Bowes' Kenya Journal

Dry Shelter - A Visit to Mt. Elgon

2010-06-24T05:48:00.001-07:00

A few days ago Kathy and I traveled up to Kopsiro on Mt. Elgon. A team of us from the ATS campus in Kitale were making a quality assurance visit to the Mt. Elgon Training Center campus to work with our counterparts and validate the quality of their procedures. It was a good visit and we were all encouraged by the vitality of our study programs there.

Kathy, however, went with a different purpose. There are many widows on Mt. Elgon these days due to the land clashes there in 2006-2008. They are poor and find it difficult to acquire even the essential things in life. One of those essential things is dry shelter. The widows can construct a simple home from clay and posts wove with branches, but roofs cost money. It takes from 8-12 corrugated iron sheets to properly roof a home and at $12-15 a sheet, the cost is beyond them. So they improvise, using canvas and other materials, but the constant rains overpower the roof. One widow told our co-worker on the mountain, Chrispine Juma, "Pastor, I want you to visit me in my home, but only when it is raining..."

Thanks to a gift from a relative of Kathy's which we were able to match, we had arranged through the staff to acquire enough iron sheets to roof the homes of ten widows. Kathy spoke to the widows about the concern that some believers in the US have for them and also about the importance of having the greater shelter, Jesus, covering them.

One of the things that struck us on this occasion was how young the widows were. As the widows waited patiently for the distribution, their children came and went. One young mother caught my eye in particular - so young and vulnerable, but left in a position where she had the sole responsibility for caring for her young.

The widows were very happy to receive the sheets. I was touched as we were driving out of Kopsiro to see one of them walking along, carrying her precious roofing sheets on her head. We were able to help 10 widows, but we have a list of 66 others who still have this need.

I think that Mother Theresa said something to this effect, "I cannot work by multiplication but by subtraction. I cannot focus on the thousands I cannot help, but on the one that I can. Each one I help is one less than there was before."

A Funeral in Kenya

2010-03-25T23:33:00.001-07:00

Last Friday we received the sad news of the passing of the 20-year-old daughter of one of our ATS Adjunct Faculty, Rev. John Kiboi. Faith Kiboi had sickened and died after a very short bout of pneumonia. Yesterday Kathy and I attended the funeral services. Funerals in Kenya are very personal - the family must retrieve the body of their loved one, prepare it for burial and entomb it on family land. There are cemeteries in Kenya, but most people would prefer to be buried on family land.

The first part of the ceremony was held at our church, St. Lukes. About two hundred people attended, some coming from as far away as Nairobi (a contingent of faculty members from Carlyle University where John is the Academic Dean). The service, scheduled for 10am, began when the coffin and family arrived from their home in Kibomet (a housing area in Kitale). Many people spoke, parents, siblings, extended family, friends and guests. The service lasted about 2 1/2 hours. Then we loaded into cars and caravaned out to the family property. There were no policemen on motorcycles shepherding us on the way, but people and drivers, for the most part, recognized what was happening and made way with grace.

As we stood with the large crowd in the Kiboi's front yard (our group from the church was swelled by neighbors), we watched as the coffin was taken from a table where it lay for a viewing by those who were not at the church, and laid in a grave that had been dug on the side. It is a sobering thing to see the dirt scraped back into the hole and the simple wooden cross set in place. Following this, the family served a meal to all the attenders, and then, around 4pm we dispersed.

Faith would have turned 21 tomorrow (Saturday). One of the speakers suggested that we might honor her life by taking a moment to remember her and her family in prayer. I think that is a good idea.

Rites of Passage

2009-12-31T03:31:00.000-08:00

Most societies have rites of passage - formalized events that mark major transitions in life. Marriage is one, birth of the first child is another. One that is quite strong in African cultures is the coming of age ceremony for young men and women. Kathy and I had the privilege yesterday of participating in the conclusion of this rite of passage for Seth Mairori, the son of Stephen and Roselyne Mairori, our good friends and national leaders.

