We had a wonderful day, starting with loading up a larger bus than we have used in the past and a truck full of all of our footlockers and other supplies for the trip to Kawangware. The heftier bus barely made it through the rather wet and muddy narrow approach to the church. It is now raining at 9pm as I write this and I'm a little concerned about our journey in the morning. At any rate, we arrived at the church and had a wonderful greeting from all of our friends that we have made on previous missions. We were there in time to get all of our clinic supplies into the area where the dental clinic will be held before we had an outstanding three and a half hour worship service which included a wide variety of music ranging from a children's choir to the women's choir with several other styles in between. Adding to the special feeling of the service was the fact that it was a Communion service. There was one choir number that I got on film that was performed out on the lawn after church. We completed setting up the chairs and compressors for the dental clinic to get a jump on tomorrow morning and rearranged the church so there wouldn't be so much work in the morning. We left the church at around 4pm, famished and ready for a long overdue lunch. We ended the day with a trip to Nakumatt (think Super Wamart) to buy supplies for the clinic, snacks and water for us and to get a bite to eat. Pastor Goodwill led a devotion during dinner, while I was at the LCMS World Mission offices transferring data from Catherine's desktop system to a flash drive, so I could finish prepping the laptop that the mission team had purchased as a gift for her last month. That process went smoothly and I am now ready for a shower and bed, since we leave at 7am for the first day of the clinic. I will post pictures from the last several days tomorrow evening when the clock is not so against me.
What a blessing today has been!
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Saturday in Nairobi
Some of the group got up bright and early to be on the road by 6am to go to the wild game park on the outskirts of Nairobi, others decided to sleep a little later and visit the Karen Blitzen Museum, named for the subject in the movie Out of Africa. Another group that rode around town seeing many sites including the U.S. Embassy. They got a special treat when they visited the large downtown national Lutheran church and actually had coffee with Bishop Obare. Pastor Kevin and I took a ride across town to meet with the pastors of the churches that are going to have clinics this week, representatives of the ELCK and some of our Lutheran World Missions staff. It was very interesting hearing the various viewpoints on how the clinics had benefited the churches that have held them and how the kingdom continues to grow through the evangelism associated with these missions. Kevin Pieper of Salem shared how their new member process at Salem works, trying to give the local pastors some ideas on how they might approach accepting new members. In many of the church locations, a person wanting to become a member or be baptized may have to take instruction in the Christian faith similar to confirmation classes. As in the U.S., there is a spectrum concerning these issues and our mission teams just need to adjust and follow the lead of the local pastor.
After all of the groups returned to the Norwegian Lutheran compound we had a worship service led by Claude Houge, who is the LCMS World Missions coordinator for 5 east African countries and Kevin Pieper. It began with songs from the Kawangware Children's choir and included several praise songs, readings by Pastor Houge, Paster Kevin and Pastor Goodwill. It was a very moving, highly spiritual service. I found a little tear running down my cheek during the readings from Isaiah and Luke dealing with Jesus' sacrifice.
After church, some ladies that work with the orphans in the slum came with souvenirs and clothing for sale to support their mission. I got several shirts, since I have been promising a few friends a souvenir for quite some time. We had dinner around 7:15pm and everyone is now winding down in anticipation of a big day tomorrow. The groups going to the outlying areas are leaving as early as 5:45am. We will be loading up all of our footlockers into a truck around 8:45am and will be on the way to church by 9am. After a church service that I am sure will feature several choirs and many musical styles, we will do some preliminary setup for the dental clinic. That's it for now, please come back often for more reports on our comings and our goings.
After all of the groups returned to the Norwegian Lutheran compound we had a worship service led by Claude Houge, who is the LCMS World Missions coordinator for 5 east African countries and Kevin Pieper. It began with songs from the Kawangware Children's choir and included several praise songs, readings by Pastor Houge, Paster Kevin and Pastor Goodwill. It was a very moving, highly spiritual service. I found a little tear running down my cheek during the readings from Isaiah and Luke dealing with Jesus' sacrifice.
