And just like that, another month on the Race is completed. During the month of August, my team partnered with the all-guys team and served alongside Grace of God Children’s Project in Kaptagat, Kenya. Grace of God is a ministry that includes a church, school, and orphanage.
We lived with our hosts, the Cheromeis and their three children, as well as Grace Family, the kids who are orphaned or at-risk.
Grace is situated in the countryside with lots of land for a garden, pasture for cows, and a field for the kids to play. There is also a big playground with swings, slides, etc.
We arrived at Grace the same week that our hosts were returning from furlough in the States. In addition, a team from Virginia arrived to help with the annual pastors’ conference.
We jumped right into ministry by helping with the conference. Pastors and church leaders came from all over Kenya to attend four days of fellowship and teachings based on Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church. Our team attended the teachings and nightly services and fellowshipped with the pastors during meals and chai breaks. On the last day of the conference, we went out into the community and evangelized. Afterward, the pastors graduated from the conference, and we got to help read names and hand out diplomas!
In addition to the pastors’ conference, we led a special 2-day kids’ program. Over 100 kids from the community attended, and we put on skits, songs, and games.
On Sunday mornings at Grace, our team either attended church or played with the children outside. One Sunday we attended church in a neighboring community, where they asked us to sing a song for the congregation and then fellowship with the youth and lead the kids’ church. We ate lunch at a little restaurant and enjoyed the samosas, chapati, mandazi, and (some of us) goat meat. This is typical fare for East Africa, along with ugali or rice and cabbage or greens.
The team from Virginia left, but soon a team from Florida came. We traveled with them to visit the Pokot people, an unreached tribe in West Pokot County. We traveled 10 hours to reach the tribe from Kaptagat; the last 70 km into the bush took 4 hours, as we bumped along through dried up riverbeds.
It was an awesome experience. Pastor Samson and his wife have a heart for the unreached. This is the third group of unreached people that they have lived with and ministered to. They started a church and are sharing God’s word through telling stories from the Bible chronologically. They are currently in the book of First Samuel and have shared over forty stories, which the Pokot people have memorized and can retell. Pastor Samson is also trying to start a school, and representatives from Compassion International were there at the same time as us to begin the proceeding for school sponsorship. The Pokot people welcomed us to their village with singing and dancing. We camped in the desert under the stars, and the hills surrounding us took my breath away. The view reminded me of the Dakota badlands.
We stayed in Pokot for two nights. Each night we had a service with worship and preaching. During the day we split up the men, women, and children for different sessions. We had a health presentation and handed out toothbrushes. The women attended a teaching about periods and were given reusable cloth pads. We led the children in worship and a skit, and then played soccer with them and made balloon animals. When we left, they saw us off with a ceremony and presented us with beaded headbands. It was a whirlwind trip that I’ll never forget.
Soon after we got back to Grace, we headed out to visit more villages; this time we went without the Florida team, who left for home. This trip was four days of visiting rural villages within a few hours of Kaptagat. We spent three nights tenting or sleeping in someone’s home or on a classroom floor. We encouraged local churches, evangelized in the community, preached, shared testimonies, and fellowshipped with believers. We swung by Lake Bogoria to see the hot springs and flocks of pink flamingos. It was a jam-packed but fruitful few days.
Something else we got to do was visit a school and speak to the student athletes. Kenya is known for its fast runners, and this area of Kenya in particular has lots of schools and programs for training runners. Our team shared testimonies and encouraged the students to follow their dream while keeping God first. The students and coaches loved having us, and we loved it too.
Our team enjoyed the time we got to spend at Grace with the kids and employees. When we were there, we helped cut and rake weeds in the field. We helped the kids with chores (some even milked the cow), played on the playground, and had fun with games of Uno, hide-and-seek, and pretend.
On our off days we walked to a nearby waterfall, went into town for coffee and explored thrift markets.
After spending three months in Africa, I haven’t been feeling great physically. I went to the doctor before leaving Kaptagat to get tested for malaria and typhoid. The results came back negative, and the doctor suspected a bacterial infection. I’m still not 100%, but I’m doing okay after a few days of taking antibiotics and probiotics. Mostly I just feel fatigued. Eight months of travel (not to mention full-time ministry) will do that to you.
My word for the month is endurance. I’ve needed it a lot lately. I pray that God will give me the endurance I need to finish this Race, because I know I can’t do it by my own strength. He has shown me this month that I can do difficult things when I rely on him, even if I have to take it one minute at a time. He has also given me so many blessings along the way, and some of the blessings this month were our amazing host family and the teams who joined us in ministry.
We are spending a couple days in Nairobi and leave for Ethiopia on Friday. Lots of changes are coming up soon, and time seems to pass exponentially faster. Thank you for your continued partnership and prayers.