The traditional rite takes about a month and involves the separation of the boys of a certain age group (around 13 years of age) from their families. The boys are taken out into the bush or forest by a selected group of older men. They stay out for about a month, learning from their mentors what it means to be a Sabaot man and warrior. At some point the young men are circumcised. When the period is complete the new young men are reintroduced to their community as men who can now begin taking on the responsibilities and privileges of adulthood. They are also expected to leave the things of childhood behind. Typically the new young man would begin living in his own dwelling on the family compound.

One of the challenges facing Christian parents is how to keep their children connected with their culture, while remaining true to biblical principles. Stephen and Roselynne determined that there were aspects of this coming of age rite that they wanted Seth to experience, but there were other aspects they wanted to avoid. They enlisted the help of others, including Dr. Emmanuel Chemengich, a fellow Sabaot, and the Principle of Africa Theological Seminary, who is writing a book on the subject of creating Christian Rites of Passage for African young people.

Seth and his cousin became the age group and were circumcised at the beginning of the period. Then they lived apart in a specially-built shed on the Mairori property for 30 days. During this period they had no contact with the women of their household and were mentored by Dr. Chemengich in what it means to be a Christian man in today's society. Yesterday was the final day of the rite and about 70 family members and guests gathered to celebrate the event.

At the end of the event, Seth was presented with a few new responsibilities - a sheep from his family and a cow from the guest speaker, General Sumbeiywo, a retired Kenya military officer turned peace maker for Kenya. I had the privilege of brining a greeting as an ICM representative. I observed that this is one more area where we in the West have an opportunity to learn from our African brothers and sisters. What rites of passage do we have for our own sons and daughters to help them learn what it means to be godly members of our society?

Christmas in Portugal

2009-12-24T03:04:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy run-up to Christmas this year. Kathy and I decided that we would take the Christmas break and visit our friends and fellow finishers, Doug and Myra Gentry, in Lisbon where they are serving as missionaries. 17 hours after departing Nairobi we arrived in Lisbon and were conveyed by Doug and Myra to their home in Loures (pronounced Loo-resh), a community just outside Lisbon.

Yesterday we went for a drive to an old mountain community named Sintra. We walked up and down cobbled streets, explored curio shops and had a meal together in a local restaurant. We wanted to visit the local palace in town, but it is closed on Wednesdays. We had to settle for a picture of the four of us in front of the steps leading up to the entry. High on the hill above the city we could see the remains of a fort dating from Moorish days, and on other hills were the palaces of various Portuguese royalty from days past.

After we left Sintra we drove through the countryside, enjoying the trees and vegetation that reminded us so much of the central coast of California. Eventually we made our way to the coast and were treated to the sight of magnificent waves rolling in off the Atlantic and crashing against the rocky shoreline. As we drove south along the coast towards Lisbon, we visited the "Boca do Inferno", a bowl shaped crevice that had a water level access to the ocean. Waves would rushthrough the opening and explode on the interior rocks. The gate to the pathway to the lower levels was closed to the public due to the rough seas, but the action from the top was impressive.

We returned to the Gentry's apartment for a short rest and then enjoyed a dinner with their teammates, the Ekks, and another missionary couple at a local grill. After dinner we visited a local nativity scene which featured larger-than-life images. It was a mixture of humor and holiness as some of the figures were quite funny, while the center characters of Joseph, Mary and the infant Jesus were striking.

After reflecting on the scene for a while we joined together to sing a carol before departing for a late evening desert and more good conversation at the Ekk's apartment. When we finally dropped into our bed after eleven we were exhausted, but fulfilled by our first day in Portugal.

Do Two Cows Make A Herd?

2009-10-03T21:41:00.000-07:00

I wrote in August about our foray into the cow business as a ministry to the ICM staff at the Mt. Elgon Training Center. Since then, Juma's cow has birthed a calf, a bull, and has settled into her new life on his property in Kopsiro.

We've just purchased our second cow, a fine Asian-Guernsey mix, who is currently residing on the Africa Theological Seminary campus here in Kitale. The photo is of Chemway, as her new owners have named her, grazing on campus. If you look close you'll see that she looks thin. In terms of quality she is a very good cow, but her previous owner was trying to maintain a herd of four cows on a small plot of land. One of the points we're trying to make with this project that it is better to own one or two quality cows, who are healthy and fat and who give more milk, than to own many cows who give little.

