Friday afternoon Team Wellspring headed out to different villages to spend the weekend; each group had a great translator from the church and our translator’s name was Israel. Dan and Justin went about 35 kilometers away, B. Cox and Angela went roughly 40 kilometers and Jenny and I went on a trek about 105 kilometers into the bush. It was a doozy of a bus ride… here are some highlights:
There was a man sitting next to Jenny from the Massi tribe, he was armed with a sword and “club�.
I was whacked in the face by either a branch or the delicate wing of a bat through the bus window.
A ride that should have taken 3 and a half hours took 7.
We arrived in Mkulula village at approximately 9pm; we were welcomed into the home of one of the elders of the church we were going to be working with for the weekend and his wife. We enjoyed a dinner of spaghetti and tea, and then ventured out to wash ourselves after a persistent offer to do so. It was an inviting rectangular mud hut sprinkled with cockroaches and armed with a bucket of warm water. I can’t wait to be eighty years old and say to my grandchildren, “When I was your age…â€�! 🙂 Once we were as clean as one can get in the bush we headed inside to go to bed. They had placed a foam mattress on a bed frame that was several inches too small for it; no matter how hard we tried both Jenny and I ended up in the middle of the bed like two marbles in a vortex! We tried re-adjusting the mattress on the frame… bad idea! *pow* *pop*! This is the conversation that followed…
Brittany: “Jenny… we have to get off of the bed very very slowly.�
Jenny: “What?…Oh gosh! Oh gosh!â€�
Isreal (from the other room): “Is everything okay in there?�
Brittany: “Ummmm, I think we broke the bed.�
Needless to say we ended up sleeping on the floor; it panned out to be a memorable night to begin a weekend I will never forget!
The next morning we went out to do some door-to-door evangelism; we ended up talking to one family the whole time. Different people from the village overheard the conversation or heard there were “mzungus� so they joined in with different questions. There was an old woman there washing her clothes when we first arrived, I found out her name was BiBi (meaning “grandma� in Swahili). I spent most of the morning just sitting with her and communicating as best I could with my little knowledge of Swahili. It was sweet to just sit with BiBi (shout out to my Gma and Mimi, I love you both very much and miss you a lot!!) she’s a very sweet woman, and I will continue to have her in my prayers.
Later on that evening Jenny and I were resting before some evening ministry, when I heard Israel in the other room talking with some people in Swahili. I hopped up and went to see what was going on – turns out I had wandered into a Bible study. There were about five members from the church there (which I later found out is the entire congregation) and they were talking to two young men from the village, answering their questions and witnessing to them. I sat down and Israel began to translate as best he could what was going on with them; they ended up asking me some questions about my faith and background. It was great to be able to talk with them and work through some of their hard questions; the Spirit was at work! One of the young men, Barraca, expressed a desire to pray and accept Jesus Christ as his Savior! Jenny and I were able to pray with him and for him as his life was changed forever. It was a sweet and divine moment and I am happy to know that there is a church in Mkulula where he can go to continue to grow.
It was a wonderful weekend, and like I said before, I will never forget it! This place is so beautiful; it was great to see more of God’s great creation.
We leave on Thursday for Nairobi where we will get together with the whole squad to debrief our time in Africa and prepare for Asia!
