We're into the home stretch leading up to the November mission!

It's that time again, about a month before our next mission trip to Nairobi's slum of Kawangware and the incredible Lutheran church there. We will soon be back among our friends, worshiping with Pastor Zedekiah and then serving the community during the work week with both a vision and a dental clinic. It seems like we just got back in May from Springs of Life Lutheran Church in Nairobi's largest slum of Kibera. The work on the next mission trip always begins behind the scenes almost immediately after returning from the previous one.

This past Sunday, October 9th, was a very full day. Pastor Kevin and I were at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Giddings, along with Gus Jacob from Salem to present what we are doing on our African missions as part of their Missions Sunday. Pastor Kevin preached at both services and I showed a slide show during their fellowship time between worship. The pastors and the congregation all showed a great deal of interest in how the clinics are used as a vehicle for spreading the Gospel. They took a door offering to help support the mission and that money will be set aside to help enable one or more of them to join us on a future mission.  After the presentation, a 2nd grade teacher wanted to know if her class could help us by making our beaded cross necklaces as a crafts progress for her class. We use these necklaces in explaining the Gospel by the meaning of each of the colored beads and accompanying Scripture. Each team gets about four dozen of them and we will probably have seven teams next April, so they'll need to make about 350 of them for us. What a great way to get the kids involved!

Gus and I headed back to Austin, while Pastor Kevin preached at the late service. Of course, we couldn't make it through Elgin without stopping for BBQ for lunch and this time it was Southside Market. The brisket and sausage were great, afficianados of Meyer's liek Pastor Kevin prefer the sauce there. I just keep trying BBQ at new places in small Texas towns every chance I get and I have many favorites.

Back in Austin, we arrived at Redeemer around 12:30pm and loaded up a cart with all of the materials Gus had brought with him to help us conduct our very first orientation. We were expecting about 25 team members from both Redeemer and Good Shepherd in Cedar Park. Our team will be returning to Kawangware, while the Good Shepherd team, led by Pastor Goodwill, is slated to serve in the rural church in Chesenende. I had already been planning on taking any team members that couldn't make it for one reason or another to Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball for their orientation on October 29th. Against all odds of perfect attendance for a group of this size, everybody was present and accounted for when we started the training at 1:30pm, including one extra missionary from St. Paul Lutheran in Vernon, Mark Kieschnick. He attended our orientation because October 29th wouldn't work for him and Austin is a little closer. Gus did a great job of going over the numerous travel and mission rules and pointers during the first hour. The next two hours were filled with each team member being trained in two or more of the vision clinic's six stations. This is important for several reasons. Some of the jobs involve lots of standing, others mostly sitting, so it's good to be able to change tasks occasionally. Some of the stations, particularly triage, involve hearing intimate stories and praying with the people over their most private or painful thoughts and situations, so being able to decompress a bit occasionally by doing a more mundane job is welcome. Everything went very well and we were able to dismiss everybody by 4:30pm. Many thanks to Gus for his help in making this a great afternoon.

I am most impressed by the number of people coming on the November trip for the first time. I'm guessing that about 60 percent of our two teams are new. This is wonderful, since their enthusiasm, joy and energy are great for recharging the batteries of those of us that have been on multiple trips. In turn, we veterans can help channel that energy and hopefully keep some of the same mistakes we've made in the past from being repeated. This mix of old and new will be a blessing for all involved.