Our partner for this cow is Jusus Kirui. Justus serves as the administrator of the METC as well as a teacher in the Certificate programs there. Justus has served at the center for many years. He is a quiet man, but is very astute and is quite the planner. We've had a number of long conversations this past two weeks, and I've come to appreciate the wisdom that God has given him. He has just completed the Diploma in Bible and Theology program and will be starting as one of our BA students in January. He is married to Suzy and is currently finishing their new house in Kopsiro

On Bowes' farm

2009-09-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

I've always enjoyed having a vegetable garden. I can remember back to when, as a young boy, I tried to coax tomatoes to grow out of a patch of barren ground in our back yard. I don't recall having any success. After Kathy and I were married, we bought our first home and I enjoyed turning the adobe clay of our back yard into fertile soil by adding to it copious truck loads of compost from nearby horse ranches. Livermore, San Bernardino, Germany, England, Los Angeles and finally Bakersfield - all provided gardening experiences.

I'm not sure what I was thinking when we moved here to Kitale. I knew that our house had a big yard and there was an area for a 'shamba' (garden) on one side of the house. I also knew we'd be busy, and that it takes a lot of work to do a good job of raising vegetable. But, oh for the taste of fresh tomatoes from the garden again.

Enter our day man, Daniel, a farmer by trade. Daniel is supposed to take care of the yard, so having him set up a garden for me fit his experience and responsibilities.

The results so far are promising (if not downright intimidating). Daniel has increased the size of the shamba three-fold by converting attractive, but non-edible lawn into farm land. He set up bedding areas and then proceeded to plant ALL the seeds in the seed packets we purchased. In the accompanying pictures you see the garden as it is today.

The top picture is of our sukumawiki bed, into which Daniel has just transplanted young sukumawiki plants. Sukuma is either the Swahili name for kale, or a close cousin of it. The second picture is our potato patch. We're growing common reds. The third picture is one (one!) of our tomato fields. Each stake you see represents one tomato plant. The other field is larger. "What will you do with all the tomatoes," you ask. We reply, "We don't know!"

The final picture is of our chicken. We didn't plant chicken seeds, or find him on the road. We've begun working with another of our Mt. Elgon staff members to acquire a good milk cow (see a couple of posts down for details). His wife came to our campus today to attend a seminar for pastors' wives and brought us a box of vegetables and a live chicken.

So, if you're in the neighborhood, just stop by Bowes' Farms and we'll fix you up with whatever we're harvesting. But you'd better act fast if chicken is on your shopping list, because this kuku is soon for the soup pot!

Dealing with Pests

2009-09-12T00:58:00.000-07:00

We have a lot of pests outside our house. We have bats and birds in the trees surrounding our property (lost our first carrot crop to birds). We have rats that have become more intrusive this past month (they got our worker's avocados which he'd stored in a bag that he hung from a rafter in the tool shed). And, we have ants - big, black African ants that are quite aggressive in building their nests in the lawn, the driveway, and at the foundation of our house.

We asked our day askari and gardener, Daniel (on the left), to do something about the ants (and the rats and the bats). He let us know that he'd need to have some equipment to do the job since he'd be handling some poison that is apparently fairly powerful stuff. He gave me a list and I acquired it. This is a shot of him suited up to do battle with the ants. The sprayer can also be used to apply fertilizer to the crops, so it'll do double duty.

We have a Cow in Africa...

2009-08-22T02:14:00.001-07:00

One of the things that has been on my heart for some time is the loss that our Mt. Elgon Training Center staff endured due to the fighting on Mt. Elgon in 2007 and 2008. Chrispine Juma, Justus Kirui, Jonathan Aramis and Charles Chebok lost their homes, their crops and their animals. Some generous people have been helping them re-acquire land and homes. Earlier this year I had an idea about how we might help them with the loss of livestock.

