Border Boys

At the Ugandan/ Kenyan border there are a variety of people trying to make a living in a variety of ways. Customs and immigration officials, police officers, money changers, guys who will help you through the different stops and pieces of paperwork, and people who sell drinks and snacks. These boys in particular deal in potassium. At least that’s why they told us we should “promote their business” and buy bananas. They were awfully persistent, following us across to the Kenyan side of the border. Unfortunately for them we didn’t feel like we needed any more potassium that morning, and on top of that they wanted more for 2 bananas than it would cost to buy an entire hand in any given market.

Natural Beauty

This is The Rock in Tororo, Uganda, as seen from a gas station where we filled up in the morning before heading to the Kenyan border. The Tororo area is pretty much as flat as can be (rice country), but then there are these huge rock formations and hills that just pop up as if out of nowhere. This particular one is the most distinct and the most well known.

Forming fertile forest highlands and bone-dry grassy lowlands, great mountains (such as Kilimanjaro) and deep lakes, the Great Rift Valley tears across East Africa, giving it a stunning and diverse natural beauty. Beginning in Syria, the Rift Valley extends all the way to Mozambique, dividing into two arms as it cuts across East Africa. The Rift Valley’s western arm runs along Uganda’s western border. The eastern arm, pictured here, runs down through Kenya and Tanzania.

This particular viewing point sits along the road from Tororo to Nairobi. I was just so fortunate that we came upon it at a time when rain was passing through the valley. The altitude difference between where I was standing and the valley floor? Several thousand feet.

Maasai Market

Every Friday the covered parking lot at the Village Market mall in Nairobi plays host to the Maasai Market. A huge variety of African crafts are available at either ridiculously high rip off prices (if you don’t bargain) or at really good low budget prices (if you fight like heck to get the price you want). Carvings, weaponry, blankets, jewelry, candle holders, picture frames, plates, masks, kikoys, purses, drums, and so much more are absolutely everywhere.

I would think it certainly intimidating to the newcomer to East Africa: aggressive vendors everywhere vying eagerly for your attention to look at their multitude of wares; so many goods that you can’t hardly begin to tell what all is there; masses of buyers moving down narrow paths; and you know the sellers are asking too much but you have no idea how much things are actually worth.

Personally I rather enjoyed the Maasai Market, though. People were much more eager to bargain here and enjoyed it far more than sellers in Uganda. They were also very friendly. In my efforts to get lower prices I got to know some of the vendors quite well. And they appreciate good humor, too: when I was trying to bargain for a Masai club with one of the most stubborn sellers I found, I poked him in the belly with the club and told him that I could tell that he ate very well (here it’s a good thing to be fat, so I wasn't being offensive) so I knew his prices must be way too high. As he and all the other vendors around were laughing he knocked about $4.50 off the price.

Picture This

I want you to stop and take a moment to picture Kenya in your mind. When you think of Kenya, what do you see? What image defines Kenya to you? Then take a look at the pictures that follow…is that what you pictured? Most people, when they think of Kenya, see wild animals strewn across a flat, dry, grassy plain. And while that side of Kenya certainly exists, that is NOT where I was. I was in tea country (pictured right: tea leaves).

Kenya is actually home to very diverse ecosystems. Brackenhurst, the IMB conference center where I went for training, sits up 7800 feet in the Gikuyu Highlands surrounded by hills covered with green, lush tea plantations. Kenya is actually one of the largest tea producers in the world. It grows excellent coffee as well; in fact, if you like good coffee or good tea, East Africa is not a bad place to be. One thing that world travel, though, will always confirm: whatever your expectations, they are wrong.

Brackenhurst

Brackenhurst was an old British hotel outside of Limuru, Kenya, that the IMB purchased in the 1960s around the time of Kenyan independence for next to nothing. The beautifully-landscaped grounds have played host to meetings and conferences for the IMB, corporate retreats for Nairobi businesses, summer camps, a Kiswahili language school, and the Kenya Baptist Theological College, amongst other things. And it is cold there! I was there in the hottest time of the year and still we had to wear jackets most mornings.

Where I stayed. At first I had a double room to myself. The guy who was supposed to room with me came in late because of his flight. When he went to the reception the lady there told him that he was rooming with his friend Spencer. He said that actually he didn't know me. She told him that he should not room with someone he does not know and gave him another room.

The building in which we met for classes.

The Kenya Baptist Theological College.

Everywhere you turn at Brackenhurst there are flowers and trees. It's like being at an arboretum.

Inside the main building is the dining room, a coffeeshop, some couches and chairs in an area with wireless internet, and a gift shop. This is from the coffeeshop looking into the wireless internet area with the gift shop behind.

Some interesting trees, and not exactly small ones.

