Preparing for our next mission to Nairobi later this week

It's time to crank up the blog again, as we are in the final stages of preparing to head to Nairobi Thursday.  This time we will be serving with a new congregation near the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport called Pipeline.  We will be serving with some of our old friends from the churches in Kawangware and Kibera including Pastor James, volunteers from Nuru (the Lutheran Hour Ministries in Kenya) and Gloria.  There will be 5 of us coming from the States and Gloria will join us as our 6th team member.  We will also have many volunteers from the Pipeline congregation.  The team will be led by Pastor Kevin and myself and we will be joined by Ralph Genz, Merrilee Walker and Cynthia Lux, who will be on her first trip with us.

We were commissioned and prayed over this morning at Redeemer on Mother's Day, which made it very special.  Pastor Dave explained from Scripture the reasons we do mission, both as a congregation and as individual missionaries.  He prayed a beautiful blessing over us as we opened the 9:30am worship service.

I say a few words to the congregation about where we are going and what we expect to accomplish

Pastor Dave commissions the team

4 of us are flying British Air out of Austin this time.  With the tourist season just beginning, we couldn't get a direct flight to Europe, so we will be flying the JFK in New York and will have a layover there before catching a flight to Heathrow in London.  From there we will fly to Nairobi.  Merrilee was able to book an outstanding deal on KLM and she will be flying by way of Amsterdam and will eventually meet us in Nairobi late Friday night.  I will be going on my 15th trip.  On all previous trips, I have traveled wearing my lucky red Adidas shirt, making me easy to spot for the rest of the team as we globe trot.  Two trips ago we got diverted to Istanbul and last time Pastor Kevin and I were refused passage by Air France over a mix-up with our visas.  I am retiring the lucky shirt after it has failed on 2 trips in a row!  Now I need to decide on a new one.  All kidding aside, the Holy Spirit has always been with us on each of these trips and no really serious incident has ever occurred.  We have been blessed as we blessed others.  

More to follow in the days ahead.  Please come back to this blog often, I will be updating it during out travel and as often as time and the availability of both electricity and Internet access allow.