After church, some ladies that work with the orphans in the slum came with souvenirs and clothing for sale to support their mission. I got several shirts, since I have been promising a few friends a souvenir for quite some time. We had dinner around 7:15pm and everyone is now winding down in anticipation of a big day tomorrow. The groups going to the outlying areas are leaving as early as 5:45am. We will be loading up all of our footlockers into a truck around 8:45am and will be on the way to church by 9am. After a church service that I am sure will feature several choirs and many musical styles, we will do some preliminary setup for the dental clinic. That's it for now, please come back often for more reports on our comings and our goings.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Travel 11/12/2010
11/12/2010 Enroute to Nairobi from London on British Airways Flight BA065
It’s nearly 6pm Nairobi time and we have made good time today. We should arrive at the airport around 9:30pm, due in part to a shorter than normal layover at Heathrow. This layover was so short I didn’t get a chance to break out my laptop for another report. Our security check went very quickly with no problems that I’m aware of. Dan Zieschang had arrived in London from Chicago about an hour before we did and he found us without a hitch. I have brought a computer projector bulb for Pastor Carlos Winterle, one which can only be purchased in the U.S. Dan and his son Danny have put together a DVD of film clips of greetings from Redeemer kids and we would like to show it Sunday to the children’s Sunday school hour. If there is no projector available at the church, we are hopeful that the first use of Pastor Carlos’ bulb will be for this occasion. I no longer am much of a believer in coincidences, I’m much more inclined to think that God may be intimately involved in this circumstance. I got the request for the bulb with only a week to go before our trip, the supplier had no provision for expedited shipping and UPS tracking had predicted it’s arrival somewhere between November 10th and 16th. We left on the trip early on the morning of November 11th. The package with the bulb was on my porch the evening of November 9th with a full day to spare! Thank you, Jesus!
The rest of our long day looks like this. After arrival in Nairobi, we each will get tourist visas. This process involves filling out a form, paying $25 in new U.S. currency and having our pictures taken. Next, we will proceed to the baggage claim area. There are money exchanges there, so each of us will change $200-$300 into local shillings, which last spring produced about $78 shillings per dollar. Each missionary will then retrieve the two footlockers that they were assigned ages ago in Houston. We will then go through one last security checkpoint, load all of the footlockers up either in a truck or on top of the bus that will take us on a 45 minute ride to the our lodgings at the Norwegian Lutheran Church’s Scripture House compound. We’ll break open the footlockers with our personal effects in them, get assigned to both rooms and roommates for the weekend, have a group prayer, hear some words of instruction from the Salem leaders about options for Saturday activities and maybe get a shower before hitting the sack. It looks at this point like this trip will end up being about 31 hours from start to finish, counting from the group gathering at Ralph and Louise’s house Thursday until our arrival at the Scripture House Friday night. This is not trivial travel, but everyone has been in great spirits the whole way and the entire team of about 40 members really has lifted each other up along the way. Just arrived in Nairobi safe and sound, ready for bed!
It’s nearly 6pm Nairobi time and we have made good time today. We should arrive at the airport around 9:30pm, due in part to a shorter than normal layover at Heathrow. This layover was so short I didn’t get a chance to break out my laptop for another report. Our security check went very quickly with no problems that I’m aware of. Dan Zieschang had arrived in London from Chicago about an hour before we did and he found us without a hitch. I have brought a computer projector bulb for Pastor Carlos Winterle, one which can only be purchased in the U.S. Dan and his son Danny have put together a DVD of film clips of greetings from Redeemer kids and we would like to show it Sunday to the children’s Sunday school hour. If there is no projector available at the church, we are hopeful that the first use of Pastor Carlos’ bulb will be for this occasion. I no longer am much of a believer in coincidences, I’m much more inclined to think that God may be intimately involved in this circumstance. I got the request for the bulb with only a week to go before our trip, the supplier had no provision for expedited shipping and UPS tracking had predicted it’s arrival somewhere between November 10th and 16th. We left on the trip early on the morning of November 11th. The package with the bulb was on my porch the evening of November 9th with a full day to spare! Thank you, Jesus!
The rest of our long day looks like this. After arrival in Nairobi, we each will get tourist visas. This process involves filling out a form, paying $25 in new U.S. currency and having our pictures taken. Next, we will proceed to the baggage claim area. There are money exchanges there, so each of us will change $200-$300 into local shillings, which last spring produced about $78 shillings per dollar. Each missionary will then retrieve the two footlockers that they were assigned ages ago in Houston. We will then go through one last security checkpoint, load all of the footlockers up either in a truck or on top of the bus that will take us on a 45 minute ride to the our lodgings at the Norwegian Lutheran Church’s Scripture House compound. We’ll break open the footlockers with our personal effects in them, get assigned to both rooms and roommates for the weekend, have a group prayer, hear some words of instruction from the Salem leaders about options for Saturday activities and maybe get a shower before hitting the sack. It looks at this point like this trip will end up being about 31 hours from start to finish, counting from the group gathering at Ralph and Louise’s house Thursday until our arrival at the Scripture House Friday night. This is not trivial travel, but everyone has been in great spirits the whole way and the entire team of about 40 members really has lifted each other up along the way. Just arrived in Nairobi safe and sound, ready for bed!
