Much Grace
Bwana Asi Fiwi (Praise the Lord)!! What a wonderful day. All of us got up and prayed that our day would be pleasing in His sight and He answered our prayers. The sweetest prayer came from Njoroje pronounced (ja-ro-ge). The name means "tall man with wisdom". He gave God praise and thanksgiving for letting him be in this house and to be hearing the things he has heard. He asked his God to bless our day and our house and then quietly told his heavenly Father he loved Him. I was brought to tears at the prayer of this young man who had come from Tennessee and the changes that were already at work in his heart. Most people have known him as Joel Hall, but I think he is going to come home a different person. What a wonderful way to start our day. After breakfast of fresh cut mangoes, pineapple, chapatti (a kind of an oily homemade flatbread) and eggs, we returned to our rooms to finish up our emails.
Around 10:00 a.m. we set out to make the final installment on the 15 x 40 tent we were paying off, and to see what kind of progress was being made on its construction. At the tent shop they were hard at work and telling us that hopefully, it will be ready Friday. It was pretty neat watching them create our tent. From there we went to our Kenyan version of Wal-Mart called Wool Matt. Our goal was to buy 40 plastic chairs that were on a super sale. We couldn’t decide on jungle green or just plain white so we flipped a coin. No one was happy with the decision of the coin so we flipped it 4 more times. Same side every time. We even ask the clerk to flip it but he couldn’t understand the concept of tossing, catching,and flipping it on the back of your hand. We all (including the clerk) were laughing hysterically and everyone around us seemed to enjoy our fun. Finally I grabbed the coin, flipped it good and high, caught and flipped it over on my hand to finally reveal the choice we all really wanted ….. The white ones. They were normally priced at 650 shillings each; which translates to eight dollars and sixty three cents…not at all a bad deal. But the sale had reduced the price to 435 shillings which is 5 dollars and seventy eight cents which was a great deal. So, Lord willing this Sunday, the adults will have a nice tent to meet in, good chairs to sit on and the kids can use the building and those “oh so not” comfortable benches. No one knows about the tent or chairs and we are setting it up early Sunday morning, so it should be a wonderful surprise for all our family. We hope to have pictures to show their faces. Last night, as I taught, the little wire that keeps the darkness away from the meeting place failed. It is stretched half a block to a friend’s house that lets us use the electricity for our meetings. I stood close to the door and used the little bit of light coming from outside to finish the teaching. I then thought to myself what a fine trooper I am. The Lord must have thought I need more testing tonight, because the entire town went black for an hour, while I was teaching. Now’ it’s hard to teach through a translator, about concepts that no one has heard, with faces you have not yet learned to read. But add to that picture the blackest black out I have ever experienced and it’s totally disorientating. I told them I would love to go on but would prefer to know they were still there when I finished. I have grown to respect missionaries immensely.
Ulale salama (Good Night)
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