Philip's Kenya Blog - Thursday

First session this morning was the medical doctor again. Good stuff, and a nice humorous light touch, but quite hard going at just under two hours without a break. Then I taught a Bible overview and we managed to get from Genesis to Kings by lunch. Lunch was . . . heavy. Their staple food is called (I think) Ugali, or something like that. It’s a slab of maize stodge - I imagine you’d get something similar by mixing cornflour with a little boiling water. Hard going, but the Kenyans love it. After lunch we rushed through Kings to Malachi, then I preached from Mark 10 and the little children and the rich young man: “Those who come to Jesus with nothing go away with everything” and “those who come to Jesus with everything go away with nothing.” Followed, very appropriately, with singing ‘Rock of Ages.’ 3pm exhausted. After that we visited someone Jonathan knows who works in a large primary school. 800 pupils of whom about 130 are boarders. Of course, you don’t just pop in for a cup of tea. You meet the headmistress and the chaplain and have a long talk; you see all round the school and shake hands with many of the staff; you see the dormitories; etc. etc. Then we sat down with ‘Mama Betty’ and were given sausages, boiled eggs, bananas and chai. Then a round of goodbyes before leaving. All takes nearly two hours, but great to be immersed in Kenyan culture. Lovely to finish with another cooling swim just after dark as the huge fruit bats were emerging.

Saw my first interesting birds today. Sweet little parrot or lorikeet or similar, all green and orange and red. A pretty pale blue finch. Something else I’ve never seen before, red white and black. (I couldn’t really get out the binoculars in the middle of the doctor’s talk; so frustrating). And I’ve left my East African bird book at home. I’ll describe it to Zak when I get back and he’ll know.

Fish for supper, which was a lovely change. And, again, eaten just before bed!

Last day tomorrow, finishing at lunch. They’d like to do something on how you get from understanding a passage to crafting a sermon. I’ve got some material for precisely that, but it really needs another whole week! I’ve had fewer sessions than I was expecting, so haven’t really touched on that yet. Please pray that we can do something really useful that will be of benefit in the months to come. So looking forward to seeing everyone again. Unfortunately I’ll get home on Sunday almost exactly at the time when the last person leaves and locks up church!

Good night and God bless you.

Philip