I began developing the idea during my visit to Kenya in April, and after some discussion with Kathy and our cultural guide, Stephen Mairori, this is what I came up with: don't just give a cow, buy one and share ownership of it with the staff, gradually letting them earn our portion of the cow through profit sharing on the income from the cow.

We began with Chrispine Juma earlier this month. Kathy and I put up around $400 to purchase a good cow (good endurance for life on the mountain, good producer of milk). We made sure Bondet Kea, the Deputy Principal of the METC, was involved as he has good experience with cows. A bonus was that the cow we bought is pregnant and will deliver a calf later this month. We got the cow examined by a vet and given all the innoculations she needs for healthy living.

Chrispine then arranged to have the cow transported to Kopsiro, where she is temporarily residing and grazing while he finishes constructin of a shed for her on his proerty. He has planted Napier grass on a portion of his land to provide good food for the cow. On a recent trip to Mt. Elgon we visited "our" cow at the training center.

Chrispine has promised to give 10% of the profits from milk sales to Mt. Elgon Training Center, and Kathy and I will have our share of the profits from the cow and her offspring go to the METC as well. As we increase our herd(s), this should provide a reliable income stream for both the staff and the training center.

Next month we'll add another cow to our "herd" by working with Justus Kirui to accomplish the same objectives. We hope that by the end of the year we'll have five cows in place, hopefully with a few offspring.

We Went Grocery Shopping At Church Today

2009-07-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

Last night Dorcus Chemingich telephoned us to let us know that there would be a special combined Thanksgiving service at St. Lukes Anglican Church this morning. So we altered our plans and arrived on time. Once in the service (which was about 90% in Swahili), we learned that it was a Thanksgiving service for the bean harvest which has just been completed. At the offering near the end of the service many of us gave cash, but there were quite a few people who brought the first fruits of their harvest. We saw beans, maize, eggs, potatoes, greens, a live chicken, a live goat and a live sheep. The animals aren't in this picture - they were kept outside.

Then it got interesting. One gentleman whom we've met before took over as a combination M.C. and auctioneer, and began taking bids on the produce from the congregation. Our friend and boss Emmanuel Chemingich explained that the church was converting the produce into cash which would be credited as donations for the people who contributed the produce. The MC/Auctioneer was really good and kept things moving along. In the picture he is moving a bag of potatoes. It was a lot of fun to watch, and eventually we got drawn in.

So, we got some quality produce at church today - in the picture you can see that we got some potatoes, some avocados, some bananas and some beans. We also got a small bag of eggs. It was quite an experience and once again took us back to what Thanksgiving services might have looked like one hundred years ago in small towns all across America.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to cook the beans!

The Terminex Guy Came Yesterday

2009-07-23T01:18:00.000-07:00

Well, David doesn't work for Terminex, but he is a pest eradication specialist. He didn't arrive in a truck with a picture of a Black Mamba being crushed on it, he walked up to the gate with his gear in a small canvas bag. He comes three times a year to spray for mosquitoes, and, since he works for many others in the Milimani Estate, we don't see that many mosquitos.

While he was spraying outside for mosquitos (he also sprayed inside - which necessitated a one-hour evacuation to our front porch), he noticed that we were beginning to have an ant problem (have I mentioned how BIG African black ants are?). The ants were beginning to push up mounds in our lawn and next to the house. We'd noticed that we were seeing more of them in the kitchen. Since he was on the topic of pests we asked about the bees that were apparently creating a hive in the eaves of our house. No problem, he said, he could take care of it.

I drove him downtown to get the poisons he needed for the ants and the bees. That done, we let him get on with it. He dug into the ants' nests and then sprayed them - this picture is of him working on an ant nest. To get the bees he had to use a homemade ladder to get high enough to spray them. To remove the honey combs, he had to climb up on the roof and work from there (I wish I had a photo!). We were hoping for some wild honey, but apparently we got to the hive before they got into production. He said that he did one home and got 2 liters of honey...that must have been a really BIG hive!

He gives good service - he came back this morning to make sure he got the ants, and he'll be back next week to check on the effectiveness of the mosquito control.

Total cost? About $50.00, of which half was for the chemicals.

