping yesterday for a new suitcase. I had discovered when I arrived from Zambia that someone, presumably from Kenya Airways, had opened my case. As far as I could tell nothing was missing, but the locks had been moved around to the bottom of the case. Then when I went to shut the case on Wednesday to come here, I found that the locks had not just been moved, they had been snapped, making it impossible to relock the case. I’m not happy about the idea of checking in a case that is not locked, so bought a new one. It did give me the chance to go bigger in size, so this one should not be so hard to close with all my loot. It was good to have John with me, as he knew the shopkeeper and was able to get me a bit of a discount.
Before the meeting yesterday afternoon they took me to a tourist site called the Crying Stone. This is a rock that has water continually flowing from it. The legend is that there was a man of bad reputation who was driven away from the village. Some time later he returned to find that his wife and children had gone. He began to cry, and was so upset that he turned into stone. The more scientific (but far less romantic) explanation is that there is a hole in the top of the rock that collects water when it rains, which then seeps out through micro-cracks in the rock. Unfortunately the path up to the rock was too steep and rough for me to manage, so John went up and took these photos for me.
Last night we had a revival meeting here. Once again the Lord had given me very little for my message, but the Holy Spirit took over and it ended up being a powerful word that everyone said was just what was needed for this place at this time. I’m getting used to this thing of Him giving me the message as I speak, but it’s not comfortable. Also I need to be careful that it doesn’t become laziness on my part … I still need to seek Him for the word before the meeting, and trust that if I don’t hear from Him, He will come good at the time.