Travel 11/11/2010
11/11/10 Enroute to London on British Airways flight 194
As predicted, there were both Blue Bell and The Kettle on the way to the airport. Lutherans like tradition or put another way, we seem to hate change! We ran into very little traffic, it was overcast most of the way and I’m sure the Veteran’s Day holiday contributed to the lack of traffic congestion. We arrived at Bush a little before 1pm and immediately began to help with the footlockers, which had just arrived by truck. Some porters actually did a lot of the work, bringing in footlockers on big carts that held about eight of them at a time. We placed baggage tags on each one and made sure they were clear of UPC tracking labels from previous missions. Those of us that are carrying the twelve expensive autorefractor eye exam machines placed our personal items in empty footlocker space set aside for this purpose and we duly noted the locker numbers that held our own belongings. This will make life much easier when we are looking for our individual items late at night after arrival at our lodgings in Nairobi. All of us were assigned two footlockers to be responsible for, which we also noted the numbers from as if they were our own checked luggage. This saves about $400 per locker in shipping, making these missions feasible, since the cost would be prohibitive otherwise. It never ceases to amaze me how well this system, developed over many mission trips by Salem Lutheran Church to the Honduras and Africa works. I’m sure there has been a fair amount of trial and error over the years, but to look at it now is a thing of beauty in its precision. Check-in went very smoothly until we got to the security check area. It was pretty backed up and very warm. Some of the team members were full body scanned with the latest TSA machines and one of our team, who shall remain nameless, was physically searched pretty aggressively. We had about an hour and a half to kill before boarding the plane, time that was well spent renewing acquaintances with friends from previous mission trips, making new friends with first time travelers and placing final phone calls to loved ones before our departure. I am writing this at around 7pm Austin time, over northern Michigan. According to the running totals on the onboard map, we are about as far north as we are going to get and will follow the coast of Newfoundland before heading out over the Atlantic for London. Arrival there should be in about 6 and a half hours, meaning the flight will have been about nine and a half hours in the air. We are flying at about 35,000 feet at nearly 650 miles per hour on a Boeing 747-400. More to follow during our layover at Heathrow.
As predicted, there were both Blue Bell and The Kettle on the way to the airport. Lutherans like tradition or put another way, we seem to hate change! We ran into very little traffic, it was overcast most of the way and I’m sure the Veteran’s Day holiday contributed to the lack of traffic congestion. We arrived at Bush a little before 1pm and immediately began to help with the footlockers, which had just arrived by truck. Some porters actually did a lot of the work, bringing in footlockers on big carts that held about eight of them at a time. We placed baggage tags on each one and made sure they were clear of UPC tracking labels from previous missions. Those of us that are carrying the twelve expensive autorefractor eye exam machines placed our personal items in empty footlocker space set aside for this purpose and we duly noted the locker numbers that held our own belongings. This will make life much easier when we are looking for our individual items late at night after arrival at our lodgings in Nairobi. All of us were assigned two footlockers to be responsible for, which we also noted the numbers from as if they were our own checked luggage. This saves about $400 per locker in shipping, making these missions feasible, since the cost would be prohibitive otherwise. It never ceases to amaze me how well this system, developed over many mission trips by Salem Lutheran Church to the Honduras and Africa works. I’m sure there has been a fair amount of trial and error over the years, but to look at it now is a thing of beauty in its precision. Check-in went very smoothly until we got to the security check area. It was pretty backed up and very warm. Some of the team members were full body scanned with the latest TSA machines and one of our team, who shall remain nameless, was physically searched pretty aggressively. We had about an hour and a half to kill before boarding the plane, time that was well spent renewing acquaintances with friends from previous mission trips, making new friends with first time travelers and placing final phone calls to loved ones before our departure. I am writing this at around 7pm Austin time, over northern Michigan. According to the running totals on the onboard map, we are about as far north as we are going to get and will follow the coast of Newfoundland before heading out over the Atlantic for London. Arrival there should be in about 6 and a half hours, meaning the flight will have been about nine and a half hours in the air. We are flying at about 35,000 feet at nearly 650 miles per hour on a Boeing 747-400. More to follow during our layover at Heathrow.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Travel day is here!
It's around 7:45am in Austin as I write this, Howard and the crew will be picking me up by 8:30 this morning. If past tradition holds true, we will be making great time through Manor, Elgin and Giddings and then the SUV will get a mind of its own and turn into the Blue Bell in Brenham, even if it's only 9:30 or 10am! One last treat before we must pretty much eat whatever is placed in front of us for the next 11 days. We also have made a habit of stoping at The Kettle, just outside of the airport for lunch. You can get an entree or the buffet is pretty good as well. We'll gather up around 1:15pm at Bush International Airport to get all of the footlockers in from a Salem truck, then get two each of them assigned to all of the missionaries. We'll surely have a group prayer before heading through check-in and security en masse. We'll fly out around 4pm for London and arrive very early London time, probably around 5am. Our flight to Nairobi will be around 10am local London time and we'll arrive there around 10:30pm. After clearing customs,getting visas and traveling to our compound, it will be well after midnight Nairobi time. My next post should be sometime Saturday, as we'll be 9 hours ahead of Austin time, so there may be something for those of you in the States to read with your morning coffee. Please continue to pray for our safety and an effective mission that touches many lives with the Good News. To God be the Glory!