At Home in Kitale

2009-07-19T01:52:00.000-07:00

So, this is not the once per week schedule I thought I'd maintain on this Blog... Life gets complicated in a transition like the one we've been going through. Mostly our experiences have been very good, especially the time we got to spend with family and friends as we traveled from Bakersfield to Seattle. This is a shot I took of Kathy with her brother Scott and sister Mary Ann at a lunch we shared just before we left the Bay Area

We've just published our July Newsletter (if you don't get it and want it, email us and we'll be glad to sign you up) which shares a bit about our experiences settling into our new home in Kitale. It was a real process. We went shopping for the big household items in Nairobi, knowing that we'd have a better selection and possibly better pricing. The store we brought from agreed to deliver the goods to our home for next to nothing, less than $15.00. They could do it because they make weekly shipments to their store in Eldoret (about an hour's drive from Kitale) and then could send the goods on from there. We thought we'd get the goods within five days, but it took about a week and a half. But, eventually I got a call from the store that the goods were on their way.

Given that our access driveway is narrow and has a ninety degree turn halfway to our gate I was wondering about the delivery, but the truck that came was small enough to navigate the turns. Soon the two men were off loading the cooker (stove), the washer and drier and the refrigerator. Here is a shot of them unboxing the refrigerator. Once it was in place we had to let it sit for 24 hours to allow the mercury in the system to cool and stabilize (don't ask for further explanation - it's what we were told). But the end product is that we are keeping and preparing food, though that is a subject for another time.

One last thought - at the end of the afternoon where we had all the help unpacking from our Kenyan staff wives, we finally got to sit down at our dinning table, in our dining room in our home in Kitale and have our first meal together. One of the ladies snapped a shot of Kathy and I. If it looks like the day has been a little long...it had!

POD People Part 2

2009-06-06T10:06:00.000-07:00

Our last two weeks in Bakersfield were one of those intense times where a year of living gets compressed into a few days. It began with a round of farewell parties, mostly hosted by our good friends, Charlie and Judi McCan. In the photo at the right our accountibility group, the Finishers, along with good friends Randy & Norma Hamm, are having a last evening together, Interspersed with the parties was the privilege of being commissioned for our new work in Kenya by our home church in all three services.

Later in the final week our focus turned to packing the POD. On Thursday evening 11 friends braved the heat of the afternoon to help us finish wrapping furniture and packing the POD. Amazingly, in three hours over 90% of the packing was completed. The tune from the old Beatles tune "I get by with a little help from my friends" kept floating through my mind. Two of the eleven, Randy Hamm and Paula Strome are wrapping up something with bubble wrap. In the background you can see a piece of furniture that has been wrapped in green wrapping film for its two-year time in storage. I have a video of several of the men wrapping the sofa - quite an intricate dance!

On Saturday the driver came with his flatbed and used "Podzilla" to lift the POD and position it on the truck. Again, about fifteen minutes after he arrived he had pulled out of the driveway and disappeared down around the corner. We spent the rest of the day cleaning the house and enjoyed a last evening with our friends the Coopers at whose whom we stayed from Thursday through Sunday. On Monday morning, one day later than planned we drove north from Bakersfield to Berkeley, carrying with us our bags for our trip to Kenya and 21 years of great memories of life in Bakersfield. The video shows the departure of the POD on its way to Seattle.

POD People

2009-05-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

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.

A Harambee on Mt. Elgon

2009-04-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

Today was Sunday in Kenya, and for a Mzungu (White) visitor that usually means that you will be preaching at some church. I was happy to learn that I'd been assigned to go to a church back on Mt. Elgon.

Pastor Stephen Mairori, our friend and ICM Country Director picked me at 9:30 and we drove up to a point on Mt. Elgon that is the highest up I’ve gone to-date. We drove up and through Kapsakwony, picking up Pastor Harry Bowen at the AIC house. Pastor Harry graduated from our BA program yesterday. In addition to pastoring his congregation, he is the supervisor over 21 other African Inland Churches in the Kapsakwony area.

