The Village part II and reflections

Soon after we awoke on our second day in the Village, we learned that a change of plans would bring the team back to Nairobi sooner and leave us with just one more full day in the Village. Still short on sleep and overwhelmed by the sheer remoteness of everything about our surroundings, not to mention the uncertainty of changing plans, we were faced with what in some ways was bound to be a difficult day. That said, the graciousness and receptivity of the Village leaders was beyond amazing. Upon hearing that we were to leave sooner, several pastors and deacons from the church came to our homestead at 6AM to understand and see how they might learn and benefit as much as possible from our time with them. For me anyway, God used their eagerness to put my mind in the right place to serve for the day.

We sent the girls and my dad out to the school for the day to spend time with the kids at Udamayhi Primary School and work on memory verses that outline the Roman Road. There are great stories from the time with the kids in the Village, not least of which was God doing some fish-and-loaves with our teaching materials. I’ll leave the detailed story-telling to others (and they may have already put a lot of it down on the various blogs).

David and I went up to the church again and David gave the second half of his teaching to a church full again of eager listeners, and I followed after lunch with some key points from the Worldview material. We went through the circle diagrams, which David’s translator illustrated enthusiastically by pulling chairs from the front row to represent the three kinds of man. It took a lot of explaining and re-explaining, though, to help people understand and accept that the second circle was the right place to be, which really paints a picture of everything here. The church in Africa is so passionate, but so young. They will stay up literally all night at a prayer meeting, but do not have any of the Scriptural background that influences the way we think about all of life. That said, they receive the Word eagerly and we pray that after we leave, they will be faithful to put it into practice.

And this will require some tough decisions on their part. After the second teaching session, we did about an hour of question-and-answer, and the questions brought reflected the difficulties faced by the church here. Marriage was the toughest topic, as it’s very normal for men in the Village to have multiple wives and “girlfriends,” even among church members. We didn’t shy away though, speaking very clearly about the truth of God’s Word and the implications on the life of a society and a church. We pray God would move the church to grow to maturity, and especially for those church members who we sense may be willing to challenge the culture and push for these changes that are so essential. The church here truly is like the ones Paul wrote to in the New Testament – a vibrant, fast-growing work of God, but clearly a work in progress. I was a little disappointed to have to end after just the second day, but also know that God allowed us to bring some very needed instruction and encouragement during our time there.

The rest of the team met us at the church and we headed home for the evening around 6:30PM. That night, as others have posted about, we spent two hours worshiping with our Kenyan family, which was one of the sweetest times of the entire trip. The following day we all headed to the school for the H2O launch party, which was a good time and further confirmed our desire to support those in the Village who are truly teaching and giving their lives for God’s truth. Pastor Sylvester is one such man – a young-ish pastor who can bring God’s truth like crazy and also wants so desperately to learn more. In another fish-and-loaves moment, we found some extra of our materials (we thought we had run out in Nairobi) and are going to support him in some unique ways going forward as he continues his work. Prayer is clearly the most important. Following the launch party, we made our way back to Kisumu via matatu in a journey that has been well-chronicled by others already. We spent the night and following day in Kisumu on Lake Victoria (which was a very needed time of rest), then headed back to Nairobi overnight Saturday. Pray for our last couple of days here and our safe (and soon!) return!