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Pictures from the mission so far
Here are pictures up to and including our commissioning last Sunday. Click on the "Pictures from the mission so far" link above to see them!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
We're all ready to go!
We have finally arrived at the point where there is not much more we can do other than pack our personal baggage before the mission trip and pray for God’s will to be done. The many months of planning, ordering and purchasing supplies, countless emails and phone calls are coming to a much appreciated end.
On Sunday, the Redeemer team was commissioned at all three worship services. Pastor Kevin told the congregation about the love of Christ that is shown through both the vision and dental clinics and stressed that while these health services and human care ministry that we provide to the people of Kenya are wonderful and worthy of doing in themselves, they are actually a means to an end. Our primary purpose is to fulfill the Great Commission, as given by Jesus to the disciples in Matthew 28:18-20 which reads:
Mt 28:18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Mt 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Mt 28:20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
As long as we never take our eye off of this overarching purpose, our efforts will be a success, even if only one person comes to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior during our clinics.
I have mixed emotions about our travel. It is usually a 30-35 hour from start to finish affair, beginning with a drive down to Houston from Austin early Thursday morning, flying to London around 4pm after gathering all of the missionaries together at Bush International airport and assigning each of them two footlockers of vision or dental equipment for their checked luggage. Because we do this to save on shipping the equipment, each of us will need to live out of a carryon and the small personal item we can take on board for the next 11 days. You learn to travel light! We will have a 4 or 5 hour layover in London before flying on to Nairobi. We'll get to our lodgings around midnight and be in bed by 1am if past experience is a good guide. While this is not trivial travel, I look forward to the variety of people I'll get to meet and share with. On one trip back from Kenya, I got to talk to a Kenyan U.N. delegate who was on his way to New York on U.N. business for about half an hour. He turned out to also be a Christian and we wished each other well, after sweltering while waiting for our plane to start boarding. Our seats on the planes are always quite scattered, intentionally, so we can interact with other passengers who are not part of the mission team. Who knows how much evangelism is done just through our travels and chance encounters? I'm not much of a believer in accidents anymore, so I look at it as showing Christ's love to whomever God has managed to place in my path. Most people seem genuinely interested in our mission and will ask all kinds of questions, giving us the opportunity to explain what motivates us.
Please keep our safe travels in your prayers and that things go smoothly as we go through various security checkpoints along the way. With the heightened security after recent events involving Yemen, it may be a bit more of a hassle herding our large group with all of our supplies through the process at each airport.
On Sunday, the Redeemer team was commissioned at all three worship services. Pastor Kevin told the congregation about the love of Christ that is shown through both the vision and dental clinics and stressed that while these health services and human care ministry that we provide to the people of Kenya are wonderful and worthy of doing in themselves, they are actually a means to an end. Our primary purpose is to fulfill the Great Commission, as given by Jesus to the disciples in Matthew 28:18-20 which reads:
Mt 28:18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Mt 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Mt 28:20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
As long as we never take our eye off of this overarching purpose, our efforts will be a success, even if only one person comes to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior during our clinics.
I have mixed emotions about our travel. It is usually a 30-35 hour from start to finish affair, beginning with a drive down to Houston from Austin early Thursday morning, flying to London around 4pm after gathering all of the missionaries together at Bush International airport and assigning each of them two footlockers of vision or dental equipment for their checked luggage. Because we do this to save on shipping the equipment, each of us will need to live out of a carryon and the small personal item we can take on board for the next 11 days. You learn to travel light! We will have a 4 or 5 hour layover in London before flying on to Nairobi. We'll get to our lodgings around midnight and be in bed by 1am if past experience is a good guide. While this is not trivial travel, I look forward to the variety of people I'll get to meet and share with. On one trip back from Kenya, I got to talk to a Kenyan U.N. delegate who was on his way to New York on U.N. business for about half an hour. He turned out to also be a Christian and we wished each other well, after sweltering while waiting for our plane to start boarding. Our seats on the planes are always quite scattered, intentionally, so we can interact with other passengers who are not part of the mission team. Who knows how much evangelism is done just through our travels and chance encounters? I'm not much of a believer in accidents anymore, so I look at it as showing Christ's love to whomever God has managed to place in my path. Most people seem genuinely interested in our mission and will ask all kinds of questions, giving us the opportunity to explain what motivates us.
Please keep our safe travels in your prayers and that things go smoothly as we go through various security checkpoints along the way. With the heightened security after recent events involving Yemen, it may be a bit more of a hassle herding our large group with all of our supplies through the process at each airport.
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