A few kilometers out of Kapsakwony on the Kopsiro road we turned right and headed up the mountain. We stopped first at the shell of the church that they are building. This is actually the second oldest AIC congregation on Mt. Elgon, but the Government forced them to relocate (they were in the forest). So they bought a plot of ground a little further down the mountain and are constructing a new building. What we were going to was a Harambee (a fund raiser) for its completion.

The Harambee was held at a school that was so close to the forest – we could have walked a few hundred yards east, north or west and been in the forest. The event went from about 11pm to 2:30 pm. It was interesting and I think that the message I preached was helpful. Pastor Harry was my interpreter, and I gave him a good workout. The giving was good - about 92,000 Kenya Shilings were raised (about $1,100). We had a light meal afterwards - my piece of chicken put up a struggle, but I prevailed.

Hunger and Hope on Mt Elgon

2009-04-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

I got to Kitale on Wednesday evening. The next morning I joined a short-term mission team from Mtn View Community Church, Clovis CA on an expedition to the Mt. Elgon Training Center at Kopsiro on Mt. Elgon. It was great to be back and to see the once-devestated hillsides once again planted with crops and new homes scattered across the land. But the area is far from recovered from the trauma of the land dispute violence of 2007-2008 - there are a lot of traumatized indivduals, and hunger is a present reality for many. We were told that four individuals of that community had starved to death the preceding week.

The good news is that the church is alive and well in Kopsiro. At a leadership training conference the team put on there were over 100 pastors in attendance. Since they all had to walk to the center for it, this implies that there are nearly 100 churches active within a 10 kilometer radius of Kopsiro.

On Friday we did a distribution of sheep for widows, cows for pastors and maize (corn) for all. The team had paid for 2,000 lbs of maize, but even that wasn't enough to give something to everyone. At times it seemed tense as people waited for food, but in the end there was an orderly distribution. Pray for this area - for God to sustain these Sabaot people until they can harvest the crop that has just recently sprouted.

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane

2009-04-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in the departure lounge at LAX waiting for boarding to start. It always takes a ton of energy to reach this point, but right now I'm feeling good. When things go right, we feel good. Right now there is a family sitting behind me who had a snafu with their flight arrangements and are on stand-by. The flight is overbooked and they are calling for volunteers to give up their seats. Some people who are checked in are going to be bumped off. They don't feel so good. Thank you, Father, for watching over me, and over all who are traveling today!

Geezers Unite!

2009-04-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

What is it about technology? There are new and improved items hitting the shelves all the time - it seems that the pace of innovation has been picking up during the past thirty years. Sometimes I catch on fairly quickly (I got my first personal computer in 1983), but sometimes technology and I don't get along. For example, I really dislike talking on the telephone. I've gotten better at phoning, but I like to see the person's face when I'm talking to them - the non-verbal expressions communicate so much. But, hooray for other technology! I've just installed webcams on our laptops so we can use the video feature of Skype when we're separated. Our webcams also let us take video - a scary thought.

OK - webcams have been available for years - I admit that I'm not an early adopter of technology. But eventually I come around to new things that prove their worth. Next week we'll get to test out how these will work for us from Kenya. I'll be able to talk with Kathy, and with our kids - that is if they join their geezer father in getting a webcam on their computer!

I Drove Around the World

2009-04-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

Following the death of Kathy's father, Mam, in 2001 we inherited his car, a 1996 Buick Regal. Her dad was an expert in choosing cars that would last long and go far. I'm not sure that when he purchased it he had any awareness of how far it would eventually go.

I drove around the world in that car over the next four years. Not in the sense of actually circumnavigating the globe, but in terms of miles driven. The car came at a good time - I had just begun my MA studies in New Testament at MB Biblical Seminary in Fresno. A round trip to school put over 200 miles on the odometer, and I had to drive up about twice a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. By the time I was awarded my degree in 2004, I had added over 24,000 miles onto the odometer.

It would be a big task to drive around the world in one go, but taken in smaller increments I did the distance. It's a good reminder that big jobs can be broken down into manageable bites - something that Kathy and I are practicing once more as we prepare to move to Kenya.

