POD People

The pressure of our simultaneous moves to Seattle and Kenya just increased this morning. A truck with our POD pulled up at 9am and off-loaded a 16' POD onto our driveway. Now that it is here I have to get serious about a packing strategy, since the total space (8' by 8' by 16') equals the size of a San Joaquin kit fox burrow. Actually the preceding comparison may be a tad off since I've never actually been inside a kit fox burrow, but I hear that they are quite spacious from a kit foxes' perspective.


It's always interesting to me to see how a company will solve a problem. In this case, the problem is, "How do we deliver the POD on a flat-bed truck and get it off and on without tipping it?" The solution - build an exoskeleton that can serve as a four-point hoist to lift it off the bed of the truck and lower it while keeping it stable. I have more pictures of the process, but realize that not everybody shares my interests...



I'm glad that we'll have the company of some of our friends as we do our major packing next Thursday. The doors are open!

Two Homes in Kenya

We're moving to a nice house in Kenya - a very nice house. It will not only meet our needs in abundance, but will allow us to extend hospitality to others who are passing through. I feel fine about having it - the rent is very reasonable and it will provide a good home base for our service in Kenya. Here's a picture. Well, the big car out front isn't ours, but we'll have the use of the little red one on the left.

But there is another home in Kenya that is on mind mind. It belongs to our good friend Chrispine Juma, a Sabaot staff member of ICM Kenya who works at our Mt. Elgon Training Center (METC) on Mt. Elgon. Three years ago Chrispine had a house, some animals, crops and a church that he pastored there. Then the troubles came. His home and church were burned, his animals and crops stolen and for two years he and his family survived in a rented apartment in Kapsikwony, the district capital of the Mt. Elgon District. Chrispine is a nice a fellow as his picture appears. His wife is named Suzy and he has three children


When the violence came to an end, Chrispine and the other members of our METC staff returned to Kopsiro to resume our pastoral training program. Some generous donors in the USA gave some money to help him begin rebuilding his home. He told be that he got started on a larger building, but realized he wouldn't have enough to complete it so he built a smaller home so his family would have shelter. It is essentially a one-room home that five people share. He is happy to have it, but I think that we can do better by him and our other staff, Justus Kirui, Jonathan Aramis and Charles Chebok.