Week Five in Nakuru

So many things have happened so quickly it is now becoming a task to keep them all in my mind. I’ve found that I have to rely on reading my wife’s posts to remember what has happened in the week. That seems to help jog my memory and then I can put words to paper, or electrons to images as it might be.

I am beginning with today as it is freshest in my mind, and thinking that the day was good because of the men. The men have begun a work as brothers and they are beginning to experience the great joy of doing things together. We know that joy because we live it every day. They are not used to being together like we are so it may take some time for them to fully understand or appreciate what we mostly take for granted.

We ate and worked together after the gathering here. Eating was Ugoli, Greens and Goat. This is best eaten with clean hands, since you do not use utensils to eat this food. Fingers are the utensils of choice and so we shared in the washing of hands together. Next there is the passing out of the food and eating together. This is very primitive and special as men eating with their fingers and digesting meat and veggies with ugoli balled up into the works. 

After eating and consuming some filtered water, there is another washing of the hands before embarking on the work at hand. This involved cutting grass, digging up stones, picking up garbage, burning it and then grooming the area with rakes and brooms. Now the picture you are forming in your mind is completely wrong. There are no powered tools involved in this process, hand sickles of sort, flat blade madix’s, machete’s, toy looking grooming rakes, brooms that look like a long tuff of stiff grass and a small fire to burn the rubbish we picked up. Everything done by manual hand and back labor.

Earlier in the week we made a few trips into town for shopping, eating, coffee, Stoney’s and such. Wednesday was the weekly pastors meeting at Kokeb and growing closer to those men who are caring for the people of God. They are such interesting men and very intent on hearing what God has for them. We are two weeks from the pastors conference that we have planned. I have the programs ready made so they will have an outline of the 4 sessions we will present to them. We have just to lock down the timing. That is a great undertaking here as hardly anyone is on time for anything. I heard a few guys here we actually late for their funeral.

I spent a couple days at home (Tue & Wed) training Kingdom hikers on computer skills and then again on Saturday for another group of Hikers. They love to learn. I don’t know how to say that with more emphasis but they actually like being trained to learn the computer skills I am showing them. It’s like I said, “Hey, who would like to eat banana splits and go to the amusement park?” It clamps my brain, as George would say.

Tara fell ill this week but has recuperated well. She was suffering from terrible stomach cramps and driving. (That’s Swahili for diarrhea) We believe it was brought on by a bacterial infection from the water or some food. Anyway, Dr. George brought medicine to help with the illness. She is doing much better today. She made it all the way through the gathering and then came home for a short nap.

Tomorrow we go to visit Georges Dad and Mom in the village George grew up in. It’s quite a trip there as it will take us 5-6 hours of driving to get there. George promises that it is well worth the trip and we are looking forward to being there, not so much the ride there. Along the way back we will stop and eat fresh fish from Lake Victoria for supper. It should prove to be quite the experience. But, that's a whole 'nother blog.