"All good things come to and end." That's not always true, but it is in the case of the Buick. We decided to donate it so that ICM would get some residual value out of it. Yesterday the Cars 4 Causes representative came and collected it. Good-bye car - may someone else get the service from you that we have.

Procrastination

2009-04-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

I'm a procrastinator. Despite my best intentions in school, I'd always be preparing the book report or studying for the text on the night before. One of my worst areas for procrastination has been the fix-up projects around the house. Usually Kathy has to get in her Wakasugi-woman power ring combat mode to move me into beginning a fix-up or remodeling project. Once I'm moving, though I get the job done - with any tool at hand.

Shortly after we moved into our home in Bakersfield we noticed that there was a crack in the ceiling and wall joins in our bedroom. "Someday," I'd say to myself, "I'll have to do something about that."

Fast forward twenty plus years. Someday has arrived - we're moving out in a few months and the room needs painting (obviously I haven't painted it in twenty years plus either!). Armed with my left index finger and a $3.00 tub of E-Z Patch and the motivation to get the job done, hey presto change-o, the job is complete. Well, mostly - I still have to paint it.

Perspectives

2009-03-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a project to create a new version of the Perspectives Online course. The course name is Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. It was initially developed over thirty years ago by Dr. Ralph Winter (US Center for World Mission) to provide additional mission training to students who attended the 1974 Urbana Conference.

The course has been through a number of revisions. I first took it in 1997 when I first joined the staff of International Christian Ministries. A little later my boss, Dr. Phil Walker, got permission to do an online version of it. Once he had it up and running he passed it to me to coordinate.

I think that it is fair to say that few other courses I've taken have had the impact on my life that this one has. As an instructor in a missionary training program (Agape International Training) I encountered the Perspectives Reader before I became aware of the course. We began using articles in our training program in the early 1980’s. I really enjoyed the breadth of the reader – there was more good information in it than we could use in our program. About the time we joined the staff of International Christian Ministries, Kathy and I took the course together. I took the course coordinators training at about the same time and began coordinating courses, as well as teaching classes in the Biblical and Cultural components in the Bakersfield area. I also got involved in helping to instruct online students through this course.

Through our mission agency we became aware of an unreached people group in western Kenya, the Sabaot, and helped to have the JESUS Film translated into the Sabaot language. For the past decade we have been working in a partnership with several Sabaot Christian leaders, as well as several American churches who have formally or informally adopted the Sabaot to devise and carry out strategies to help this people come to know Christ. Though I’m taking a break from being a Perspectives instructor and coordinator to move to Kenya to work more closely with our Africa Theological Seminary and the Sabaot tribe, I’ll keep my connection to Perspectives up to date as we use the reader as the foundation of our two mission courses there. I know that we would not have gotten involved in these activities if we had not first had our eyes opened through our involvement in the Perspectives Course.

Mission Conference 2009

2009-03-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

Last night we concluded this year's mission conference with a dinner held in our church activity center (Laurelglen Bible Church). This year's conference was a different experience for us because we're one of three couples and one man who are going out in international service this year.

It's comforting to know that we have our church behind us as we prepare to move to Kenya. One of the special moments of the evening came with the people who were sitting with us at our tables gathered around us to pray over us.

I had an opportunity to join some other "experienced" missionaries in giving some advice to those at the dinner who are going out long-term for the first time. While the other missionary speakers focused on good advice for new missionaries, I focused on advice for myself - things that I want to do better this time around than during our first term of service in Germany and England. I want to make more room in my life this time for relationships and relationship-building activities. The cultures of Kenya are relationship-oriented ones. Nothing significant gets accomplished unless the relationship is in place. Practically speaking, this means being prepared to invest time in conversation with others - not necessarily about work - and drinking a lot of tea.

First Day

2009-03-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

Let's call this "The Geezer enters the 21st Century!" As Kathy and I continue on our trajectory towards a two-year period of service with ICM in Kenya, we're trying to gear up to communicate effectively with our family, friends and supporters. Paper mail is so last century and communicating over the internet with Skype, though promising, would limit the list of those with whom we want to keep in contact.
So...we're learning the arts of iContact for newsletters and blogging for more informal communication. Now I have to figure out to get this thing posted!