Friends New & Old

During our training we had many times where we went out into the surrounding community (Tigoni) and practiced the things we had been learning in our classroom sessions. When we went out, we were accompanied by national helpers who took us around and, if needed, translated for us. My helper was a 20-year old Gikuyu (tribe from the highlands around Nairobi) named Steven. Some of the best times were when we were walking from Brackenhurst to town and back, as I was able to use those times for mini-discipleship, teaching about the things we had been learning and whatever else happened to be relevant. One of the more exciting things was seeing Steven learn and gain a desire to go and do the very things we were learning to do. One of the hardest things about leaving was that I had become good friends with Steven and he was so eager to learn and be discipled that I wanted to either take him with me or stay and work with him.

One pleasant surprise at the training was getting to see Carl Garvin (pictured here with Steven) and his wife Kay. The Garvins and I went through orientation together back in 2005. We were neighbors in our quad and were in the same house church group. They are serving in Moshi, Tanzania. The view out the back of their house? Mt. Kilimanjaro. They had come for the first week, and when we did our practical assignments Carl and I went together. Always nice to see old friends again.

Funny sidenote. At first Steven was having trouble with our names. He decided he was going to give us "good Gikuyu names." When he says this I was expecting him to come out with some sort of Kikuyu (the language of the Gikuyu) names. Our names? John (me) and Peter (Carl). Good Gikuyu names indeed :).

This Stuff Actually Works

Our first week of training was about how to teach and work with oral-dependent and oral-preference learners. The second week was about "Main Things." My mzungu partner the second week was a missionary from Nairobi named Jerry. Our second practical assignment was to go and pray for lost people in front of lost people. Basically go to someone, talk to him, get to know him some, and then pray for him. Pray for their salvation along with whatever else yes, but don't share the gospel. So we headed out to do just that. Steven took us to a nearby farm because some of the people in Tigoni were getting tired of talking to missionaries over and over again.

We met a woman there named Sarah. At first she did not want to talk to us. Then Steven told her that we just wanted to get to know her. Now she was interested. We sat down and talked to her, learned about her job situation and her daughter, learned that she regularly attended an Anglican church but was not saved and knew it. After a while we asked if we could pray for her, she said yes, so we prayed. When we were leaving she was so happy that we had come and just taken some time to talk to her that she begged us to come back.

So, the next day we came back. And how fitting: the practical assignment for the next day was to share our testimonies and to share the gospel using Creation 2 Christ, which is basically like theRedemptive History Christmas Story but continuing on to the resurrection of Christ. When we got there she was just getting ready to go home so I offered to walk with her. After all, no sense in making her stay around when we could just as easily talk walking as sitting. Eventually we got around to talking about how you never know where God is going to take you. I told her that I was a good example: I never went to church growing up, and now I'm a missionary. Transition into testimony...CHECK! I went on to share my testimony and asked her if anything like that had happened to her. There was a part of the story she identified with, but she said no, that she was not saved.

I asked her why (as we were approaching her home), and essentially it was because she was afraid to be authentic. She had a ten year old daughter, and when her daughter was one year old the father left her. He had another family that Sarah did not know about and he decided to go back to them (unfortunately anything but uncommon here). She became depressed and lonely and sought her refuge in alcohol, and she has continued as a lonely alcoholic ever since. This kept her from coming to Christ because she had seen many people who claimed to be saved but continued to just bask in sin and she did not want to be one of those people; she wanted to be authentic, and she knew that she couldn't stop drinking.

God then worked through us to show her that she needed to trust that when she came to saving faith Christ would work in her to overcome her sin, that she would not have to leave alcoholism on her own power. Somehow the Creation 2 Christ came up as a very helpful and viable to explain and out it went (CHECK!) I had used it before but it hadn't ever come out so well, and the whole time God was working on her so hard that she was almost crying. She wanted to come to salvation so badly and yet she was so afraid that she would persist in her sin. She kept coming so close to saying "Yes I want to be saved" and yet always right before she would say it she'd hesitate. One time she actually even said she wanted to get saved and then after I explained what that meant she stepped back again.

After about and hour and a half to two hours of Jerry and Steven and I talking with her and (when not the one talking) praying for her she finally decided to trust that Christ would overcome her sin if she got saved! God had been working on her heart through circumstance and witness and her daughter (who was saved and prayed for her mother every day) and our words and finally he broke down the last barrier and another sheep came home. So what if we were seriously late getting back (one of the great things about being in a part of the world where time is just a guideline: everyone understands if you're late because you were doing something important). Neither of us had ever shared with someone who wanted salvation so badly but wouldn't give in, and finally, by God's grace, she came to profess saving faith. What an incredible day it was.