Report on seminar and visit to Western Kenya
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
We praise God for the annual church planter seminar April 5-7 in the town Nakuru which served both as a refresher course for graduates and an introductory course for new church planters. A total of twenty-eight attended.
Nakuru Church Planter Seminar
We covered the topics of “How to Change”, “Knowing your Spiritual Gifts” (including a survey I had them take) and “Church Planting and Finances.” I was encouraged with the good job that the three mentors did in helping me teach the seminar! I am convinced more than ever that teaching reinforces the trainers’ understanding of church planting.
Pastors Jeremiah & Japheth
After the seminar I drove about three more hours to the West with two of the church planters, Jeremiah and Japheth. Jeremiah pastors a church near the town of Webuye. Japheth is from an independent denomination and lives near the town of Kitale.
This was my first time to visit as far North as Kitale and I was awe-struck by the beauty and agricultural fertility of this area! Green hills, forest, and very large farms were a welcome sight after working so many years in the famine prone area of Eastern Kenya.
Japheth's family in Kitale
It was nice to be hosted by Japheth and his family of nine children in his rural home. I received the customary African gracious hospitality. You need to be there to appreciate what it takes to accommodate a foreigner from the West without plumbing or electricity when you have such a large family!
Dedicating land in village of Hututu
Worshipping at Bekeke church
Our activities included visiting three new churches that Japheth is planting, including one new church building and two plots of land where churches still need to be built. Japheth had me join him for times of dedicating these new plots and meeting members of the new congregations. These were great times of prayer, singing, and eating! I was encouraged to see all the work Japheth has done in organizing these new churches. It brought to mind that proclamation of Paul in Colossians 1:6: “All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing…”
Mountains of the Bible display
Cow with three eyes and four horns!
On one of my days in Kitale I was treated to a visit to a wonderful local nature conservancy with Japheth and his son. This place has about 250 acres of land with a medicinal garden center, a “Mountains of the Bible” display, genetic animal oddities like a cow with three eyes and four horns and hermaphrodite cows and sheep (animals that would otherwise be destroyed), as well as some man-made caves and a very nice shaded grove of trees by a river. It was a very nice relaxing time and the owner and tour guide is a believer.
I am looking forward to returning to this town in August when leaders of the sponsoring church in Florida come out for a visit. Japheth accompanied me for the long drive back to Nairobi on Monday and it was good to learn more about him during that time. On the way home we passed a memorial that had been built at the sight where many people were burned to death when a gas tanker turned over and children tried to collect the gas to sell.
Molo Fire Memorial
On our way back to Nairobi, Japheth and I visited and preached at the church of Jeremiah in Webuye. I was surprised to find out that one of the students who was graduating from the Bible school where I spoke in March is now interning at Jeremiah’s church. He told me that he first got his call to go into ministry when he was a teenager doing evangelism with us about six years ago. The gospel is bearing fruit!
Thanks for your prayers for this trip. Lois and I have another ministry trip coming up next weekend and would solicit your prayers.
Please pray…
1. Our trip to Mwingi District April 16-20. I will be visiting new church plants in the Kyuso and Mwingi presbyteries with which we are partnering and the two wells that now have water! Lois will be visiting medical ministries that Kianga Kids is sponsoring. Pray for safety on the road and a good time of observing, speaking (Robert will preach at one of these new churches) and encouraging our Kenyan brethren. Pray for Andrew as he stays with a friend in Nairobi.
2. We covet your prayers and contributions for new or used items for our container. So far we are only about 1/3 full! We are praying that it will be full in time for a June 1 departure so that it can get here by mid-July. If you would like to know what we still need, go to: http://www.carrafrica.com/?p=518
3. Please pray for our son Steve as he prays about two offers to work with a Christian organization in South Sudan or Haiti. He has just started getting settled in a new job and life in Chattanooga.
4. Pray for our daughter Jessica as she continues working very hard full-time as an EMT while also in paramedic school part-time. Pray that she will have time for worship and fellowship in the midst of it all.
5. Pray for our family here in Kenya as we look for a house closer to Andrew’s school. We need to make a decision in a couple of weeks.
6. We’d also appreciate your prayers for the healing of Esther, a two-year old from a very rural area whom we sponsored to receive corrective surgery for club feet. She has returned to the hospital with infected wounds.
In Christ,
Robert & Lois Carr
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